For those of us who live near to a LDS family history center, you can order
films for certain older NYC vital records (up to the 1920's I believe). I
have found this to be a much better method: it is cheaper and faster than
writing to the Archives.

Furthermore, in response to some of my written research requests for vital
records the Archives responded that the records could not be
located--although I subsequently found the very records I wanted when I
searched for them myself.

Howard M. Hujsa
hhujsa@worldnet.att.net