This collection primarily contains architectural drawings, correspondence, business records, and a small number of photographs related to the projects of Emery Roth & Sons and its subsidiary entities. A large portion of the entities are represented only in the Office Records series and are identified as such. Some projects on which Emery Roth & Sons acted as architect of record are not represented in this collection, most notably the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Paul Nelson was an American architect educated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and practicing in France and the United States. This collection contains materials related to Nelson's personal, professional, and academic lives, the bulk originating during his residency in the France, beginning in the 1920s.