The New York City Opera Archives at Columbia University
What I have learned…
A New York City Opera archive exists.
How do I know?
I made some enquires.
What do I know?
The NYCO archives comprises records of recent productions which are not digitized (i.e. not drowned), boxes that were "saved" when Sandy flooded NYCO's offices at Broad Street in lower Manhattan (paper and digitized files), and boxes that were underwater, soaked with oil, and salvaged—what could be salvaged actually—by first being freeze-dried, and then scanned digitally. Of course, since there was no catalogue of the original material, there is no way to tell what has been lost.
This material was sent to the Columbia University library where it sits, uncatalogued, with no finding aid.
Who paid for all this?
Taxpayer money from FEMA.
If you want to see the NYCO archives, Columbia University is going to have to upload the data into its system and create a finding aid. So far, however, that has not happened.
This writer encourages interested parties to contact the Columbia University library for more information.
