2 Centuries of N.Y. Kvetching Revealed

Two centuries of kvetching, kvetching, kvetching. That's New York-ese _ Yiddish, actually _ for complaining, complaining, complaining. And it's the subject of a new booklet of letters both funny and fascinating _ "The New York City Museum of Complaint" _ that were written over centuries to the mayor of a city famed for denizens who whine in public.

"Would it be possible to amend the law so that girls in the burlesque shows in New York would be allowed to display their charms more without interference of the police?" one correspondent asked Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1935.

A prude also wrote to the mayor, saying: "Please, Please, Please put an embargo on the new mesh swimsuit!"

The booklet was compiled by Matthew Bakkom, a conceptual artist, from letters he found in 30,000 boxes of archived mail to the mayor going back to the 18th century.

In 1797, one letter reports that dead animals are being pitched into a city pond, creating putrid water that also contains gunk from a glue factory _ a combination that "may prove fatal to the health of the inhabitants" of the neighborhood.

In others letters, a merchant wants money to cover earnings lost during a smallpox scare; a man is mad that his 12-year-old son was allowed into a vaudeville show; and a widow bemoans the dirt clogging her drain.

There's no evidence any of the letters resulted in action, but they're written in the loud civic spirit that makes New York, New York.

As the city moved toward modern times, problems changed. But some New York cliches endured: the noise and the smell, from construction blasting to radios blaring in the street.

One thing, for sure, has changed: There's no African pygmy tribesman being kept in a cage at the Bronx Zoo. That display elicited a letter of complaint to the mayor in 1906.

Bakkom packaged the historic missives into a tabloid-size booklet that he'll hand out for free in the next few days.