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  1. Dec 2022
    1. The drawers are jammed with jokes typed on 4-by-6-inch cards — 52 drawers, stacked waist-high, like a card catalog of a certain comedian’s life’s work, a library of laughs.

      Joan Rivers had an index card catalog with 52 drawers of 4-by-6-inch index cards containing jokes she'd accumulated over her lifetime of work. She had 18 2 drawer stackable steel files that were common during the mid-1900s. Rather than using paper inserts with the label frames on the card catalogs, she used a tape-based label maker to designate her drawers.

      Scott Currie, who worked with Melissa Rivers on a book about her mother, Joan Rivers, at the comedian’s former Manhattan office. Many of her papers are stored there.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times


      Note carefully that the article says 52 drawers, but the image in the article shows a portion of what can be surmised to be 18 2-drawer cabinets for a total of 36 drawers. (14 2-drawer cabinets are pictured, but based on size and perspective, there's one row of 4 2-drawer boxes not shown.)