The Museum of the City of New York does not believe there are any copyright restrictions preventing us from posting these images on the Collections Portal. In some cases the Museum of the City of New York is the copyright holder. In other cases, a third party owns the copyright and has given explicit permission to display the images in our Collections Portal. With the remaining images, the Museum believes that no rightful copyright holder can be identified.

To the best of our knowledge, we see no reason these historical images should not be available to the public for personal research and enjoyment. We cannot, however, deny the possibility that sharing some of these images may inadvertently infringe on the rights of copyright holders unknown to us. The user of the images must understand that the Museum of the City of New York cannot guarantee that your private use of the images on the Collections Portal will not violate the rights of unidentified copyright holders, and the Museum cannot be held responsible for any liability resulting from your use of these images.

As a leading educational and cultural heritage institution, the Museum of the City of New York honors the intellectual property of artists and innovators. We are committed to protecting the rights of creators and copyright holders, and are always interested in discovering historical facts about the images in our collection. If you have specific information relating to the copyrights of images in the Collections Portal, please contact us by mail at Museum of the City of  New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029, ATTN: Director of Collections Access. We will remove any legitimately disputed images from public view pending a review of the claim. If you have additional information about the images, please email us at collections@mcny.org.

You are welcome to save single, low-resolution copies of images from this site for non-commercial personal use, such as study or research, as long as the image is in the public domain, i.e. has no known copyright restrictions, or the copyright is held by the Museum of the City of New York.

You may also download and use low-resolution images that are in the public domain, or for which the Museum of the City of New York holds the copyright, for a non-commercial Web site, such as your personal blog, and for such “fair uses” as criticism, reviews, or illustration, as long as the image is accompanied by the creator’s name, the title of the work, and the line, “From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York.” We would appreciate it if you also included a link back to the Collections Portal.

All commercial use of images, and access to high-resolution images, requires permission from the Museum and an access fee appropriate to the image’s intended use. You begin the process of obtaining permission by adding the image to your cart and submitting a request. You may also email rights@mcny.org, or call us at 212-534-1672 ext 3375. Visit the Rights & Reproductions page for more information on commercial or other public use of an image, or obtaining a print for decorative use.

Please contact us at collections@mcny.org with any questions that aren’t answered above.