Jan 10th in NYC History -
Beginnings: greatest Secretary of State, public television network, the Subway bids, The Sopranos, and a media behemoth too big to succeed.
Endings: Dashiell Hammett and, kind of, Congressman Powell.
Posted: Jan 10, 2013 | 4:26 AM
by Jared Goldstein
1861: William Seward, a great New York politician, becomes Lincoln's Secretary of State, likely the best one in history.
1900: Bids are released for the Subway's construction running from City Hall to the Bronx. The first subway opened in 1904.
Coincidentally (?), on this date in 1863 London's Metropolitan (subway), opened.
1961: Dashiell Hammett, author of hard-boiled detective novels turned into popular films, died in NYC. He was born in 1894.
1967: National Education Television (NET) becomes the first noncommercial educational television network, connecting 70 affiliates. It's first broadcast is President Johnson's State of the Union address. NET will later morph in PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, which would soon make a big impact on television, such as with Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theater.
1967: Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, "Mr. Civil Rights," who represented Harlem for 26 years was banned from the House of Representatives pending an investigation into corruption. Powell was re-elected two years later after the the Supreme Court re-instated him.
In the early 1970s he lost the election to Charlie Rangel, who himself was censured for tax evasion three decades later. Rangel, also decades later, will defeat Powell's nephew to retain his seat. Rangel is still serving Harlem in Congress.
We explore the glories of Adam Clayton Powell and the ignominy of Charlie Rangel on Harlem tours.
1999: HBO premiered The Sopranos.
Many tours of Midtown, including my 42nd Street tour, show HBO headquarters.
2000: America Online agreed to buy Time-Warner for $162 billion. The new corporation was valued at $350 billion.
Time-Warner decided to spun off AOL in 2009.