Treasure Trove of Ancient Documents To Be Moved From NY County Clerk's Office

TRIBECA, NY — A storage facility on the seventh and eighth floors of 31 Chambers St., the Surrogate’s Courthouse, will soon be emptied of thousands of boxes of documents, according to Joseph Van Nostrand, an archivist for the Manhattan county clerk's "Division of Old Records."

"We only have a staff of one — myself," he tells Patch. "People have been retiring and not being replaced."

Van Nostrand has seen employees come and go since he started working at the archive of court documents in 1980. That's not quite as long as many of the documents themselves have been there — some have been stored at 31 Chambers since the early 1900s. And now many of them are scheduled to be moved, in order for them to be better preserved and made more accessible. They're going to archives that have temperature control, humidity control and the technology to digitize them — "things we could never do," Van Nostrand humbly says.

The archive includes court documents dating back to 1674. Some mention legendary figures like Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, from when they were working as lawyers in the city. Another highlight is the oldest document in the archive — a record of the meeting of the Mayor's Court from 1674 — which isn't going anywhere, Van Nostrand says.

According to a New York Times article on Thursday, more than 1,000 boxes of records, close to 900 volumes that are not in boxes and about 500 rolls of microfilm are scheduled to be moved.

But the splashy New York Times piece, Van Nostrand says, only "alluded" to the fact that the "vast majority" of the documents are simply being moved downstairs — to the first floor and basement of 31 Chambers St., the official home of the municipal city records.

A small percentage of documents, which have to do with parts of New York State other than New York City, are being sent to storage in Albany, Van Nostrand says. These documents are mostly from before 1845, when, he explains, people from all over the state had to come to Manhattan to file court papers.

Since the New York Times piece came out this morning, Van Nostrand says, "people got a little nervous." He received multiple calls from historians concerned that they'd soon have to trek up to Albany for their research.

He has a message for them, though: "Everybody who called me, I can honestly tell you the truth. None of your records are leaving."

And anyone in the neighborhood, whether you're a historian or not, can still come check out the archives.

"As long as we have them," Van Nostrand says, "they're open to the public."

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