Before a throng of conservatively attired lawyers and bankers in a courtyard outside One Battery Park Plaza, a woman in a bright pink blazer stepped up to a microphone Tuesday with a sheet of paper in her hand.
"Through their dedicated community support, Seward & Kissel is helping to improve the quality of life for lower Manhattan residents and insuring that Downtown will continue to be a part of New York's shimmering future, as they have for 125 years," read the Manhattan borough president.
"I, Gale A. Brewer ... do hereby commend Seward & Kissel's contributions to the city and proclaim Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015 'Seward & Kissel Appreciation Day' in the great borough of Manhattan."
A business receiving a proclamation and its own dedicated day from a New York City borough president — in this case, a law firm founded in downtown Manhattan 125 years ago — isn't as rare an occurrence as you might expect.
In 2009, according to the New York Times, then-Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz signed about 700 proclamations and citations. Then-Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer issued 150 proclamations, then-Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro 100, then-Queens Borough President Helen Marshall roughly 360 and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz about 520.
Every year, presidents of the five boroughs distribute hundreds of such proclamations extolling all kinds of contributions to the community. In Seward & Kissel's case, the service recognized was a donation of $125,000 to the Battery Park Conservancy.
You can think of them as very fancy thank-you notes, printed in flowery language on imitation parchment with gothic fonts and at least one illuminated letter. Proclamations engender good will, court businesses and ethnic constituents and lock down campaign donors and political allegiances.
Two proclamations issued by Brewer and three City Council members on Monday recognized "great bravery." The proclamations honored Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed alongside her husband in 1953 for allegedly acting as Communist spies and who would have celebrated her 100th birthday that day.
In 1935, Rosenberg helped lead a strike against her employer, the National New York Packing and Supply Co., for union recognition and a pay raise.
Sometimes, proclamations just flatter celebrities. Stringer pronounced June 19, 2012 "Justin Bieber (J&R) Appreciation Day" when the mega pop star held a record signing for his album "Belieb" at the now-shuttered J&R Music store on Park Row in lower Manhattan.
We recommend that Seward & Kissel, which aims to survive another 125 years, not hitch its wagon to Bieber.