The New York City Museum of Complaint is a collection of 132 letters written to the Mayor of New York between 1751 and 1969. Selected from the municipal archives and presented chronologically, these civic documents address the hardships of metropolitan existence. Over the course of more than two centuries, city dwellers report directly on the challenges they face. Each appeal, whether eloquent or crude, demands attention to issues as various as dead animals in the street, swindles, capitalism, adventuresses, violated rights, bad luck, broken hearts, noise and the unending problems created by other people. Collected together for the first time these missives embody the language, wit and energy that have forged New York's reputation, in good times and bad.