Search

This collection is made up of architectural drawings, correspondence, specifications, contracts, invoices, minutes, financial statements, patents, advertisements, photographs, photograph album, test results and reports, memoranda, tile samples, factory order cards, and other materials pertaining to The Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company's projects. The dates of the materials span 1866-1985, with bulk dates 1890-1942. The architectural records include structural, decorative, and acoustical sample products and fragments. Also included are materials added to the files by George Collins (1917-1993), Professor of Art History at Columbia University. Prof. Collins secured the donation of this archive in 1963, and remained its custodian until it was transferred to the Drawings and Archives Collection at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library in 1988. The records document Prof. Collins' research efforts, as well as the Company's projects in forty states (including District of Columbia), four Canadian provinces, and eleven other foreign countries.

The Morningside Area Alliance is an organization working for community improvement on behalf of its member institutions in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in New York City. The organization was founded as Morningside Heights Inc. in 1947 through joint action of fourteen Morningside Institutions--Columbia University, St. Luke's Hospital, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Teacher's College, Barnard College, Corpus Christi Church, Home for Old Men and Aged Couples, International House, Jewish Theological Seminary, Juilliard School of Music, St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's School, The Riverside Church, Union Theological Seminary, and the Women's Hospital of St. Luke's Center--with the expressed purpose of "[promoting] the improvement of Morningside Heights as an attractive, residential, educational, and cultural area." The collection includes much, if not all, of the material that was created by the organization as part of its daily business from 1947 to 1992, when the materials were accessioned into University Archives at Columbia University. This includes records of the Board of Directors and the various Committees within the Alliance; assorted publications, reports, pamphlets, and theses both acquired and created by the organization; files of the different offices within the organization; maps, plans, and photographs used and created by the Alliance for its work; and the collected materials and files created for the organization's projects in different subject areas--specifically buildings, community services and programs, public safety, schools, and the Morningside General Neighborhood Renewal Plan. The collection also includes a large quantity of material rearranged into subject files on different areas of concern within the organization.