Public Employee Press

Anniversary ”museum” shows DC 37 history

In the gallery on the ground floor of union headquarters, an eyeglass-wearing mannequin spent October sitting at an old-fashioned typewriter and welcoming visitors to an exhibit on DC 37’s history

“The Workforce That Shaped New York City” was part of the yearlong celebration of DC 37’s 65th anniversary. The display included hundreds of artifacts, memorabilia and photos donated by the locals that built the city’s largest municipal union.

The mannequin exemplified the thousands of Local 1549 clerical-administrative employees who worked in every city agency in the 1960s and 1970s. A coin-operated parking meter from the 1950s stood next to a contemporary solar-powered computerized model — both maintained by members of Local 1455. Vintage telephones, police radios and a court stenographer’s machine from the 1940s offered a glimpse at how members have done their jobs since DC 37 was founded in 1944.

Framed charters, starting with the document signed by General President Arnold S. Zander for Laborers Local 924 on June 18, 1945, documented the union’s growth, and buttons and photos highlighted the causes members have supported over the decades and the battles the union led. A 1967 shot depicts 25,000 city employees filling the old Madison Square Garden to protest the anti-strike Taylor Law. The economic warfare of the 1970s shows on the faces of picketing blue-collar strikers fighting Gov. Rockefeller’s attack on pension legislation and Local 420 members striking to stop hospital layoffs.

The display captured the inspiring story of DC 37’s 65 years from the founders through Executive Director Lillian Roberts and 2009’s youthful “next wave” organizers. The 65th Anniversary Committee produced the exhibit with James McCray and Program Director Frances M. Curtis.