April 7th in New York City History
Posted: Apr 7, 2013 | 12:37 AM
1795: The African-American burial ground is set aside off Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Between five to twenty thousand are interred in and around the plot since the mid 1600s.
The City expanded over it.
In 1991, remains were unearthed during construction of a federal parking lot. Luckily for history, NYC had it's first Black Mayor, Dinkins, and the USA had "it's first Black President," Clinton, in office to get the remains analyzed, set the property aside and get it developed as "The African Burial Ground."
We discover the African Burial Ground on Downtown tours, immigration tours, Colonial NYC tours, and we explore the legacy of America's first Black President, Bill Clinton, on Harlem tours.
1873: John McGraw, thirty season manager of the New York Giants (1902-1932) born. He died in 1934.
1897: Walter Winchell, influential and powerful journalist who invented gossip reporting, born in NYC. After decades on top he died in obscurity in 1972.
1915: Jazz songstress Billie Holiday born.
We go by some of her jazz haunts on Harlem tours.
1927: The first successful long-distance demonstration of television It was a live transmission of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover from Washington to New York.
It was over AT&T Bell Labs phone lines using a technology similar to a fax machine.
1949: Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "South Pacific" debuted on Broadway.
1951: Singer-songwriter Janice Ian born in the Bronx. She started her career at 15 in Greenwich Village, and performed on the debut of Saturday Night Live.
We experience Greenwich Village's musical heritage on Greenwich Village tours, and we see where Saturday Night Live is broadcast from on Rockefeller Center tours.
1953: The U.N. General Assembly elected Sweden's Dag Hammarskjold to be secretary-general.
1971: The country's first legalized Off-Track Betting system, OTB, opened.
1975: Tiki Barber, NY Giants star, sports and newscaster, born in Virginia.