Casebooks!

Day 3: So many cases, so little time

NY is making me an early bird: I was ringing the bell to get in to the Archives today at 6:50am!

There doesn’t seem to be a finding aid available for researchers for the Bloomingdale collection so I started the day sitting with the archivist at his computer while we searched for key terms in their database that might be of interest to me. That’s when he asked if my interest in photographs included photos of individual patients – I had to stop myself from jumping up and yelling “Hell YA!”

Photos, photos, photos

Day 2: it’s all about the photos

Arrived at 7am this morning at the archives (the Archivist said he’d be there by 6:30am but I declined the offer to be there quite so early – as is, I was up at 5:45am just to shower and catch the bus – and yes, I’m as surprised as the next person about this fact).

Archivist also totally saved me: I forgot to pack the new magnifying glass my Mom picked up for me and would have missed a ton of stuff in the background of some of the photos if he hadn’t had one to lend me!

After 13 long hours on a bus – I’ve arrived in NYC

An overnight bus to NYC – arriving 7am Monday morning. Sounded like a genius idea – roll in to the city, saunter over to the archives, and get a full day without needing to pay for another nights stay in the city. However: my 10 hour overnight bus trip to NYC backfired on me and turned into a 13 hour trip – ugh! (And this was after I drove back from Montreal to Toronto earlier in the day).  Got turned around a bit on the subway too so I didn’t make it to the archives until 11:30am – not my best first impression.

I’m at the Weill Cornell Medical Center Archives this week. The Archives are located on the 25th floor of the New York Presbyterian Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The hospital organization dates to 1771 and the building dates to 1932.