Category Archives: History

The Domed Stadium That Would Have Kept The Dodgers In Brooklyn

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The Unbuilt Brooklyn Dodgers Domed Baseball Stadium – 1956

Model of the proposed domed all-weather sports stadium planned to house the Brooklyn Dodgers is unveiled at the Dodger offices. photo Bob Laird February 6 1956

Model of the proposed domed all-weather sports stadium planned to house the Brooklyn Dodgers is unveiled at the Dodger offices. photo Bob Laird February 6 1956

There are many “might have been’s” in baseball. One of the greatest has always been what if the Dodgers never left Brooklyn?

This photograph of what looks more like a kiddy pool with a baseball diamond in it, is a low-tech model of the proposed all-weather baseball stadium the Brooklyn Dodgers wanted to build. The Dodgers proposal was made ten years before the Houston Astrodome, the world’s first domed sports stadium made its debut in 1965.

For years before they moved to Los Angeles in 1958, Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers owner, had complained about the functionality of Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The ballpark had character, but  O’Malley considered it old and too small with only 32,111 seats and parking for 700 cars.

In 1955, O’Malley enlisted architect R. Buckminster Fuller to design a domed stadium to possibly replace Ebbets Field. The stadium would be in the form of a large bowl and seat approximately 55,000 people. Over the stadium, supported on a light-weight aluminum truss structure, would be a thin plastic dome 750 feet in diameter. The dome would be 300 feet high at its center and it would weigh only 500 tons. Up to that time the largest dome ever built was the 365 foot diameter Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain in 1951. Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #58 – Panorama Columbus Circle 1904

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Panoramic View of Columbus Circle – 1904

Columbus Circle Trolley 1904 photo: National ArchivesThis phenomenal panoramic street level view of Columbus Circle comes via the National Archives. On their website it is misidentified as Eighth Avenue Trolley, (true – Eighth Avenue changes names to Central Park West) Downtown (which it certainly is not.) Click the photo to greatly enlarge.

We are looking north from 59th Street (Central Park South). The Columbus monument is not visible, but would be to the extreme left near where two gentlemen are standing in the street. Directly behind them are two subway kiosks for the entrance and exit of the soon to be opened New York City subway system.

Besides the subway, the new metropolis is emerging in other ways. An automobile is heading east towards Central Park South. To the left of the automobile, a trolley makes its way up Central Park West. To the left of the trolley is one of many horse drawn vehicles traveling up and down Broadway. Continue reading →

Child Labor and Poverty In New York – 1910

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7-Year-Old Gerald Schaitberger Sells Newspapers At Columbus Circle – October 8, 1910 At 9:30 p.m.

We Answer The Question: What Became of this Little Boy?

Jerald Schaitberger of 416 W. 57th St. N.Y. helps his older brother sell papers until 10 P.M. on Columbus Circle. 7 yrs. old. 9:30 P.M., October 8, 1910. Photo by Paul B. Schumm / Library of Congress

Photograph number 1 of Jerald Schaitberger 7 yrs. old, of 416 W. 57th St. N.Y. as he helps to sell papers until 10 P.M. on Columbus Circle. Photo taken 9:30 P.M. on October 8, 1910. Photo by Paul B. Schumm / Library of Congress

This scene captured by photographer Paul Schumm at 9:30 in the evening of Saturday, October 8, 1910 shows 7-year-old Gerald Schaitberger selling newspapers at Columbus Circle in front of a subway kiosk. The Library of Congress holds two photos of Gerald (misspelled as Jerald on the LOC website) seen here.

Over 100 years after they were taken, these two photographs still stir strong emotions about child labor and poverty.

According to 1910 census records, Gerald lived a couple of blocks away from Columbus Circle with his 36-year-old father Emanuel, mother Julia, six siblings and grandfather Michael. Emanuel was a clerk working in the fur industry and his eldest son Joseph, 15, worked at the newsstand to help make ends meet.

Apparently this cool October evening  Joseph enlisted the help of younger brother Gerald to aid in selling the papers.

Here is the second photo of Gerald taken a few seconds after the first. After he has apparently made the successful sale, Gerald looks up for approval at his older brother.

Jerald Schaitberger of 416 W. 57th St. N.Y. helps his older brother sell papers until 10 P.M. on Columbus Circle. 7 yrs. old. 9:30 P.M., October 8, 1910. Photo by Paul B. Schumm / Library of Congress

Photograph number 2 of Jerald Schaitberger 7 yrs. old. of 416 W. 57th St. N.Y. helping sell papers until 10 P.M. on Columbus Circle. taken at 9:30 P.M., October 8, 1910. Photo by Paul B. Schumm / Library of Congress

Young Gerald is so eager to help his poor family. When you zoom in on the photographs, you notice some interesting details.

The first is a close-up is of Gerald himself.

Jerald Schaitberger 416 W57th St loc 10 8 1910 Columbus Circle close upThe anticipation shows in Gerald’s eyes as he meekly offers the paper to the awaiting customer. The evening newspaper headline says that the “Yankees Win Two” and that the Giants lost the second game of their doubleheader on the final day of the regular season. Continue reading →

Rae Samuels & The Last Bottle Of Beer

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Vaudeville Star Rae Samuels Tries To “Steal” A Heavily Insured Bottle of Beer

Rae Samuels last bottle of beer Dec 30 1932Will Prohibition Be Finished? – The last bottle of beer that was distilled in the U.S.A. before prohibition and that during several years was a fine attraction of theatres and shows in Chicago – Americans like a good joke, will surely “have lived.” This bottle of beer has been insured against “accidents” for $25,000.

You know, it’s funny how some stories change when you start looking into them.

When I first started to write about this news photograph the focus was on the end of prohibition. But then I wondered who was the unidentified woman in the photograph? It turned out that her story was more interesting than the beer bottle and the end of prohibition.

The woman being “pinched” by the cop is Rae Samuels, for over 20 years one of vaudeville’s biggest stars, earning $2,500 per week. She is so forgotten today that she does not even have a Wikipedia page. (UPDATE – Eight years after this story was originally written, Wikipedia’s oversight was rectified.) Continue reading →

The Day A Plane Landed On The George Washington Bridge

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50 Years Ago Today – How Philip Ippolito Landed His Airplane On The George Washington Bridge

Philip Ippolito and passenger Joseph Brennan Jr. walked away from this emergency plane landing on the George Washington Bridge December 26, 1965. photo: Life Magazine

Philip Ippolito and passenger Joseph Brennan Jr. made an emergency landing on the George Washington Bridge, December 26, 1965. photo: Life Magazine

The world was amazed in 2009 when Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger landed his hobbled jetliner on the Hudson River without any loss of life. It was an incredible feat of savvy piloting.

A forgotten episode of amazing aeronautical maneuvering occurred 50 years ago when on Sunday, December 26, 1965, 19-year-old Philip Ippolito of the Bronx, made a successful emergency landing on the top level of the George Washington Bridge.

Flight path of Philip Ippolito - illustration New York Times

Flight path of Philip Ippolito 1: Plane embarked 2: engine problems 3: GW Bridge – illustration New York Times

Ippolito had rented a 34 foot wide Aeronca Champion single prop plane for $10 per hour for two hours from Ramapo Valley Airport in Spring Valley, NY. He planned on a morning joy ride to visit a former flight instructor friend in Red Bank, NJ. Along with Ippolito was a friend, passenger, Joseph F. Brennan Jr., 39. The pair departed from Spring Valley at 9 a.m.

About 20 minutes into the flight at an altitude of 3,100 feet over Manhattan, the engine began to falter. Ippolito kept trying to revive the engine but it was not working. With the plane losing altitude rapidly and the engine sputtering, Ippolito looked over the icy Hudson River and thought of trying to make a water landing. He asked Brennan if he could swim to which Brennan replied, “Not a stroke.”

Ippolito quickly thought about his options on where to make an emergency landing. The New Jersey Meadowlands, which Ippolito thought would be too soft and swampy from recent rain and the George Washington Bridge looming a couple of miles ahead to the north with relatively light traffic. With no time to lose, Ippolito turned the plane around and headed for the bridge. Continue reading →

History Channel – Hunting Hitler (And Ratings)

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History Channel Treads Ground Covered Ad Nauseum By Sensationalist Magazine 50 + Years Ago

National Police Gazette cover May 1964, One of many times Hitler was featured on the Gazette cover

National Police Gazette cover May 1964, One of many times Hitler was featured on the Gazette cover

The History Channel has been stretching a not very unique idea into an eight episode program with few surprises called Hunting Hitler.  The premise is that Nazi Fuehrer Adolf Hitler and his consort Eva Braun faked their suicides and fled Berlin in the closing days of the war.

Even before the show aired there have been many people (not just among conspiracy theorists), who believe it is possible that Hitler did not die by his own hand in an underground bunker on April 30, 1945 as widely reported.

Until definitive evidence surfaces on what happened to Hitler, there is only one thing that is certain, unless he is the Methuselah of vile dictators, Hitler is now definitely dead. Continue reading →

When Rent Cost $10 Per Week In New York City

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The Cost of Apartment Living In New York In 1892

Lexington Avenue and 64th Street - typical turn of the century brownstones

Lexington Avenue and 64th Street – typical turn of the century brownstones

New York has always had a wide range of housing choices. But the gulf in living conditions between rich and the poor remains vast. If you have a lot of money, your housing choices are unlimited. If not, you are hard pressed to find anything decent. As Kansas gunslinger and New York journalist Bat Masterson observed in his final column, “Everybody gets the same amount of ice — the rich get theirs in the summer and the poor get theirs in the winter.”

The lowest of New York's living quarters: the 7 cent per night lodging house

The lowest of New York’s living quarters: the 7 cent per night lodging house

Over time when it comes to housing a lot of things have changed, others have not. In 1892 living conditions for the very poor in New York were abysmal. Maybe not as bad as they are now, but pretty close. The majority of New Yorker’s were not living in poverty, but were just plain working people at various income levels; some struggling to survive and in many cases raise a family.

Which brings us to the question about living in New York in 1892 – just what sort of housing did you get for your money?

Kings Handbook of New York coverThe fabulous King’s Handbook of New York City, (1892), delves into everything related to New York, including home life, and answers the question.

One chapter in the book devotes itself to the types of housing available in New York.

The mansions, high class homes, bachelor apartments, middle income flats, boarding houses, tenements and lodging houses are all covered.

The most surprising thing is that you could live in a relatively decent neighborhood with room and board for about $10 per week. Realize of course that an unskilled laborer might barely earn that amount of money and paying room and board put them at the the precipice of poverty. For those people it typically meant finding lodging at a $2 per week boarding house.

152nd Street Riverside Drive Onondaga Apartments postcardThe wealthy, professional and merchant classes could afford to choose their housing according to taste and preferences with a good deal of flexibility. The middle class also had choices which varied widely. So when you read about what you got for your money at $50 or more per month, you cannot help but feel envy for Gotham’s dwellers of the past. You come away with the feeling that New York was a much more affordable city 123 years ago. The prices quoted may have you looking for a time machine.

From King’s Handbook, a selection from the section on housing: Continue reading →

Horror Movie or Hockey Player?

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Who’s Behind This Mask?

Jacques Plante 1st mask 1946 1 23Though your first guess of who might be behind this frightening mask may be Hannibal Lecter,  Jason or Leatherface, it is actually hockey player Jacques Plante.

The legendary Montreal Candiens goalie was not the first to use a mask for protection, but Jacques Plante was the player to introduce the goalie mask as everyday equipment. Before Plante, the only goalie previously to wear a mask was the Montreal Maroons’ Clint Benedict who wore one briefly in 1930 to protect a broken nose.

This Associated Press photo was taken January 23, 1948 when Plante was just 19-years-old. He was playing organized hockey for the Quebec Citadelles and was still five years away from his NHL debut with the Canadiens.

This leather and fiber mask Plante wore in 1948, was used only in practices because there were so many pucks coming at him at once.

photo via sb nation habs eyes on the prize Plante hurtPlante first donned a mask in a game on November 1, 1959 against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Plante was struck on the left side of his  nose and upper lip in the first period on a shot from Andy Bathgate. The game was delayed 20 minutes as Plante left the ice, received seven stitches and returned wearing a plexiglass mask (not the one seen in the photo above).

photo via sb nation habs eyes on the prize Plante bloodiedMontreal coach Toe Blake, a traditionalist, had been an ardent opponent of Plante wearing a mask. Continue reading →

Unusual News Stories From A Small Town Newspaper in 1881

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A Horse Commits Suicide, A Man Falls 60 Feet From A Building And Is Uninjured & Instructions On How To Wash Your Face

lowville times bannerInteresting “News” From The Lowville Times In The Summer of 1881

photo: Yester-Images of Lowville NY on postcards by Larry Myers

photo: Yester-Images of Lowville NY on postcards by Larry Myers

Lowville is a sleepy town in Lewis County, upstate New York, about 40 miles east of Lake Ontario and about 90 miles north of Syracuse. Just under 5,000 people call this town home. The most famous person associated with Lowville is probably Peter Ostrum, who played Charlie in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Peter is a veterinarian at Countryside Veterinary Clinic in Lowville.

lowville new york map circa 1870sThe town was founded in 1797 and by 1881 had a population which was a tad over 3,000 people, mostly comprised of assiduous  farmers and merchants.

Like most aspiring small towns across America, Lowville had their own newspaper, a weekly journal comprised of four pages called the Lowville Times which existed from 1876-1884. It featured a smattering of national and international news, but the main feature for the citizens of Lowville and the surrounding towns of Copenhagen, Carthage, Constableville, Martinsburgh and Boonville, was the “local matters” section on page three.

It featured not so much news as it did gossip, illnesses, births, deaths, religious revivals, calls for temperance, arrivals and departures of visitors, and rumblings about town and other community news from larger towns around New York State.

An accurate statement in the newspaper of August 25, 1881 read “A stranger visiting Lowville on Wednesday, the day of the Band Boys’ excursion would have pronounced it a dull place.” What the paper doesn’t say is that this was probably true 360 days out of the year. But in the 19th century it was a beautiful town, with hills and rolling meadows. The pace of life was slow and hard work was rewarded with leisurely pleasures, like regular town picnics featuring music and refreshments.

Besides reporting local mundane items like, ” The picnic was well attended on Saturday last,” and “R.J. Richardson and Frank Doig killed 17 woodcock on Tuesday,” there are stories that are succinct, unusual and interesting.

Here are a selection of short news items with some editorial flair from the summer of 1881:

June 23 – Mr. Albert Eldridge, foreman in the Lowville Manufacturing Co.’s saw mill had a tussel with a hand spike, and we should judge by the looks of his eye that he got the worst of the bargain. Continue reading →

Gangster Al Capone Goes To A Baseball Game

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Hall-of-Famer Gabby Hartnett Signs Autographs For Al Capone and His Son – 1931

Al Capone sees a Cubs game with son as Gabby Hartnett signs autograph 1931 9 10Associated Press Photo From Chicago

Al Capone takes his son to the ball game surrounded by his watchful lieutenants. Chicago’s gang chief and his 12-year-old son, Al Jr., get Gabby Hartnett of the Cubs to autograph a baseball just before the Cubs defeated the White Sox, 3 to 0, in a charity game before 35,000 spectators at Comiskey Park, Chicago, Sept. 9. Pictures of Capone before the public are not frequent, and a pose with his son is rare. He affectionately calls the boy “Sonny.”

Note the watchfulness of one of his bodyguards directly behind him. A pop-corn vendor evidently rubbed his shoulder and he looks ready to protect his chief. 9-9-31

This photograph made me wonder if Al Capone’s bodyguards were licensed to carry firearms and if they were packing heat when they visited Comiskey Park? It certainly looks like the bodyguard is reaching into his jacket to pull out his “roscoe” or maybe it was his wallet to pay for the popcorn.

One other thing to note: “Sonny,” does not look thrilled to be at the ballpark, much less getting an autograph from Gabby Hartnett.