1888:  Greenwich Village's Eugene O'Neill, the greatest American playwright of his era, was born.  He died in 1953.

O'Neill helped bring American theater beyond melodrama, and spectacles for sex and violence hiding behind Shakespearean, Biblical and mythology plots to slip past censors.  O'Neill's theater was inspired by real life: marriage problems, labor struggles.

O'Neill fits into the milieu of Greenwich Village as the cradle of the personal, real life real lives, revealing the truth.

There are three Greenwich Village O'Neill sights that I like to share on Greenwich Village Tours.

• The Lucille Lortel Theater's Independent Theater Walk of Fame's stars has O'Neill's the biggest and in the center.
• The historic Cherry Lane Theater.
• The Provincetown Playhouse.

Greenwich Village's importance in culture is about being true to yourself and to your society.  It is about freedom of expression and being an individual that fits into a unique community.

1912:  Fred Snodgrass dropped a fly ball.  "Snodgrass' Muff" lets Boston beat the Giants at Fenway Park 3-2 to win the World Series.


1916:  In Brooklyn, Margaret Sanger opened Planned Parenthood, the world's first birth control clinic.  Already under indictment for publishing about contraception, she promotes the clinic in English, Italian, and the European-Jewish folk language Yiddish, attracting 150 women the first day.  Ten days later police will shut it down.

What a place Brooklyn is!  Birthplace of birth control, tele-evangelism, and Alcoholics Anonymous.


1920:  Over 30,000 World War I veterans march on Fifth Avenue for soldiers' bonuses.


1925:  Broadway's five time Tony Award winning Actress Angela Lansbury born.


1940:  Basketball playing and management great Dave DeBusschere born.  He was traded to the Knicks after playing pro-basketball and pro-baseball in late 1968.  The big forward turned New York into championship material.  DeBusschere's scoring and rebounding helped the Knicks' attain the 1970 and 1973 NBA championships.  Following his retirement, he became the NY Net's GM, then took over as the American Basketball Association's (ABA) Commissioner.  Later he became the Knicks GM for four years.


1958:  Actor Tim Robbins born.


1962:  The Yankees won their 20th World Series in 40 seasons.  Ralph Terry pitched a no-hitter leading to a 1-0 victory over the Giants in San Francisco, winning the series 4-3. 


1969:  "You Gotta Believe!"  The Amazin' Mets, won the World Series 4-1.  Led by Cleon Jones and Ron Swoboda, they beat the leading team, the Baltimore Orioles 5-3 at Shea Stadium. 

The Birds were the dominant team even before the season began, and they were the favorites.  Yet they peaked early.  The 1962 expansion team Mets were perennial jokes, but they picked up steam through the summer, moving up from ninth place (out of ten National League teams). 

I think the Orioles' luck was spent.  The team was literally and figuratively shaken up by the near crash of an airplane with several players aboard towards the end of the season.

How the heck do I know this?!  In 2008 I was a subcontractor for a researcher (my father) for a book about the 1969 Mets' 40th anniversary of their championship.  I read every sports page of the Baltimore Sun throughout the 1969 Baseball season. 

My father told me he'd tell the writer about the Oriole's airplane nearly crashing.  The project was not completed.

After my father died, the writer was intrigued about the airplane incident.  He wasn't informed about it.  Too bad.  Interviewing the aging Orioles about it might have been interesting.

(1969 was a great year for New York expansion teams beating established Baltimore teams.  The Jets had already beaten the Colts in the Football championships, the first one to be called 'the Superbowl.')


1977:  New York resident rock musician John Mayer born.

1920:  Mario Puzo author and screenwriter for the Godfather born.


1923:  The Yankees win their first World Series 4-2 against the Giant at the Polo Grounds.  This avenged losing the first two Subway Series against the Giants in 1921 and 1922.


1930:  Duke Ellington records "Mood Indigo," his first big hit .


1939:  Mayor LaGuardia dedicated New York Municipal Airport, later renamed for him, in North Beach, Queens on 558 acres of garbage landfill. 

It started with a tantrum: "My ticket says New York, and Newark isn't New York!" 

In 1934 Mayor LaGuardia took a commercial flight to New York.  As scheduled, the plane actually landed in Newark, NJ.  NYC had no commercial airports.  A furious LaGuardia refused to disembark until the plane took him to New York City, a postal airfield in Brooklyn. 

In its day, LGA was very modern.  After World War 2, Jet travel and larger airplanes became the norm.  LGA's now short runways makes flying especially difficult, especially in conditions that are even less than perfect.  Even rain can delay LGA flights which impact a big portion of America's flight traffic.

1951:  The sit com "I Love Lucy" premiered on CBS.   Lucy, Desi and their friends the Mertzes lived on 623 East 68th Street, which is actually just east of Manhattan's Upper East Side.


1964:  Cole Porter, Broadway's great hit-maker, died at 73 on this date.


1969:  The first U.S. war resistor burned his draft card.  Catholic Conscientious Objector David Miller was in direct violation of a new law against what he did.  The FBI arrested him and was sentenced to prison for two years.


1976:  Number one national crime family boss Carlo Gambino died at age 74.


2007:  The New York Yankees and third baseman Alex Rodriguez sign a record 10-year, $275 million contract, the highest in sports history.

1842:  The Croton Reservoir opens at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, where the NY Public Library's Schwartzman Main Branch is today.

1890:  Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas.  Between being the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe winning World War 2, he was President of Columbia University, bringing military research contracts with him.

1893:  Actress Lillian Gish born.  She will die in 1993.

1894:  poet e. e. cummings born. 

We visit his home on wondrous  Patchin Place on my Greenwich Village Tour.  So many stories to share there.

1905:  The Giants win the World Series 4-1, besting the Philadelphia A's at the Polo Grounds.

1912:  Teddy Roosevelt shot in the chest by a New Yorker while campaigning in Milwaukee. Known as the "Rough Rider," he makes his appearance and speech. 


1931:  NBA Referee from 1956-1980, St John's alum Richie Powers born.

1939:  Fashion designer Ralph Lauren born.

1962:  New York Yankees' manager Joe Girardi born.

1986:  Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize.  He is a holocaust survivor and human rights advocate.

1990:  The Composer and Conductor Leonard Bernstein died at age 72 in the Dakotah.  In around 2006 his apartment will sell for $15 million.

I don't do pub crawls for a few reasons.  One of which is that some drinkers get bellicose as they imbibe.

The garrulous group of seniors were already tipsy from unlimited all-inclusive booze.  It was the last night on their cruise, and they had been drinking for two hours.  I expressed concern to the Tour Director that people should not drink while touring.  It was dark out at 7:30 when the bus pulled out.

Normally, this client has the tour run in the afternoon.  That's how we have done it for years. 
But there was a new client representative for me to deal with, and I had to tell her the itinerary.  I guess the old crew left en masse.  This night tour was a new idea, and I expressed concern.

There were two rules for those tours.  Rule 1: Get them back in time for happy hour, and Rule 2: show them the World Trade Center.  Then tour for another two hours.

Now we were rolling in the dark after happy hour was officially done. 

I told my client weeks before that such a late tour in the dark risked being a permutation of rowdiness and/or somnolence.  I used simpler vocabulary.

Unofficially, Happy Hour continued on my tour.  People brought full glasses of cocktails and bottles of wine.  One man climbed aboard armed with fresh bottle in each hand.

I had to quiet some of them down at one point as if they were teenagers or tipsters shouting in a bar the way they do.

We had driven by the WTC so both sides of the bus could look at it.  After, in the dark between the World Trade Center and Chinatown was not much to see, so I spoke of the heroism of Rick Rescorla, one of the heroes of both World Trade Center attacks, who saved nearly 3000 lives. 

An empty wine bottle rolled on the floor clinking against the seats' bars.  It was consumed pretty fast.

The group was rapt for this story except for a well-dressed drunk in his 60s who ambled up front yelling that he was bored of the World Trade Center and he wanted to hear about history.  I told him that the World Trade Center involves history.

At first I thought he was with the Tour Company giving me new directions.  Sometimes tour companies have additional employees, or the owners' wives, on tours that don't identify themselves until they start barking orders as if I should know who they are and be able to have read their thoughts.  One time, the owner of a company's wife throttled my neck from behind and started yelling at close range after she wanted to change up the tour without telling me what she wanted and who she was.  Tour Guides have to react quickly.

He was wearing identification, had kind of sports jacket anchorman and Ivy League haircut look, and he demonstrated purpose and confidence. 

I gathered that he was drunk when I couldn't productively engage him, and then realized he was an irate passenger.

I told him we were a few blocks from Chinatown.  And we were, since we were on Canal near 6th Ave.  I told him the story was almost over, and then we'd be onto different topics again (like we were before the World Trade Center). 

He barked: "Chinatown!  Sounds like HISTory THERE!  Let's hear about CHINAtown!  Can't you tell us some New York history already?  Don't you KNOW anything?  I paid for a HISTory tour.  The World Trade Center isn't history." 

The group wanted me to finish the story. 

He started yelling that he wanted to return back to the ship, that the tour was a rip off.  He was standing in the aisle only a few seats behind.  I told him that the tour would continue, but that we would pull over and let him take a cab back. 

He insisted that we stop at that very moment.  I matter of factly informed him that traffic regulations and safety concerns required that me and the driver agree on a safe spot to pull over to let him off, and that we would as soon as possible.

Up until this point in my career mentioning 'safety and 'laws' and 'soon' suffices.

He was impatient.  He loomed over me.

When we arrived at a clear drop-off spot a minute or so later, I had a quick decision to make. 

If I let this belligerent stumbling drunk step off the bus unassisted, he might fall on his face.  In Tour Guiding Class we were taught to be off the bus to make sure everyone following disembarks safely. 

But if I stepped off ahead of him to be there to catch him, he might assault me. 

He rushed the door.  I cut him off, stepped off first, then pivoted quickly to spot his rapid descent, since he tailed me.  He followed me to the curb, and I explained how to catch a taxi.  There were plenty around, all already hired.

By this point the Tour's Director had disembarked.  She was standing beside him.  He followed me back to the bus, making angry remarks.  He cocked his arm back as if to take a swing at my face. 

I think I stepped out of range while I reckoned that if I were assaulted that I could probably leave him behind and continue with the tour with a punched face.

The Tour Director grabbed his arm, held it back, tucked it to his side, and I re-embarked with her quickly following.  The driver slammed the door shut, and away we went. 

By the time we were at the Bowery at the end of Canal, my adrenaline calmed.

As we passed some Irish bars on the way to Times Square one chanted for us to go to a bar. 

By tour's end the passengers agreed that it was a good history and city lights tour.

After we disembarked, the Tour Director said she was glad to hold his arm down because if he assaulted me they would have had to involve the police which would delay and ruin the tour.  She already had the passengers sign waivers before the tour to let them drink on the bus, so I suppose she'd have to stop the tour if I were assaulted to reduce liability.

1843:  B'nai Brith International, a secular Jewish charity, disaster-relief and service network, founded by a dozen German-speaking immigrants at Sinsheimer's Saloon at 60 Essex Street. 

500,000 men and women are members of B'nai B'rith, about 3% of the world's Jewry.
The name means "Sons of the Covenant."


I like to point out their obscure plaque installed there on the wall of a public housing project.  We visit the spot on my Lower East Side tours.the oldest Jewish service organization in the world, is founded in New York City


1903:  Babes in Toyland replaces the Wizard of Oz at the Majestic Theater.


1925:  Lenny Bruce, the controversial American comedian, who shared x-rays of his personal life in comedy clubs on Bleecker Street and Greenwich Village clubs was born.  He died in 1966 after changing comedy into shocking truth and confession about what is going on in our heads and lives.


1941:  Singer-songwriter Paul Simon born.

1960:  The Yankees lost the World Series.  The game ended with a home run for the first time in World Series history.


1962:  Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened on Broadway. 

We visit the Cherry Lane Theatre on my Greenwich Village Tours, which is where it first premiered in NYC.


1974:  Ed Sullivan  died in NYC at 73.


1998:  The NBA canceled the first two weeks of the season due to a lockout.


2006:  The UN General Assembly appointed South Korean's Ban Ki-moon secretary-general.

1645:  The Dutch chartered Flushing.  Later it will help establish religious tolerance in America.

1770:  The Erie Canal's engineer Benjamin Wright born.  The canal cemented NYC as the great American port for about 140 years.  It was a publicly funded investment that paid for itself before it was even completed.

1775:  General Howe chosen to lead British army.

1885:  The largest intentional detonation (until the atomic bomb) happens over 9 acres to  improve ship navigation through the East River's Hell Gate Channel.  The army blasted
three-hundred-thousand pounds of dynamite there.

1900:  Broadway's beloved Helen Hayes born.

1917:  NYC and Julliard's Jazz great Thelonious Monk born.

1935:  "Porgy and Bess," George Gershwin's opera featuring an all-black cast using black idioms opens on Broadway at the Alvin.  It was considered the US' first great opera.

1946:  Broadway acting and dancing talent Ben Vereen born.

1954:  Happy Birthday Rock star David Lee Roth from Van Halen.

1956:  The last "Wait 'till next year" in Brooklyn as the Yankees 9-0 take the World Series from them 4-3 in the series:

1973:  Two days after a two-team brawl and the fans throwing garbage onto the field, the Mets beat Cincinnati 7-2 take the National League Pennant.  Tens of thousands of fans storm the NY Shea Stadium field and tear the turf and trash the stadium.

1985:  Yul Brenner known for the King and I died in Manhattan.

2004:  Julliard alum, Superman, and philanthropist Christopher Reeve dies at age 52.

2012:  Robert Lefkowitz wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry "studies of G-protein-coupled receptors."  He is the 8th graduate of the Bronx High School of Science to be awarded a Nobel Prize.