January 1st in NYC History
Posted: Jan 2, 2013 | 12:40 AM
1637: North American postal service begins between Nieuw Amsterdam (now New York City) and Boston, using horses.
1819: The first official American heavyweight champion, 1841-52, Tom Hyer, born.
1864: Alfred Stieglitz born.
1879: William Fox of Fox Pictures born.
1892: Ellis Island opens as an Immigration Station opened.
Annie Moore from Ireland is the first of 12 million to come. There is a statue of her at Ellis Island.
That day, three large ships discharged 700 immigrants, and nearly 450,000 immigrants passed through the Island the rest of the year.
1898: The City of Greater New York is born. With great fanfare – and controversy – the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten
Island merge with Manhattan to form what the Herald Tribune calls "the greatest experiment in municipal government – the enlarged city."
1901: Rocky Graziano born.
1919: J.D. Salinger born. On my Central Park tours we discover what the ducks do in winter.
1934: Columbia wins the Rose Bowl 7-0 over Stanford in Pasadena. This signals the end of Ivy League football dominance, as this is the last Bowl game won by an Ivy.
1938: Frank Langella born.
1942: Fordham wins the Sugar Bowl, beating Missouri in front of 73,000 in the New Orleans rain.
1958: Grandmaster Flash born. He grew up in the Bronx.
1966: John Lindsay faces a 13-day transit strike on his first day as mayor. Public Schools closed and half the workforce stayed home. Approximately 5 million rides per day didn't happen.
1978: Ed Koch begins the first of his three terms as mayor, helping to turn the city around. Despite his protests, he did preside over local-grassroots solutions to the city's thousands of abandoned lots and buildings, as well as partnering with businesses to start the turn-around of Times Square, among many other things.
1985: VH-1, an MTV spinoff, begins broadcasting.
1990...David Dinkins is sworn in as the city's first African-American mayor.