Department of Public Markets Photographs — NYC Department of Records & Information Services

The Hylan correspondence files include a copy of Commissioner O’Malley’s 1923 Report to the Mayor. O’Malley referenced Hylan’s “early farm life” and acknowledged how the Mayor had “set about cleaning the Augean stables of waste and corruption which had for years cluttered the path to a successful handling of the food problem.”

O’Malley’s report went on to detail the “food problem” and the strides toward its solution made under his leadership. Some of the photographs in the donated collection appeared in the 1923 report. It seems likely that Commissioner O’Malley commissioned the pictures to depict conditions “before” his planned improvements to the market system.

O’Malley’s 1923 Report supplies ample statistical data to illustrate “…the immensity of the City’s food problem.” For example, “About 40,000,000 chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks come into the city markets in a year.” Average daily consumption of other foods included 664,000 pounds of butter, 2,093,425 pounds of white potatoes, 209,562 pounds of sweet potatoes, and 1,302,986 pounds of apples, etc. Additionally, “New York City consumes more than 3,000,000 quarts of milk every day, drawn from over 40,000 farms… located in seven neighboring states… some even from over the Canadian border.” Plus, “New York City eats more than 1,250,000 loaves of bread daily and about 9,000,000 eggs.”