Archives of a different sort

Well, this is amusing. And since complaining seems to be my pastime the past few days, I'll go one step further and post this interesting bit that I got from The Christian Science Monitor --

Dear Mr. Mayor, Why hasn't ...

It's said that a New Yorker is never truly happy
unless he (or she) is griping about something. Such
as? Oh, you know: the noise, lax trash pickup,
burned-out streetlights, even how poorly the Knicks
have been playing, for example. In fact, so constant
has been the kvetching over the centuries that
conceptual artist Matthew Bakkom came up with the
idea for a "New York Museum of Complaint," which
would have its own newspaper. He gained access to
City Hall archives to see what citizens have sought
in the way of redress from the mayor's office. And
did he get an eyeful: 30,000 boxes of letters. In
1797, an early environmental activist was irate over
a glue factory  that dumped its waste into a neighbor-
hood pond. Fast forward to 1935, when another writer
wanted Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to call off the cops
so burlesque dancers could bare more skin without
being arrested. Bakkom chose 31 letters that he decided
were representative - none of which indicated any
evidence of a response - and reproduced them in a
tabloid that he's handing out around town. "It just
seemed to me ... very vital, very original, and very
striking," he said. "Some are on the verge of paranoia.
Others are on the verge of genius."