Errors and omission, red ink and rewrites

• FW: Archaeology reports: errors and omissions‏

From:	Amanda Sutphin (ASutphin@lpc.nyc.gov) You moved this message to its current location.
Sent:	Wed 4/13/11 3:09 PM
To:	georgejmyersjr@hotmail.com
Cc:	Emily Rich (erich@lpc.nyc.gov)

Thank you for your interest and comments. We are now making a practice of putting all archaeological reports on-line and hope many people will now be able to review them.

Sincerely,
Amanda Sutphin, RPA  
Director of Archaeology  
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
Municipal Building, 9th Fl  
1 Centre St New York, NY 10007  
(212) 669-7823

From: George Myers [mailto:georgejmyersjr@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 2:07 PM  
To: Public Info  
Cc: Nancy.Stehling@aecom.com
Subject: Archaeology reports: errors and omissions

I am very glad to see the information presented online. It was one of the purposes I thought of the archaeology as stated in the aims of the first archaeology Sherene Baugher, PhD, i.e., to put the reports in all the public libraries in New York City. Unfortunately the reasons many gave against it I find some similarity with:

In ”ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONITORING AT THE OLD WEST FARMS SOLDIER CEMETERY, THE BRONX, NEW YORK” (LPC online as 1038.pdf)

It erroneously states my surname “Myers” as “Meyers” and that I have an M.A. I have a B.A. It also erroneously states therefore I was a “Project Archaeologist”. It also erroneously reports Nancy A. Stehling as having an “M.A.” She has a “M.S.” in Public Archaeology from RPI and is on the RPA. I’ve seen trouble before from people having M.A. added to their names, and though I was a PhD candidate at Stony Brook University years ago, now with a campus also in Manhattan, I gave that up to find more practical experience in NYC, not completing my essays for an M.A. though passing comprehensive exams.

Note: It was during the fieldwork for the new fence erected around two sides of this cemetery, with soldiers of 4 wars, 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American, WWI, along with others interred that noticed dead crows were called into a number provided by WNBC News for West Nile tracking in 1999. Those ravens nevermore. Today near the new Vidalia Park and once along the Bronx River a small block south of the Bronx Zoo. - 10/12/2012

I might also add that another report Ms. Stehling and I were the primary researchers and I a major writer of was the:

(LPC online as 501.pdf)

and there is no credit given at all. We were never provided the almost final or final copy and if you look at it it could have at minimum used a better proofing:

“Later it became Governor Peter Stuyvesant’s farm or bouwerie, where the street derived its name. He is buried near his farm in the Street Marks Church-in-the-Bowery at 10th Street and 2nd Avenue, the oldest continuing house of worship in the City.” p.6

There are other similar glaring errors we might have corrected though Parsons from Virginia. There is also problems with the bibliography, a book entry in the list of maps. I’m still not convinced the editor had our interest in mind, the primary research as to some of the specifics history of landmark evaluation left out, but seen in the bibliography i.e., General Von Steuben and the first National Guard; Kate Mullaney the first woman, sitting next to Susan B. Anthony in Germania Hall, voted to union management. She organized the detachable “white collar” cleaner workers in Troy, NY. Her house is on the US National Register of Historic Places today. Perhaps one or two signs or plaques would’ve been considered for where feminist Kate Millet also lived before the development.

Anyway those two I’ve had a chance to look over, and congratulate the LPC for putting these reports online.

George J. Myers, Jr.

Searchable database of reports online:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/forms/archaeology_reports.shtml