Posted: Apr 9, 2013 | 11:17 PM
1810: Benjamin H. Day the New York Sun's founder born. He died in 1889.
We see the New York Sun's old headquarters on Newspaper Row on Santa Claus tours, aka Santa's NYC Tour, aka Santa the New York City Tour, aka Santa the NYC Tour, as well as NYC architecture tours, Downtown tours, Municipal District tours, and Brooklyn Bridge tours.
The Sun: It Shines for All.
1836: The birth of the sensational American tabloid news story: Richard Robinson, a wealthy 'john' of prostitute Helen Jewett, hacked her to death in her bed after she threatened to tell his fiancee about their trysts. He was charged with murder. Robinson was later acquitted because "No man should hang for the murder of a whore."
1841: The New York Daily Tribune premiered with Horace Greeley as its first editor. In that era, being editor of a New York paper made you a nationally influential figure, sometimes a politician.
1847: Perhaps New York City's most famous Hungarian immigrant, Joseph Pulitzer who published the number one newspaper in the world, The World, which was in the world's tallest building, which helped invent investigative reporting, was born. Joseph Pulitzer led the campaign for immigrants to pay for the construction of the 'Statue of Liberty' in New York Harbor, including commissioning the famous poem, "The New Colossus," by Emma Lazarus: "I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
We pay tribute to Joseph Pulitzer on Statue of Liberty tours, and on New York Harbor tours. We see Newspaper Row on Santa Claus tours, aka Santa's NYC Tour, aka Santa the New York City Tour, aka Santa the NYC Tour, as well as Downtown tours, architecture tours, and World Trade Center tours.
1866: The ASPCA was incorporated to save New York City's work horses from being beaten to death in the streets, and to save all animals from cruelty. New York State chartered the organization to enforce the state's pioneering humane laws.
We see the ASPCA horse fountains on Central Park tours. We see the ASPCA Fountain on Upper West Side tours and Riverside Park tours.
1880: Frances Perkins, the first woman cabinet member (1933-45) as the Secretary of Labor, started her career in the wake of the Triangle Manufacturing Disaster of 1911. She said the New Deal Reforms that she introduced and emplaced were born twenty years earlier from the blood on the streets outside the factory. She died in 1965.
We see the Triangle Shirtwaist Manufacturing Company on Greenwich Village tours, NYU tours aka New York University Tours, East Village Tours, Immigration tours, and Lower East Side tours.
See also March 4th.
See also December 30th.
See also March 25th 1911.
1913: The Titanic embarked on its journey from Southampton UK to France, then Ireland on its way to New York City. Five days later it will sink, killing hundreds of passengers.
We see the Pier at which the Titanic was supposed to dock on Highline tours, M.S.O. tours a,ka Manhattan Step On tours, aka Manhattan Sites Orientation tours.
We see the Lighthouse that was supposed to greet the Titanic on Seaport tours aka South Street Seaport tours.
1925: F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" was published.
We see where Fitzgerald and Hemingway's publisher was on Midtown tours, Fifth Avenue tours, Rockefeller Center tours, MSO tours, Manhattan Step-on Guide tours, and Manhattan sights orientation tours.
1947: Brooklyn Dodgers Manager
Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play in Major League Baseball, integrating the white league with a talented, pleasant, but tough player.
I wonder about those crackers who threw insults and garbage at him. Do they remember doing it? Do they feel regret? Pride? How do they feel about baseball today? Did they switch to other sports? Have they learned anything?
1960: Rapper Afrika Bambaataa born in the Bronx.
Posted: Apr 9, 2013 | 8:14 AM
1691: NYC's representative government system began in a Pearl Street Tavern as its first elected assembly met there.
We visit the site of Governor Lovelace's Tavern on Downtown tours, Financial District tours, and Colonial NYC tours.
1813: New York legalized slaves' marriages.
1888: Sal Hurok born in Russia (now Ukraine). As an impresario he popularized ballet and classical music in the United States. He died in 1974.
1898: Paul Robeson, deep baritone singer "Old Man River," actor, and civil rights leader born. An amazing individual. We see where he lived on Harlem tours, Uptown tours, and Columbia tours. He died in 1976.
1913: The Brooklyn Dodgers' new stadium, Ebbet's Field, opens.
1947: Brooklyn Dodger manager Leo "the Lip" Durocher suspended from baseball for associating with gamblers.
1965: Happy Birthday to Czech model Paulina Porizkova, wife of Ric Ocasek.
Apparently my fiancee and I walked past them. I found out when fiancee accused me of looking at the model, but I was navigating the sidewalk and only noted two tall people dressed darkly. That neighborhood is on my Chelsea tours, Flatiron District tours, and Manhattan Step On tours, aka MSO tours, aka Manhattan Sights Orientation tours.
1966: Happy Birthday Cynthia Nixon, an actress famous for "Sex and the City." She is a frequent Broadway player.
I used to see her on Columbia's campus as an undergrad. We see that neighborhood on Columbia University tours, Uptown tours, and some MSO tours, aka Manhattan Step-on tours, aka Manhattan Sights Orientation tours.
Posted: Apr 8, 2013 | 12:01 AM
1880: Millionaires Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and other wealthy New Yorkers founded the Metropolitan Opera after they were shut out from obtaining
the Academy of Music's conspicuous box seats.
1880...After they are unable to get box seats at the Academy of Music on 14th Street, millionaires Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould join other wealthy New Yorkers to form another company – The Metropolitan Opera. The Metropolitan will open in three-and-a-half years. See October 22nd.
We see where the 14th Street locations of the Academy of Music were on East Village tours, Union Square tours, Irving Place tours, and Gramercy Park tours. We see the Metropolitan Opera on Upper West Side tours, and MSO tours aka Manhattan Step On Guide Tours, aka Manhattan Sights Orientation tours.
1992: Beloved Tennis player and activist Arthur Ashe announced that he had AIDS from a blood transfusion. He died in 1993.
We see where Ashe volunteered in philanthropy at the Commonwealth Foundation, in the gorgeous old Harkness Mansion on Upper East Side tours, and Manhattan Step-on tours (MSO), aka Manhattan Sights Orientation tours.
Full Story
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.
Posted: Apr 5, 2013 | 11:37 PM
1712: NYC's first Slave Revolt: Nine whites were killed, then six slaves were killed by British soldiers quelling the uprising.
1789: The US Senate achieved its first quorum and elected its officers; Electoral College ballots were counted, and
George Washington was unanimously elected President of the United States.
We visit where this happened, at Federal Hall, on Downtown tours, George Washington's New York City Tour, Santa Claus the NYC Tour, and my New York City Birth of a Nation Tour.
1845: A group of German immigrants met in a second floor loft on the Lower East Side to form NYC's first reform Jewish congregation. The influx and success of German Jewish immigrants enabled the congregation's growth and moves uptown. Today the congregation is housed in
the Upper East Side's Temple Emanu-el – the largest synagogue in the world.
We go by
Temple Emanu-el on Upper East Side tours, and my MSO tours, aka Manhattan Step On tours or Manhattan Sights Orientation tours, as well as Jewish New York City tours, aka Jewish NYC tours.
1892: Donald W. Douglas, Sr., founder of Douglas aircraft, born in Brooklyn in modest middle class circumstances. Douglas' manufacturing occurred outside of NYC.
1975: Zach Braff, actor, born in NJ.
1992: Prolific author, most known for science fiction, and Columbia grad, Isaac Asimov died at 72.
We visit Columbia University on Columbia tours, aka Columbia University tours, as well as Uptown tours.
1998: The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 9,000 points for the first time. Irrational exuberance? The Dot Com boom: I was there. Exciting, fun, stupid, brilliant, far-out: I see some parallels in the tourism industry with a few industry players and wannabes. I've learned to trust my gut and to say no.
Posted: Apr 5, 2013 | 12:49 AM
1807: A panel is appointed to plan the layout of streets for fast-growing New York City, doubling every ten years through the early 20th Century. They recommended the real estate industry friendly grid roughly running east-west and north-south.
We see the seams and limits of the grid on SoHo tours, Greenwich Village tours, Lower East Side tours, Chelsea tours, Santa Claus Tours.
Note to self: What role did John Jacob Astor have in the creation of the grid?
1937: Former Secretary of State, pride of the Bronx and City College Colin Powell born.
We see City College on Harlem tours and Washington Heights tours.
1943: Actor Max Gail from "Barney Miller" born.
1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union.
Ethel wasn't guilty and we see where her jail was on Greenwich Village tours.
Posted: Apr 4, 2013 | 12:54 AM
1776: General George Washington arrived to lead rebel Continental Army forces against the British. In July he would read the Declaration of Independence. A few months after that they would attack the British in Long Island / Brooklyn. By Autumn the British evicted the Continental Army from the New York City area. Washington returned to NYC in 1783 to liberate NYC from the British, and he returned in April 1789 to become the first President of the U.S.
We cover this history in Downtown tours, Colonial NYC tours, Financial District tours, Uptown tours, and Washington Heights tours.
1928: Maya Angelou, poet, activist, dancer, actress born elsewhere.
1932: Legendary record producer Clive Davis born in Brooklyn. In 2013 his memoirs were published.
1932: Actor Anthony Perkins born here. He died in 1992.
1968: Terrence Cooke is ordained as Archbishop of New York.
His namesake hospital inspires talk about anti-Catholic discrimination as well as how Catholics and Irish responded to that by developing a parallel social service system that has benefited millions. This is part of Upper East Side tours, and Catholic tours.
1972: Former Harlem Congressman and "Mr. Civil Rights" Adam Clayton Powell died in Miami at 63.
We learn about his remarkable life on Harlem tours.
1973: Born in Brooklyn: David Blaine, illusionist and endurance artist with several world records.
1973: The World Trade Center's Twin Towers opened after almost seven years of construction.
1974: This was NOT part of the official opening ceremonies, but it helped humanize those silent sentinel behemoths.
We experience the audacities, boldness, awe, heinosity, heroism, and inspiration of the original World Trade Center, Ground Zero, the new World Trade Center, and the National 9/11 Memorial on World Trade Center Tours, aka WTC Tours, aka The World Trade Center Tour ©, aka the World Trade Center 360 Tour ©, the Word Trade Center Deep History Tour ©, the World Trade Center Indomitable Spirit Tour ©, and the Heroes of the World Trade Center and its Memorial Tour.
2007: Radio host Don Imus insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team because he was projecting his prejudices on young women based on his biased interpretations of their appearances. He thought they were thugs. It turned out that they were not just talented ball players, but scholars, many working jobs to put themselves through school. Educated, working, and playing top level sports: these are the cream of the crop. It is difficult to do any one of these things. He was later fired by CBS Radio and cable network MSNBC.
He got rehired.
In February or March 2013 I was doing a Central Park tour near Strawberry Fields. Don Imus' husklike visage peered from his luxury SUV's window after enjoying the park's transverse views. He looked bitter and on-edge seeing me, projecting my thoughts onto him. His window rolled up.
I shared with my group my sighting. They didn't know who he was.
I saw Larry David and Yoko Ono around there, too, over the years. Larry David was on edge and Yoko was equaninimous both times I saw her in Central Park.
Posted: Apr 3, 2013 | 12:15 AM
1783: The Father of American Literature, a consummate New Yorker, and a developer of Santa Claus and the taming of Christmas, Washington Irving born in New York City.
Washington Irving plays a prominent role in my Santa Claus New York Tour.
1823: Boss Tweed born.
We visit some of Boss Tweed's haunts on Downtown Tours,
Five Points tours, Santa Claus tours, East Village tours, Union Square tours, and
Lower East Side tours!
1884: Bud Fisher, creator of the Mutt and Jeff comic strip born in Chicago. He lived his last 33 years in NYC.
1898: Henry Luce the giant of magazine publishing (Time, Sports Illustrated, Life Magazine) born abroad to evangelists.
It is interesting how he opened up his enterprises to go beyond boostering the Cold War, but joining in providing information to clandestine agencies, as well as providing cover for covert activities. Patriotism is great, but this sort of abuse puts journalists in danger. In addition, it calls into question what is being reported and what is not being reported.
1936: The Bronx' Bruno Hauptmann executed in N.J., for the kidnap-murder of the Lindbergh baby.
1944: Singer "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree" Tony Orlando born in NYC. He grew up in rough Hell's Kitchen.
An Academy bus driver I worked with is a cousin of his and says Orlando is a great relative.
The tying of yellow ribbons for hostages and soldiers comes from this song.
1958: Actor Alec Baldwin "30 Rock" born. Baldwin is Saturday Night Live's most frequent guest host. 30 Rock is based on Lorne Micheals the producer of Saturday Night Live.
1959: Broadway star and Upper West Sider David Hyde Pierce born.
We visit his neighborhood on Upper West Side tours.
1961: Eddie Murphy born. His career skyrocketed from Saturday Night Live.
1978: Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Allen did not attend the ceremony. He was playing his regular clarinet gig with his band at the Carlyle.
I went to college and camp with Young Alvie Singer, Jonathan Munk. Great guy. Every time Annie Hall was on TV somewhere he'd get a small check that he'd blow on cigarettes and beer. Jon gets his thrills from chasing tornadoes with his wife.
1996: Pride of Harlem U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown died in a plane crash in Europe while on a business development mission in Croatia.
1998: The Dow Jones industrial average bulled above 9,000 for the first time.
Full Story
Posted: Apr 2, 2013 | 12:42 AM
1834: Frederic Auguste Bartholdi,
who left his mark on NYC
with his 'Statue of Liberty,' born in France. He died in 1904.
1862: Nicholas Murray Butler, longtime President of Columbia University (1902-1945), failed political candidate and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (for co-founding the Carnegie Institute of Peace and assisting the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war), born. He died in 1947.
He transitioned Columbia to its Morningside campus, an era of great building, and transformed it into a research university on the German model. He also founded the first research hospital.
Students sent to him for discipline were stuck in his private elevator, addressing him through the bars. Butler had a difficult relationship with Jews and undergraduates. He had a good relationship with Mussolini, up to a point.
1872: Telegraph inventor, painter, NYU Professor, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, and pro-slavery Samuel Morse died in Manhattan at 79.
1875: Walter Chrysler born.
His Chrysler Building was never the automobile company's headquarters, more like an advertisement.
That is not Moses Gates up there.
The building's land is owned by Cooper Union. There is talk of renaming the building for much needed income.
We see the Chrysler Building on Midtown Tours, 42nd Street tours, and Grand Central Terminal tours. We also experience Cooper Union on East Village tours.
1972: Gil Hodges, a legendary Brooklyn Dodger and Mets manager died of a heart attack at 48.
1986: New York City banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations.
1992: Gambino Crime family boss John Gotti was convicted in New York for murder and racketeering.
We see Gotti's neighborhood on NoLiIta tours and Little Italy tours.
