Search

This collection is photograph archive of the works of architectural photographer George Cserna. Images include interior and exterior shots of prominent New York buildings primarily during the 1960s. The collection has been arranged alphabetically by the client or architect of the building. Some of George Cserna's most notable work in this collection includes photographs of Ulrich Franzen's Agronomy Building, Emerson Hall, and Goddard Library at Cornell University; Haines, Lundberg, and Waehler's U.S. Trust Building and Schering-Plough Headquarters; Victor Lundy's I. Miller Store and IBM Headquarters; and I. M. Pei's John Hancock Tower, Mount Royal Bank and Ville Marie Complex, and MIT Chemistry Building. The collection also contains photographs of exhibitions and openings at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1960s and 1970s, such as The Responsive Eye and Toward a Rational Automobile. Finally, the collection has photographic portraits of notable persons including John dos Passos, W.H. Auden, and William Faulkner.

The materials that comprise the Vertical File have been collected and added to from a variety of sources by former Avery Librarians. The vertical file contains clippings, pamphlets, reprints, and other miscellaneous materials relating to persons, places, organizations, and topical subjects relating to architecture, housing, and city planning. The purpose of the vertical file was to arrange and store small items, memorabilia, and ephemeral material on a variety of topics to facilitate access by researchers. For the most part, the vertical file contains printed items only. Manuscript material and other unique items were, generally, not placed in the vertical file. In some cases, manuscript material has been removed from the Vertical File and placed in its corresponding collection.

This collection includes architectural drawings, holograph and typescript papers, business and financial records, black and white photographs, lantern slides, diaries, scrapbooks, and printed papers relating to the professional work and interests of Francis Henry Lenygon and Jeannette Becker Lenygon.