history – Page 12

I’m reading the old Brooklyn Eagle newspaper; daily!

brooklyn-daily-eagle1 — I tried reading 1917, but it was boring without the comics and tv listings.

Ok, so I’m trying this experiment. I am reading the Brooklyn Daily Eagle daily, on the exact date from the past. I chose 1917 so it would be exactly 100 years ago, but it was a bit boring, there were no comics or tv listings, so I randomly chose 1949. That seems like a good year, there are comics and my parents were around then, in Brooklyn and it was a good time for the country. We were out of World War II and it was just before the Koren War and it was just on the verge of the coming fabulous ’50s.

brooklyn-daily-eagle2 — This is the top of the front page on Aug. 22, 1949.

I wanted to find a newspaper that carried Krazy Kat and more famous strips, but The Eagle is so easy to see and navigate on this platform so I’ll do that.

I got the idea from my Krazy Kat and The Gumps books that I purchased awhile back. I blogged about them here. They are one year in the life, you are supposed to read them o the same date each day, for instance Krazy Kat runs from January 1, 1934 to December 31, 1934 and The Gumps runs from May 1, 1928 to May 3, 1929. I read them all in a few sittings, as they are hard to not read daily. But I am going to do this with The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and for that period that I’m reading it, I’ll pretend that I am living in 1949, reading the daily newspaper.

Here’s a link to the site if you would like to check out the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper archive.

brooklyn-daily-eagle3 — Part of the comics page on Aug. 22, 1949.

Governors Island; a trip back through history

gov6

Governors Island, where do I start?

I thought I knew all of New York City. I’m amazed that I am often finding myself in areas that I had never been before and this past weekend was no exception. A few of us went on an adventure, to another land, which was only 800 yards from downtown Manhattan. It’s so close, yet is its own world.

Governors Island was settled briefly by the Dutch in 1624 but its main claim to fame is being a military base from 1794 to 1996, when it closed. It was home to the US Army and then the US Coast Guard. In 2001, President Clinton established the 22-acre as a national park and in 2003, President Bush transferred the remaining 150 acres to the people of New York.

From being used as a base in the American Revolutionary War to a National Park today, is some transformation, yet so much of it is like going back in time. It remains like it has for 200 years or so.

The island is open from May 1 to October 1 each year and it’s a pity because Governors Island would be a perfect place for a pumpkin patch and Christmas village. It’s a bit Williamsburg, VA and a bit of old Boston. There’s a meadow you come upon and you swear you are in “Little House on the Prairie,” as you see no surrounding buildings. All at once, you come upon an old movie theater where you think you are on the back lot of “The Waltons,” and the houses – the colonial houses which surround a sort of green square takes you back to a simpler time – all this mere feet from Brooklyn.

And the fantasy of the whole thing is that you have to arrive by ferry! There are ferries from different areas of the city, so hop on one and head over. The ferry ride itself is a beautiful experience as you glide by New York’s skyscrapers and cruise under its many bridges.

Once you get to the island, there is more than enough to do. Take in the greenery and quaintness and history. This is real history all surrounded by nature.

There is free kayaking and picnic lunches and biking and food trucks and hammocks and mini golf and so much more; and the best part has to be what they call “The Hills.” There is one hill, which seems like a mini-mountain, it is 70 feet above sea level. It is sort of like climbing a pyramid. There are large pyramid-style rocks piled up and you climb to the top – the only way to get there. Once at the top the first thing you see is the Statue of Liberty right in front of you in the harbor, you feel as if you can reach out and touch her.

Turn around and there, sparkling in the distance is downtown Manhattan and Jersey City. The view is spectacular. I sat there on a large rock and just watched people’s reactions as they turned and saw the view for the first time. Amazing.

There are events throughout the summer like the Poetry Festival and the Scavenger Hunt, there are art exhibits and so much more.

You can spend each weekend there during the season and find something new to do each weekend. For more info, check out their website at: https://govisland.com

========
Don’t miss my next post. Receive Tomversation via email
each time I publish Click here.
=======

Is this the first animated cartoon?

This is the first animated cartoon, released in July 1913, heck, it’s one of the first movies period. No, it’s not “Steamboat Willy.” That was 1928. And Gertie the Dinosaur was done in 1914.

It’s called ” The Artist’s Dream; The Dachshund and the Sausage.” It shows a live cartoonist, J.R. Bray, drawing the cartoon and then shows the animation.

Don’t call her Mrs. Putnam!

The New York Times posted this letter from Amelia Earhart. Isn’t it cool? You can read the story associated with it here.

amelia-earhart

Colorizing history

bbc

The BBC has an interesting little video. It’s about two minutes long, you can see it here.

See this photo? This is Lewis Powell, the photo was taken in 1865. This guy looks like a model whose photo was taken today! Lewis was involved in Lincon’s assination.

Almost reminds me of that “hot convict” Jeremy Meeks. He’s a good looking bad guy.

Marina Amaral from Brazil, colorizes black and white historical photos which really bring them to life.

I was thrown out of the New York Historical Society

So on my quest to see how the New York City museums work, I went to the New York Historical Society museum on the upper West side. I didn’t pay and I was sort of thrown out. A guard stopped me on the top floor and asked for my proof of payment.

I never had this happen before. I usually don’t wear the paper badge or pin at any of the museums after paying and no one ever stopped me.

To be honest, I have gone to the Historical Society Museum without paying in the past, only once, but it’s so easy to do as they don’t accost you at the door like the rest of the museums. The payment desk is far from the entrance, it’s almost hidden. But be sure that you may be accosted by a nosy guard up on the third or fourth floor.

I told him I would go down to pay, but since I didn’t see the Keith Harring work anywhere, I just left, I’ve seen the other stale exhibits 100 times so it wasn’t worthy paying and staying.

Visiting the Hoboken Train Terminal

Every time I am in New York, I find myself hopping over to Hoboken, New Jersey. There is something about Hoboken that I love. I think it is the New England feel of this mile square city. You can get there by ferry or by PATH train, I usually take the train and I exit through the 100 year old Hoboken Terminal (built in 1907), before the terminal was built the property was used as a ferry point since colonial times.

I visited Hoboken today, had lunch and strolled around. It was beautiful. Sunny and 72 degrees.

Here are some pictures I took of the Hoboken Terminal and area nearby, showing Manhattan in the background, one train stop under the Hudson River.

This is the PATH train entering the station.

This is above the PATH trains where the New Jersey Transit enters and exits the Terminal.

The NY newspaper strike of 1945

I came across this YouTube film about the New York City newspapers strike of 1945. It was a 17-day event. It’s quite interesting to see how people coped, or didn’t cope.

There were an amazing eight daily newspapers in New York at that time and people devoured the papers morning and night. This was before tv and apparently before radio news. Everyone got their news and a lot of their entertainment from daily newspapers and they were addicted to them.

After awhile, people realized during the strike that you could actually get your daily newspaper fix by simply going to the actual newspapers and purchasing the newspaper there. The truckers and delivery people were on strike, so the papers were being printed, just not delivered to the thousands of newsstands and homes. This was the era that Mayor Fiorello Laguardia read the comics to everyone over the radio, describing the goings on in the funny pages.

I find it amazing how many millions of newspapers were published and purchased daily. The New York Daily News alone was selling over 900,000 copies to people who came by the newspaper on foot. People would wait for hours to purchase the daily newspapers. That is 900,000 plus people stepping into the Daily News building to purchase the paper. They figured it was 30,000 people per hour!

Cops waited down in the subway and they told people to get off at the 33rd Street station rather than 42nd Street, where the NY Daily News building was, because the line went all the way from 42nd Street to 33rd Street!

The newspapers were: The Sun, The World-Telegram, the Journal American, The Daily News, The Post, The New York Times, the Herald Tribune and the Mirror. Eight dailies.

So many of the scenes in these films are still there – the Sun building was just restored, it sits near City Hall downtown, and while the Daily News has moved, their building on 42nd Street is still there.

Listen to the numbers as you watch these — the circulation numbers. Amazing. This was the period when the New York Daily News usually sold 2 million copies a day and over 4 million copies on Sundays.

The 1966 newspaper strike killed so many newspapers in New York City, but at least in 1945, the 17-day strike didn’t cause much harm and just proved how addicted people were to their newspapers – the social media of the time.

Park Row – Newspaper Row

parkrow

I saw this photo at the Stuff Nobody Cares About blog, which is a really great blog. To see a very large version of this photo, where you can almost see in the windows, click here.

I don’t know why, but I am fascinated by newspapers, especially the ones from the early days, when the news basically only came from newspapers. New York City had 14 dailies at one time. Amazing.

Above, you can see three newspaper buildings on Park Row, across from New York City Hall, I don’t know why year this photo was taken, probably early 1900s.

The tall building at the left with the dome is Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World Building which was razed in 1955 for a car ramp entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. I have recently stood there looking at the car ramp imagining the World Building being in that space.

Tammany Hall building is the small building next to that to the right. In 1867, The New York Sun purchased the building. The Sun then moved to Broadway, a few blocks away. I have a story and photo on that building here.

The building with the clock tower was designed by famed architect Richard Morris Hunt in 1875 and was the home of the New York Tribune. The building was demolished in 1966. Finally, The New York Times, built in 1889 can be seen to the right. In 1904, the Times moved to their Times Square location and now they are at 620 8th Avenue in a beautiful modern glass building. Pace University now occupies the old Park Row Times building today. The only remaining newspaper building on Park Row. That and the Sun building at 280 Broadway are the two vestiges of a great New York newspaper period.

Back in the day, New York City had these newspapers – The World; The Times; The Herald; The Evening Post; The Globe and Commercial Advertiser; The Tribune; The Morning Telegraph; The Sun; The Call; The Press; The American; The Evening Journal; the New York Daily News and New York Mirror. They were not all around the same time, but most were!

The Sun – it shines for all

sun-journal

I saw this photo on Very Old Images of NY page on Facebook. It’s a great page with so many great historical photos.

It is 1896 on Park Row. This milk wagon arrived to offer “Pure Ice Cold Orange County Milk, Fresh churned buttermilk” and malted milk offered for a nickel.

I love the photo because you can see the New York Sun and the New York Journal in the background. Not the newspapers – the actual buildings.

I’m always passing the Sun building in NYC, which is behind City Hall, away from newspapers row on Park Row and I had always thought it was the original Sun building, but I looked it up and the Sun moved to the 280 Broadway building behind City Hall in 1917. It was fist built for the A. T. Stewart Department store in 1846.

The “new” building on Broadway is large and just went through an extensive renovation. In each corner, there is a big clock sticking out that says, “The Sun. It Shines For All.” Still there – 100 years later.

sun

Here are the two buildings in 1914. In the old days, they used to post the news and sports scores right outside the buildings. No digital banners. It was chalk and or ink on paper posted to boards out front. Here the crowd is looking at baseball scores.