The collection of historical photographs and lithographs of New York City consists of about 3,000 items dated from the 1850s until the 1980s. The collection is made up of color photographic prints, color negatives, black-and-white photographic prints, black-and-white negatives, copy prints, studio and cabinet cards, stereo cards, cyanotypes, albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, lantern slides, glass negatives, and Polaroid prints, lithographs, woodcuts, tear sheets, and engravings. The collection also includes official images, newspaper images, and candid images. Also included are images from the photo morgue of the New York Herald-Tribune newspaper, which ceased publication in 1966. Other images were purchased as copies from New-York Historical Society, Museum of the City of New York, WNYC-FM Radio, the Bettman Archive, and from collectors, private vendors, and other institutions. Photos by noted photographers are included.

Also, minutes kept by Richard Michell Upjohn for the American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter, Committee for Library and Publications, 1868-1877, and Executive Committee, 1867-1889; sketchbooks, 1850s-1870s; photographs of Upjohn buildings and portraits of Richard Upjohn; correspondence, wills, memorial tributes, manuscripts, printed material, and miscellaneous personal and business documents; and several drawings by other architects including Alexander Jackson Davis, Hobart Brown Upjohn, and Calvert Vaux

This collection includes original and reprographic architectural drawings, black and white photographic prints, typescript specifications, and other papers relating to the architectural practice of Thomas W. Lamb, as well as his colleague and successor, John J. McNamara.

The collection consists of personal, professional, and project-related papers. The project and professional papers are made up of contracts, specifications, proposals, published speeches, reports, clippings, trade catalogs, and engineering drawings and documents. Among the projects documented in the collection are T. Kennard Thomson's Niagara River Water Power project, Manhattan Extension project, New York City Belt Line Railroad and Elevated Highways project, and Fifth Avenue Traffic Puzzle project. Additional engineering projects represented in the collection include those primarily related to bridge and elevated railroad projects. The personal papers include photographs, financial records, obituaries, clippings, and collected ephemera of Thomson and his extended family members. The personal papers also include menus, programs, and bulletins from various clubs and societies Thomson was associated with, including the Canadian Club of New York and the University of Toronto Engineering Society (founded by Thomson while at University).

Collection consists of 51 reprographic architectural working drawings for the TWA Terminal A at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, N.Y., drawn between 1958 and 1961. All sheets are diazo print on paper, with a very few bearing graphite and/or colored pencil annotations. Earlier drawings note Eero Saarinen as the architect of record; later drawings note Eero Saarinen and Associates. Architectural working drawings are stored in numerical order, sheets 2 through 121, with some sheets lacking.

The typescript is the only surviving evidence of a fictitious journal called The Diary of Mary, a Little Farmer's Wife, written by Walter V. Davidson, an important client of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It is part of a larger collaboration with Wright in which Davidson proposed a nation-wide network of small farms and marketplaces as a solution to the environmental and economic crises of the Great Depression. Typescript in a binder titled "Little Farms and Davidson Markets Prospectus and Manual."

Photomontage entitled "Urban images/New York City/An addition." Awarded Honorable Mention at the The Annual Birch Burdette Long Memorial Competition of Architectural Drawings sponsored by the Architectural League of New York.