The La Guardia and Wagner Archives was established in 1982 at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, Queens, New York, to collect, preserve, and make available primary materials documenting the social and political history of New York City, with an emphasis on the mayoralty and the borough of Queens.

[1] The archives serves a broad array of researchers, journalists, students, scholars, exhibit planners, and policy makers.

David N. Dinkins was the first African-American mayor of New York City, he was elected in a time of racial tension, high crime rates and economic uncertainty, serving from 1990 to 1993.

The remaining record Series within the Dinkins Mayoral Collection were not microfilmed and are available only at the NYC Municipal Archives in their original print form.

Included in the collection are materials donated by contemporaries and associates of the mayor, facilitating research on such issues as charter revision and economic development.

The Archives also recently completed a booklet of photographs and oral histories of former Mayor Koch, with every U.S. president from Reagan through Obama.

As mayor during the turbulent period from 1934 to 1945, Fiorello H. La Guardia initiated major reforms during the Great Depression and World War II.

In 1982, the mayor's widow, the late Marie La Guardia, donated her husband's personal papers to LaGuardia Community College.

These documents, photographs, and personal artifacts chronicle Mayor La Guardia's life and times, providing an invaluable record of New York City history.

It also has original sketches, scrapbooks, and records of his tenure as director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration after World War II.

Selected documents are available online on the Archives' website in full-text digital form, including letters from Mayor LaGuardia to his sister Gemma, who sought her brother's help in returning to the United States after surviving a Nazi forced labor camp.

After his last term, LaGuardia traveled across war-torn Europe and China to deliver aid to starving children as Director General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).

The collection contains more than 100 hours of audio and video tapes of and about La Guardia, including oral history interviews with the mayor's friends and associates, radio broadcasts and newsreel footage.

John V. Lindsay served as mayor from 1966 to 1973, a tumultuous time in New York history, characterized by racial and labor unrest, angry political protest, a police corruption scandal and deteriorating municipal finances.

Lindsay built his political reputation as a maverick Liberal Republican Congressman from Manhattan's Silk Stocking district between 1959 and 1965.

The original documents of all but the scrapbook series are housed at the Municipal Archives of the New York City Department of Records and Information Service.

These collections shed light on a variety of important themes in the social history of post–World War II Queens, including race relations, demographic changes and transportation.

There is also Subject Files Series, which includes office occupancy surveys, and there are several folders of REBNY President Steven Spinola's correspondence.

A strong and often divisive figure, Giuliani has been widely credited with reducing crime, cutting welfare rolls and restoring business confidence in the city, though his role in bringing about these changes was controversial.

In 1870, Steinway built a factory in Queens and constructed street railways and housing, contributing to the county's growth and development.

It includes not only copies of the thousands of enacted laws and official publications, but also the records of public hearings and committee files on legislation under consideration and ad hoc investigations, numerous photographs and negatives, maps, artifacts, scrapbooks, audio and videotapes, as well as the papers of dozens of individual council members, including former leaders Newbold Morris, Joseph Sharkey, Paul Screvane, and Peter Vallone.

Three one-time council members rose to the mayoralty of New York City: Fiorello La Guardia, Vincent Impellitteri, and Edward Koch.

This collection gives a vivid picture of day-to-day life in the city, focusing on constituency issues close to ordinary people such as housing, drugs, crime, welfare, community development, health, and the environment.

It also provides historians with a wider understanding of a local government that is frequently overshadowed in the media by the prominence of a powerful mayor.

The Personal Gay Files Series contains documents collected by senator Duane, before, during and after his time in political office, related to LGBTQ issues.

Serving as the City Council President at the time of Mayor O’Dwyer’s resignation, Impellitteri succeeded to the mayoralty in August 1950.

Dubbed “Impy” by the press, many considered him ineffectual and he was often outmaneuvered by both Republican Governor Dewey and by the Democratic Tammany leader, Carmine DeSapio.

Backed by Tammany Hall in 1941, O’Dwyer narrowly lost to incumbent Fiorello LaGuardia, but ran again in 1945 to become the city's 100th mayor.

The archive has developed a six-lesson curriculum for local 4th-grade students, aimed at teaching the importance of voting and the history of suffrage.