Today’s New York Times has an article by Diane Cardwell about Manhattan real estate booms and busts which uses brochures and marketing materials from the Avery Library New York Real Estate Brochure Collection. 

The collection was donated by Yale Robbins, Henry Robbins, and David Magier in 1986. It consists of over 9,200 advertising brochures, floor plans, price lists, and related materials that document residential and commercial real estate development in the five boroughs of New York and outlying vicinities from the 1920s to the 1970s.