Toyota recently launched a new six-commercial ad campaign for the 2015 Camry, and one of the spots (a screen shot from which is shown above) is very PermaRec-ish.

Before you watch the commercial, check out the script, which is delivered as a first-person narrative:

Started my Camry
Went to the auction
Won a storage locker
Found an old guitar
Tracked down the previous owner
Reunited them
Hit the jackpot

Now, if you've ever watched the TV show Storage Wars, you know that the people who bid on abandoned storage lockers tend to be professional salvage dealers, not random Camry owners, so it's rare for a "normal" person to win one of those auctions. It's even rarer for the lockers to contain anything of value. And it's well-nigh impossible for that thing of value to be connected to a famous person such as — here, just watch the commercial and see for yourself:

Pretty cheesy, right? Still, the impulse to reunite an object with its original owner is certainly one I can appreciate. And as aspirational fantasies go, the urge to investigate an item's past is certainly better than car advertising's usual fantasy, which is that the car will give you status and get you laid. Fortunately, as we've demonstrated many times here on Permanent Record, you can turn the "Let's find out who owned this" fantasy into reality without bidding on a storage locker — or driving a Toyota Camry, for that matter.

• • • • • Site Upgrade: If you look in the right-hand sidebar, you'll see that all of the site's entries are now tagged by category. I hope this will make the site easier and more fun to poke around in — enjoy.

Today is a special day. It was 18 years ago today — Sept. 28, 1996 — that I attended my friend Gina Duclayan's 30th birthday party in the gymnasium of the old Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. It was during that party that I stumbled upon the file cabinet full of old Manhattan Trade School report cards that were about to be thrown out. My friends and I decided to rescue some of the cards (we ended up with about 400 of them, which I'd guesstimate to be about 10 percent of the total), a decision that has changed my life in several ways and led to the creation of the Permanent Record project. If you're not familiar with that story, you can learn more about that 1996 evening here.

That's Gina above. It's fitting that she's posing with a pineapple, the symbol of hospitality, because Gina's one of the most hospitable and gracious people I've ever known. She's also from Hawaii, the land of pineapples.

So happy birthday, Gina! And happy birthday to Permanent Record.

Sorry about the PermaRec slowdown -- I've been busy with other projects. But I have a few items in the pipeline that I hope to post soon.

Meanwhile: Next Wednesday, April 3, I'll be doing an hour-long radio interview regarding the Permanent Record report cards (that's me posing with a bunch of the cards back in 2010; I have different glasses now). It will air live from 10-11am eastern, and you can access the live stream here. There will also be a rebroadcast that evening at 9pm eastern here.

The person interviewing me will be Jane Wilcox, a professional genealogist who has a radio show devoted to ancestry- and genealogy-related issues. I met her last year when I was invited to do a short presentation and Q&A session on the PermaRec report cards at the New York Genealogical Society, of which she is a member. One topic that came up during that presentation was the ethical issues raised by using confidential school records as the basis for a media project. Jane plans to ask me about that during our radio interview next Wednesday, and will also touch upon other issues regarding the report card project.

Further details on all of this can be found here.

We've covered so many different stories here on the PermaRec Blog that it's easy to forget that Permanent Record is first and foremost about the amazing Manhattan Trade School report cards that I found in a file cabinet more than 16 years ago. With that in mind, here are two announcements:

1) I'll be doing a lecture/slideshow presentation about the report cards next Wednesday, Dec. 5, 7pm, at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in Manhattan. It'll be part of a program of several short presentations (I can't speak for the others, but I know the organizers, and they usually tend to book interesting people). Admission is free. Full details here.

2) In case you missed it earlier this week, the long-delayed 10th installment in the Slate series is now available for your enjoyment.

I guess it's not surprising that there's a record store called Permanent Records -- or, as it turns out, three record stores called Permanent Records. The one at the top is located in Brooklyn and has been open at least since 2011. The one in the middle, with the annoyingly hard-to-read sign, is in Chicago and has been open since 2006. And the one on the bottom, which is a spin-off of the Chicago store, is in Los Angeles and opened in June of 2011.

It makes sense that all of these shops opened relatively recently. A record store called Permanent Records wouldn't have made sense in, say, the 1980s. But now, with vinyl records and even CDs seeming like antiquated audio formats, the name "Permanent Records" registers as a statement of defiance -- like, "Okay, most of you may have moved on to MP3s, but we're still not going away."

As it happens, vinyl records (and, to a lesser extent, CDs) can have stories to tell, just like the other objects we examine here at Permanent Record. Personally, I never wrote my name on any of my records, but I know some people who did -- sometimes on the jacket, sometimes on the inner sleeve, and sometimes on the label. I specifically remember one kid I grew up who always wrote "Property of..." and then his name on all his records, which seemed like a bit much to me at the time. I've come across lots of these personalized LPs and 45s in used record stores over the years; maybe you have too. Not sure if I still have any of those records (I've pared down my vinyl collection pretty significantly in recent years), but I'll check. It would be interesting to try to track down the record's previous owner and find out why he or she chose to part with it.

In any case, this is a good reminder that Permanent Record -- both the name and the concept -- can extend in some unexpected directions.

(Special thanks to Heather McCabe for the inspiration on this one.)

If you've been reading this blog for the past few months, you've no doubt noticed my repeated mentions of two research volunteers -- Samantha Bulgerin and Catherine Bloomquist. They're both much, much better researchers than I am, and it's no exaggeration to say that the latest phase of the Permanent Record project would not have been possible without them.

So today I'm giving Sam (that's her at the top of the page) and Cate (that's her beneath Sam) a well-deserved shout-out. I've also been wondering what inspired them to devote so much time and energy to my little project, so I invited them both to write a little something about that, and they both agreed. First up is Sam:

I’m a twenty-something college student in Wisconsin, studying anthropology and information studies. My father was an ancient history major, so I grew up in a house full of old books and artifacts. When I was about 12 or so, my grandmother introduced me to genealogy and I became fascinated by old records and what people leave behind. I started buying old photographs at rummage sales and trying to track down the people in them, wanting to know their stories. Letters, diaries, newspapers, and yearbooks soon joined the photographs. I also work at a local historical society and run two history-based blogs (one of which is about vintage fashion, which is a good fit with all the dressmaking students whose report cards Paul found; the other is about old newspaper clippings and such), so it would be fair to say I'm very interested in the past.

I came across Permanent Record randomly, shortly after Paul had written his first articles for Slate last fall. When I saw his request for research help, I got very excited, so I got in touch with him and have been helping out with the project when time allows.

I cannot put into words how amazing it is to see my research help Paul uncover the stories of these extraordinary women. The Permanent Record project, to me, is a perfect example of how history isn’t just battles and names and dates -- it’s people. People who lived full and fascinating lives. People who deserve to be remembered.

Thanks, Sam. I literally couldn't do this without you!

Now here's Cate:

I owe my introduction to Permanent Record to my brother, who read the series on Slate and thought I would enjoy it. He was right! New York City immigrant culture of the early 1900s has always fascinated me, so these students' stories really spoke to me.

I wanted to help with the project because I love the idea of connecting these report cards to the students' families. And since I have a background in professional genealogical research/heir-searching (particularly NYC research), I felt I had some specific skills to offer. Discovering "Miss Kotter's" identity has been the biggest thrill so far, and I hope we'll hear more about her. Thanks for letting me be part of Permanent Record!

Thank you, Cate -- you and Sam are the best.

Seriously, at the risk of getting too sappy here, Sam and Cate exemplify the incredible generosity of spirit that I've encountered throughout the Permanent Record project. That applies to the families I've interviewed, the historians who've helped me connect the various dots, and the many readers who've chimed in with observations and tips along the way. I'm grateful all these people -- but especially to Sam and Cate. I hope I get to meet them in person one day. First round will definitely be on me.

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Slate update: Been wondering when the next full-length PermaRec article would finally appear on Slate? I'm happy to report that the article has finally been put into the editorial pipeline and is now scheduled to be published either later this week or early next.

My editor says he wants to run additional PermaRec articles on Slate roughly every month, so I should finally be able to start telling the full stories that I've only hinted at here on the blog. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I'm starting a Permanent Record e-mail list, which I'll use to let people know about new Slate articles and other new developments regarding the project. (Don't worry, I won't be sending out daily spam or anything like that.) If you'd like to be added to the list, contact me.

Last month I posted the audio of my appearance on WFMU's excellent Seven Second Delay radio show, which was broadcast live from a theater in Manhattan. Now, as you can see above, it turns out that there's video of the show as well.

My segment begins at about the 11:45 mark. They began by asking me about some of my other projects, but we finally get around to talking about Permanent Record at 14:35. Unfortunately, the discussion only lasts one minute from that point (it actually lasted much longer on the radio show, but the video has been heavily edited). If you want to hear the full interview segment, go back and check out the archived audio of the show.

As I noted when posting a photo from the radio broadcast a while back, the guy up on the cross is co-host Andy, who had promised to be crucified if the show met its pledge drive goal, which it did. He was mortified that he actually had to follow through on his promise and spent a good portion of the show apologizing to anyone who might be offended.

Special thanks to WFMU producer Mike Noble, who booked me on the show, let me know about the video, and is generally a swell guy.

Click to enlarge

I had fun last night talking about Permanent Record, along with some other projects, on WFMU's excellent Seven Second Delay show, which is broadcast live from a small theater in Manhattan. That's me in the center, in the blue jeans and light green shirt. The guy up on the cross is co-host Andy, who had promised to be crucified if the show met its pledge drive goal, which it did. He was mortified that he actually had to follow through on his promise and spent a good portion of the show apologizing to anyone who might be offended.

Here's the audio of my segment, which lasts maybe 10 minutes:

Hi there. Remember me?

After taking a few months off (in part for logistical reasons and in part because I just needed a little break from this very intense project), I'm happy to report that I've plunged back into Permanent Record. I've made new contact with several students' families and have leads for a bunch more. This research will form the basis of a new batch of articles that I'll be doing for Slate throughout this year, the first of which will probably run in about a month. Think of it as PermaRec 2.0.

I'm even happier to report that I had a major breakthrough last Friday, when I spoke on the phone with 95-year-old Rose Vrana (née Baggini -- that's her report card shown above, which you can click on to see a larger version), who attended Manhattan Trade in the early 1930s. This is the first time I've found a student from my report card collection who's still alive -- a tremendously exciting development!

As you might expect, Rose doesn't use a computer, so I couldn't e-mail scans of her report card to her or give her the link to the original Slate articles. Instead, I've made printouts and dropped them in the mail. She's a little confused by all the fuss I'm making over her and doesn't fully grasp what PermaRec is all about, but I'm hoping she'll understand a bit better and agree to let me interview her once she receives the materials I'm sending her.

I didn't find Rose by myself, incidentally. She was located by a volunteer researcher named Catherine Bloomquist, one of several Slate readers who took it upon themselves to start assisting me after reading PermaRec 1.0 last fall. Several of these volunteers hit varying degrees of pay dirt, and I'm grateful to all of them for their sleuthing efforts and their incredible spirit of generosity. But Catherine and another reader, Samantha Bulgerin, really hit the mother lode, tracking down literally dozens of leads. Among their many discoveries is this: One of the students may have gone on to design Mamie Eisenhower's 1953 inaugural ball dress! (I'm still waiting to hear back from that family -- stay tuned.) Thanks so much, Catherine and Sam -- you've completely reinvigorated the project.

More soon. Or at least soon-ish.

I discussed Permanent Record on NPR's Here and Now program yesterday. If the "Listen" link at the top of that page doesn't work (it was a little wonky for me yesterday), you can go straight to the audio of the segment here.

For those of you who've been asking what's next for Permanent Record, several possibilities are in the works. More details soon.

This just in: I'll be discussing Permanent Record in a fairly lengthy segment on today's edition of the NPR program Here and Now.

You can use this page to see when (or if) the program is available on your NPR affiliate.

I'll post the archived audio once it's available.

The bad news is that most of the Slate series is still not functioning properly (grrrrr); the good news is that I've been given permission to republish the entire series here on this blog.

The first Slate article is, for the most part, fine (some of the photo links are a bit wonky, but it's mostly OK), so you can read that on Slate. You're better off reading the second, third, fourth, and fifth articles here. The photo interface here on the blog isn't as elegant as the one on Slate, but at least all the links work, all of the text is present and accounted for, and so on.

So if you want to take in the entire series, or pick up where you left off, here you go:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

More developments soon.

Isn't that nice? It's a little charm (actual size: half an inch wide), given to me by the lovely Kirsten Hively -- her way of congratulating me on Permanent Record's success.

Meanwhile: The folks at Slate are in the process of restoring the five-article series to its full functionality. It's not quite there yet, but it's getting close. I hope to post updated links to the series in a few days. Thanks for your patience.

If you've been trying to access the Slate series and haven't been able to do so, the explanation can apparently be found above. Slate unexpectedly (at least to me) unveiled a new page format today, one consequence of which is that the Permanent Record series has become a complete mish-mash. The old URLs for the articles no longer work, and I don't want to give out the new URLs yet because the content is all jumbled up -- photo links are in the wrong places, entire swaths of text have disappeared, etc. A serious mess -- extremely frustrating!

I know some of you were taking your time to get through the series, or had bookmarked it with plans to read it later. Well, now you can't. Yes, that really stinks. Even worse, the editor and art director who produced the series both left Slate just as the articles were being published, so now the whole project is orphaned. Grrrrrr. I've sent a note to Slate's ed-in-chief, asking for the content to be corrected, restored, or whatever. Keep your fingers crossed.

It was exactly 15 years ago today -- Sept. 28, 1996 -- that I attended my friend Gina Duclayan's 30th birthday party, which was held in the gymnasium of the old Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan (shown above). It was during that party that I came across a discarded file cabinet filled with old report cards. I didn't realize it at the time, but Permanent Record was born that day.

So happy birthday to Gina, and happy birthday to Permanent Record -- forever linked in my mind.

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I talked about Permanent Record on the radio yesterday, on WNYC's "Brian Lehrer Show." The audio of the segment is embedded below.



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I'm about to take a short vacation, which means I probably won't be posting here over the next week or so. But I'll definitely be updating this site in the weeks and months to come, so sign up for the RSS feed or e-mail notifications (both of which are available at the top-right of this page) if you want to stay abreast of new developments. Thanks.

The woman on the right is Donna Protter. She and her mother, Lucille Fasanella, were profiled in the third article in the Slate series (Lucille is the one who saved her beautiful sample book and was flagged as a "troublemaker" by the school's staff). On the left is my friend and researcher extraordinaire Diane George, who found Donna and her family about six months ago.

Donna and Diane were among the 20 or so people who joined me for a Permanent Record party this past Saturday. I was so busy talking, thanking people, and generally feeling happy that I didn't take nearly as many photographs as I should have, but here are a few shots.

These are my longtime friends Daniel Radosh and Gina Duclayan:


It was at Gina's birthday party back in 1996 that I found the report cards, so it's not a stretch to say that the entire project started with her. She and Daniel took a large batch of cards that night, saved them for over a decade, later donated them to me for the purposes of this project. I'm super-grateful to them for all their help and support.

The two guys in this horribly composed photo are Kenny Lauterbach (on the left) and Matt Weingarden:


They're the other two friends were took some report cards that night back in 1996. They too saved their cards for more than a decade and then donated them to me. Matt has been one of my closest friends for many years, but I hadn't seen or spoken to Kenny in ages until I decided to pursue the Permanent Record project.

This is Dr. Robert LaPorta, the son-in-law of Marie Garaventa, whose report card was featured in the first and second installment of the Slate series:


Robert's wife is Doretta LaPorta, Marie's daughter, who I interviewed extensively for the series. Unfortunately, Doretta wasn't able to join us on Saturday because of a family emergency, but I was extremely happy that Robert came in her stead. They were both incredibly gracious about having a stranger visiting their home and asking all sorts of personal questions.

Many people who read the Slate series mentioned how much they liked the photo interface. That tool was designed by this guy, Slate designer Jeremy Singer-Vine:


Jeremy actually left Slate before the series was published (he took a new gig at the Wall Street Journal) but continued to work on the project during our final week of production, on his own time. I can't thank him enough for all his contributions to the finished product.

There were lots of other people in attendance, but I didn't get decent photos of them. Still, it was a great time, and a nice way to conclude this phase of Permanent Record.

I say "this phase" because I hope to continue researching and writing. Maybe there will be a book, or maybe there will be more Slate articles. And there will definitely be more material here on the blog. Stay tuned.

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I'll be discussing Permanent Record Tuesday morning on "The Brian Lehrer Show" (WNYC radio). My segment is due to start at 11:40am Eastern. You can access the live audio here, and I'll link to the archived audio once it's up on the WNYC web site.