New York City 1950-2000
Return to home
1950 Jan 5,
Carson McCuller's "Member of the Wedding," premiered in NYC.
(www.carson-mccullers.com/mccullers/timeline.htm)
1950 Jan 21, A federal jury in New
York City found former State Department official Alger Hiss guilty of
perjury.
(AP, 1/21/98)
1950 Jan, The NY Sun newspaper,
founded in 1833, went out of business.
(SFC, 4/17/02, p.A2)
1950 Feb 15, WM Inge's "Come Back,
Little Sheba," premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=1867)
1950 Feb 20, Welsh author-poet
Dylan Thomas arrived in NYC for his 1st US poetry reading tour.
(www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2488&articleaction=print)
1950 Feb 23, New York's
Metropolitan Museum exhibited a collection of Hapsburg art. It was the
first showing of this collection in the U.S.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1950 Feb 26, Leonard Bernstein's
"Age of Anxiety" premiered in NYC.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1950 Mar 9, Willie Sutton robbed
the NYC Manufacturers Bank of $64,000.
(www.astorialic.org/topics/timeline/1950.shtml)
1950 Mar 15, "Consul" opened at
Barrymore Theater in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/venue.asp?ID=1147)
1950 Mar 23, "Great to Be Alive"
opened at Winter Garden Theater in NYC for 52 perform-ances.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1950 Apr 24, "Peter Pan" opened at
Imperial Theater in NYC for 320 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/venue.asp?ID=1208)
1950 May 18, "Liar" opened at
Broadhurst Theater in NYC for 12 performances.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1950 May 25, Brooklyn-Battery
Tunnel opened in NYC.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1950 Sep 9, "Where's Charley?"
closed at St James Theater NYC after 792 performances.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1950 Nov 24, The musical "Guys and
Dolls," based on the writings of Damon Runyon and featuring songs by
Frank Loesser, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 11/24/06)
1950 Dec 20, "Harvey," starring
James Stewart, premiered in NY.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1950 Willem de Kooning, leading
light of the New York School, painted "Excavation," mael-stroms of
weaving and careening lines and roiling forms.
(WSJ, 12/5/96, p.A16)(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A6)(SFC,
6/28/02, p.D1)
1950 An industrial explosion
exacerbated oil leakage into Newtown Creek, which separates Brooklyn
from Queens. The problem was ignored until the coast Guard rediscovered
it in 1978 and determined that oil was leaking from nearby refineries
and storage facilities. In 1990 ExxonMobil signed a consent agreement
with the state of NY to clean up the creek. In 2007 oil still floated
on the water.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.32)
c1950 Sam Osman (d.2000 at 88), a
push cart vendor, opened Job Lot Trading Co. at 41 Ve-sey St. near City
Hall.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A21)
1950-1990 This period was later covered by Louis
Stettner in his guidebook: "Louis Stettner's New York 1950-1990."
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T5)
1951 Jan 10, UN headquarters
opened in Manhattan, NY.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1951 Jan 16, World's largest gas
pipeline opened from Brownsville Tx, to 134th St, NYC.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1951 Jan 27, "Peter Pan" closed at
Imperial Theater NYC after 320 performances.
(MC, 1/27/02)
1951 Feb 16, NYC passed a bill
prohibiting racism in city-assisted housing.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1951 Mar 7, Lillian Hellman's
"Autumn Garden," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1951 Mar 29, Rodgers and
Hammerstein's musical "The King and I" starring Gertrude Law-rence and
Yul Brynner opened at the St James Theater on Broadway and ran for 1246
per-formances.
(HN, 3/29/01)(MC, 3/29/02)
1951 Apr 5, Husband and wife
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of New York City were sentenced to death by
Judge Irving R. Kaufman on charges of selling US atomic secrets to the
Soviet Un-ion, enabling the Soviets to detonate their first nuclear
weapon in 1949. Although the couple consistently claimed to be
innocent, a jury of 11 men and one woman found them guilty on March 30
on the evidence provided by key government witness David Greenglass,
Ethel Rosenberg's brother. Co-defendant Morton Sobell was sentenced to
30 years in prison. He was released in 1969. The Rosenbergs were
electrocuted on June 19, 1953, leaving behind two young sons.
(CL, 4/5/96)(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(HNPD,
4/5/99)(AP, 4/5/04)
1951 Apr 7, Janis Ian, [Janis Eddy
Fink], lesbian, folk rocker, was born in NYC.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1951 Apr 17, Mickey Mantle played
his 1st game as a NY Yankee and went 1 for 4.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1951 May 18, The United Nations
moved out of its temporary headquarters in Lake Success, N.Y., for its
permanent home in Manhattan.
(AP, 5/18/97)(HN, 5/18/98)
1951 May 24, Willie Mays began
playing for the New York Giants.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1951 May 25, New York Giant Willie
Mays went 0 for 5 in his 1st major league game.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1951 Sep 15, "Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes" closed at Ziegfeld NYC after 740 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=1845)
1951 Oct 3, Bobby Thompson won the
pennant for the New York Giants by hitting a home run off of Ralph
Branca of the Brooklyn Dodgers at the New York Polo Grounds before
20,000 empty seats. Outfielder Bobby Thomson hit a home run in the
bottom of the ninth inning, beat-ing the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4 to win
the National League pennant. In 2001 the WSJ confirmed roomers that the
Giants had concealed an electric buzzer and a telescope to steal the
signals of the opposing catchers. In 2006 Joshua Prager authored ”The
Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the
Shot Heard Round the World.”
(HN, 10/3/00)(WSJ, 6/21/05, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/19/06, p.B1)
1951 Oct 10, The New York Yankees
won the World Series at home, defeating the New York Giants in game six
by a score of 4-3.
(AP, 10/10/01)
1951 Oct 24, Jan de Hartog's "4
Poster," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1951 Nov 1, Johnny Mercer's "Top
Banana," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1951 Nov 12, "Paint Your Wagon"
opened at Shubert Theater NYC for 289 performances.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1951 Nov 28, John Van Druten's "I
am a Camera," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1951 Dec 4, Copland-Robbins' "Pied
Piper," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1951 Dec 8, "Tree Grows in
Brooklyn" closed at Alvin Theater, NYC, after 267 performances.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1951 Lew Christensen, brother of
Willam, quit the New York City Ballet to become the director of the SF
Ballet.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.B9)
1951 Bobby Fischer (8) lost a
chess exhibition match to master Max Pavey in Brooklyn. He befriended
there Carmine Nigro (d.2001 at 91), who became his 1st teacher.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.D5)
1952 Jan 2, "Pal Joey" opened at
Broadhurst Theater, NYC, for 542 performances.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1952 Jan 9, Jackie Robinson
became the highest paid player in Brooklyn Dodger history.
(HN, 1/9/98)
1952 Feb 5, New York adopted the
three-colored traffic lights.
(HN, 2/5/99)
1952 Feb 20, "African Queen"
opened at Capitol Theater in NYC.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1952 Feb 29, The first pedestrian
"Walk/Don't Walk" signs were installed at 44th Street and Broadway at
Times Square.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1952 Mar 22, Bob Costas,
sportscaster, talk show host (Later), was born in Queens, NY.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1952 Sep 25, Christopher Reeve,
actor (Superman, Somewhere in Time), was born in NYC.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1952 Sep 30, The motion picture
process Cinerama -- which employed three cameras, three projectors and
a deeply curved viewing screen -- made its debut with the premiere of
"This Is Cinerama" at the Broadway Theater in New York City.
(AP, 9/30/97)
1952 Nov 20, George Axelrod's "7
Year Itch," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1952 Nov 26, Helen Frankenthaler
(b.1928), New York artist, created her painting “Mountains and Sea.” It
was later recognized as her arrival as a major artist and a work that
changed the course of abstract art.
(WSJ, 11/8/08, p.W11)
1952 Willem de Kooning, leading
light of the New York School, painted "Seated Woman."
(WSJ, 12/5/96, p.A16)(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A6)(SFC,
6/28/02, p.D1)
1952 Orrin Keepnews and Record
Changer publisher Bill Grauer founded the Riverside jazz label in New
York City to re-issue jazz albums from the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s.
(SFEM, 10/5/97, p.29)
1952 Generoso Pope (1927-1988)
founded the National Enquirer newspaper. He relaunched the Enquirer, a
NYC scandal broadsheet, as a national tabloid.
(WSJ, 8/12/08,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generoso_Pope_Jr.)
1952 The New York Yankees defeated
the Brooklyn Dodgers for the baseball World Series pennant.
(SFC, 10/19/00, p.A14)
1952-1987 William Shawn edited the New Yorker
Magazine. He had a 40-year affair with writer Lillian Ross, who in 1998
published "Here But Not Here," an account of their relationship. In
1998 Ved Mehta published: "Remembering Mr. Shawn’s New Yorker."
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W10)
1953 Feb 5, "Peter Pan" by Walt
Disney opened at Roxy Theater, NYC. [see Feb 11]
(MC, 2/5/02)
1953 Feb 11, Walt Disney’s "Peter
Pan" premiered. [See Feb 5]
(HN, 2/11/97)
1953 Feb 18, "Bwana Devil," the
movie that heralded the 3D fad of the 1950s, opened in New York City.
(AP, 2/18/98)
1953 Feb 19, William Inge's
"Picnic," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1953 Mar 19, Tennessee Williams'
"Camino Real," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1953 Apr 10, The first 3-D horror
movie "House of Wax," produced by Warner Bros. and star-ring Vincent
Price, premiered in New York City.
(AP, 4/9/97)(HN, 4/10/98)
1953 May 7, "Can Can" opened at
Shubert Theater in NYC for 892 performances.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1953 Jul 9, The 1st helicopter
passenger service began in NYC.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1953 Jul 25, NYC transit fare rose
from 10 to 15 cents and 1st use of subway tokens began.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1953 Sep 16, "The Robe," the first
movie filmed in the widescreen process CinemaScope, had its world
premiere at the Roxy Theater in New York.
(AP, 9/16/98)
1953 Sep 30, Robert Anderson's
"Tea & Sympathy," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1953 Oct 2, Victor Borge (d.2000
at 91), musical humorist, opened his "Comedy in Music" at the Golden
Theater on Broadway. It ran for 849 performances .
(SSFC, 12/24/00, p.B5)
1953 Oct 15, John Patrick's
"Teahouse of the August Moon," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1953 Oct 28, Red Barber resigned
as Dodger sportscaster to join Yankees.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1953 Nov 25, "Guys & Dolls"
closed at 46th St Theater NYC after 1200 performances.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1953 Nov 28, "Wish You Were Here"
closed at Imperial Theater NYC after 597 performances.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1953 Nov 28, New York City began
11 days without newspapers when a strike of photoen-gravers shut down
publication. Sales increased for magazines and paperback books.
(DT internet 11/28/97)
1953 Nov 29, American Airlines
began 1st regular commercial NY-LA air service.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1953 Dec 3, The musical "Kismet"
opened on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theater for 583 per-formances.
(AP, 12/3/99)(MC, 12/3/01)
1953 Jack Kerouac wrote his book
"The Subterraneans." Though set in San Francisco it was actually about
characters from Fugazi’s Bar of Greenwich Village. Anton Rosenberg
(d.1998 at 71), a hipster painter and musician, was portrayed as Julian
Alexander. The book was not pub-lished until 1958.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A21)
1953 Steve Allen (d.2000) created
and hosted the Tonight Show in NYC. It went national in 1954. Allen
remained host until 1957.
(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A19)(SSFC, 5/2/04, Par. p.4)
1953 The Batsheva de Rothschild
Foundation, founded by Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild (d.1999 at 84),
sponsored a 2-week festival of American modern dance on Broadway.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D8)
1953 The New York Yankees defeated
the Brooklyn Dodgers for the baseball World Series pennant.
(SFC, 10/19/00, p.A14)
1953 Nat Hentoff became the NYC
editor of Down Beat. Willie "the Lion" Smith, Harlem stride pianist,
soon became his mentor.
(WSJ, 12/30/03, p.D8)
1953 Dow Jones & Co. ceased
the publication of its Saturday Wall Street Journal after the NYSE
ended Saturday trading.
(WSJ, 8/1/07, p.B6)
1954 Jan 2, The "Caine Mutiny" by
Herman Wouk premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1954 Jan 16, "South Pacific"
closed at Majestic Theater, NYC, after 1928 performances.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1954 Mar 5, "Girl in Pink Tights"
opened at Mark Hellinger in NYC for 115 performances.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1954 May 13, The musical play "The
Pajama Game" opened on Broadway for 1063 perform-ances.
(AP, 5/13/97)(MC, 5/13/02)
1954 Mar 20, "King and I" closed
at St. James Theater in NYC after 1246 performances.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1954 Apr 12, Bill Haley & the
Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" at NYC's Pythian Temple. The
song was written by Max C. Freedman and Jimmy de Knight. Haley died in
1981.
(HN, 4/12/98)(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.D8)
1954 Apr 25, Bell Labs in NYC
announced the 1st solar battery.
(SFC, 2/16/04, p.E1)
1954 May 13, The musical play "The
Pajama Game" opened on Broadway for 1063 perform-ances.
(AP, 5/13/97)
1954 Sep 11, Category 3 Hurricane
Edna made landfall at Martha’s Vineyard. This 2nd storm of 1954 hit NYC
with $50 million damage and caused 21 deaths in the region.
(www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/history.shtml#carol)
1954 Sep 29, The New York Giants
beat the Cleveland Indians in the 1st game of this year’s World Series.
NY went on to win 4 games in a row. Willie Mays made a spectacular
catch and throw in the 8th inning. In 1955 Arnold Hano authored “A Day
in the Bleachers,” a classic ac-count of this game.
(www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1954ws.shtml)(SSFC,
9/17/06, p.D1)
1954 Sep 30, "Boy Friend" opened
at the Royale Theater NYC for 483 performances.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1954 Oct 3, Al Sharpton, 2004
Democrat presidential candidate, was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.D2)
1954 Oct 7, Marian Anderson became
the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
(AP, 10/7/97)
1954 Oct 13, R.P. Smith's and M.
Shulman's "Tender Trap," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1954 Oct 28, N. Richard Nash's
"Rainmaker," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1954 Nov 4, The Broadway show
"Fanny" opened at the Majestic Theater for 888 perform-ances. It was
produced by David Merrick (d.2000 at 88).
(SFC, 4/27/00, p.A25)(MC, 11/4/01)
1954 Nov 12, Ellis Island closed
after processing more than 20 million immigrants since open-ing in New
York Harbor in 1892.
(AP, 11/12/97)
1954 Dec 8, Maxwell Anderson's
"Bad Seed," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1954 Dec 27, Gian Carlo Menotti's
opera "Saint of Bleecker Street" premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1954 Joseph Papp founded the
outdoor New York Shakespeare Festival.
(WSJ, 8/12/98, p.A13)
1955 Feb 26, "Peter Pan" closed at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC after 149 performances.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1955 Mar 2, The William Inge play
"Bus Stop" opened at the Music Box Theatre in New York.
(AP, 3/2/02)
1955 Mar 24, The Tennessee
Williams play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opened on Broadway with Barbara
Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazzara as Brick and Burl Ives as Big Daddy.
Paul Newman won Gazzara’s role for the 1958 film.
(AP, 3/23/97)(SSFC, 1/23/05, Par p.2)
1955 Mar 31, Chase National (3rd
largest bank) and Bank of the Manhattan Company (15th largest bank)
merged to form Chase Manhattan.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1955 Apr 21, The Jerome
Lawrence-Robert Lee play "Inherit the Wind," loosely based on the
Scopes trial of 1925, opened at the National Theatre in New York.
(AP, 4/21/99)
1955 Apr 23, "Kismet" closed at
Ziegfeld Theater NYC after 583 performances.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1955 May 25, Connie Selleca,
actress (Hotel, Captain America II), was born in Bronx, NY.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1955 Jun 25, "Can Can" closed at
Shubert Theater NYC after 892 performances.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1955 Jul 9, Jimmy Smits, actor
(Victor-LA Law, Running Scared, NYPD Blue), was born in Brooklyn.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1955 Sep 8, The Brooklyn Dodgers
won the National League pennant, the earliest a team had achieved this.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1955 Sep 29, The Arthur Miller
play "A View From the Bridge" opened at the Coronet Theater in New York
City.
(AP, 9/29/97)
1955 Oct 5, A stage adaptation of
"The Diary of Anne Frank" opened at the Cort Theatre in New York.
(AP, 10/5/97)
1955 Oct 7, The aircraft carrier
USS Saratoga was launched at Brooklyn.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1955 Oct 20, "No Time for
Sergeants," starring Andy Griffith, opened on Broadway.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1955 Oct 26, The Village Voice was
first published, backed in part by Norman Mailer.
(HN, 10/26/00)
1955 Nov 9, Michael Gazzo's
"Hatful of Rain," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1955 Nov 30, "Pipe Dream" opened
at Shubert Theater in NYC for 245 performances.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1955 Ben Bagley (d.1998 at 64)
burst onto the theater scene off Broadway at age 21 with "The
Shoestring Revue," a collection of songs and sketches from many show
business talents.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.B12)
1955 Roy DeCarava (1919-2009)
opened A Photographer's Gallery, an important New York City gallery
pioneering an effort to win recognition for photography as a fine art.
It remained open for over two years. Since the 1930s he had documented
Harlem and its associated Ren-aissance in art and culture. His work
included photographs of many notable jazz artists.
(SFEM, 1/25/98,
p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_DeCarava)
1955 The Greenwich Village Theater
de Lys was purchased Louis Schweitzer and given to his wife, Lucille
Lortel (d.1999 at 98). The theater was renamed the Lucille Lortel
Theater in 1981. Lortel introduced numerous plays and earned the title
of Queen of Off-Broadway.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.D2)
1955 The Brooklyn Dodgers defeated
the NY Yankees for the baseball World Series pennant.
(SFC, 10/19/00, p.A14)
1956 Mar 15, The Lerner and Loewe
musical "My Fair Lady" opened starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison
at the Mark Hellinger Theater in NYC for 2,715 performances.
(AP, 3/15/97)(HN, 3/15/02)(MC, 3/15/02)
1956 Mar 22, Musical "Mr.
Wonderful" with Sammy Davis Jr. premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1956 Apr 3, "Silk Stockings"
closed at Imperial Theater in NYC after 461 performances.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1956 Apr 14, "Plain and Fancy"
closed at Mark Hellinger Theater in NYC after 476 perform-ances.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1956 May 28, Germaine Montenesdro,
2nd victim of NYC's Zodiac killer, was born.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1956 Jul 24, Dean Martin and Jerry
Lewis performed for the last time at the Copacabana Club in NYC after a
decade together as the country's most popular comedy team.
(SSFC, 10/23/05, Par p.5)
1956 Oct 8, Don Larsen pitched the
only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees
beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0.
(AP, 10/8/08)
1956 Oct 10, The New York Yankees
won the World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers, 9-0, in Game 7 at
Ebbets Field.
(AP, 10/10/06)
1956 Oct 14, Charles Ives'
overture "Robert Browning," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1956 Oct, The World Series was won
by the New York Yankees over the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-3.
(TOH, 1982, p.1956)
1956 Oct, The Brooklyn Dodgers
completed their last season in NYC. In 2003 Michael Sha-piro authored
"The Last Good Season." The team moved to LA after Robert Moses, head
of the Triborought Bridge and Tunnel District, blocked the efforts of
owner Walter O’Malley to build a new Brooklyn ballpark.
(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.D8)
1956 Nov 10, Gene de Paul's and
John Meyer's musical "Li'l Abner," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1956 Nov 10, Billie Holiday
returned to the New York City stage at Carnegie Hall after a three-year
absence.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1956 Nov 15, "Li'l Abner" opened
at St James Theater NYC for 693 performances.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1956 Nov 15, Elvis Presley's 1st
film "Love Me Tender," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1956 Nov 24, "Pajama Game" closed
at St James Theater NYC after 1063 performances.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1956 Nov 29, The musical "Bells
Are Ringing," starring Judy Holliday, opened at Shubert Theater in NYC
for 925 performances. It was written by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and
Jule Styne.
(AP, 11/29/01)(WSJ, 4/18/01, p.A20)
1956 Dec 1, Leonard Bernstein's
musical "Candide," based on the work by Voltaire, opened at Martin Beck
Theater in NYC for 73 performances. The book was by Lillian Hellman
with lyrics by Richard Wilbur.
(AP, 12/1/99)(SFC, 1/11/05, p.E1)
1956 Dec 5, Thornton Wilder's
"Matchmaker," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1956 Dec 16, Cardinal Francis
Spellman, the Archbishop of New York, personally denounced the
yet-to-be released movie "Baby Doll," saying Catholics would be
committing a sin if they saw it.
(AP, 12/16/98)
1956 The documentary film "On the
Bowery" was made by Lionel Rogosin (d.2000 at 76). It depicted life on
New York’s skid row and reflected alienation in American society.
(SFC, 12/12/00, p.B4)
1956 Frank Lloyd Wright designed
the New York Guggenheim Museum.
(SFEM, 4/19/98, p.23)
1956 The New York Stock Exchange
(NYSE) expanded to include 20 Broad St.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.D2)
1957 Jan 16, Arturo Toscanini
(b.1868), Italian-US conductor (NBC), died in NYC at age 89. He led the
NBC Symphony from 1937-1954. In 1978 Harvey Sachs wrote his biography.
In 2002 Sachs edited "The Letters of Arturo Toscanini," his
correspondence with Ada Mainardi.
(HN, 3/25/01)(WSJ, 4/30/02, p.D7)(MC, 1/16/02)
1957 Jan 22, Suspected "Mad
Bomber" George P. Metesky, accused of planting more than 30 explosive
devices in the New York City area, was arrested in Waterbury, Conn. He
was later found mentally ill and committed to a mental hospital; he was
released in 1973, and died in 1994 at age 90.
(AP, 1/22/98)(AP, 1/22/04)
1957 Mar 1, "Ziegfeld Follies of
1957" opened at Winter Garden NYC for 123 performances.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1957 Mar 21, Tennessee Williams'
"Orpheus Descending," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1957 May 2, Crime boss Frank
Costello narrowly survived an attempt on his life in New York; the
alleged gunman, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, was acquitted at trial
after Costello refused to identify him as the shooter.
(AP, 5/2/07)
1957 May 25, "Shinbone Alley"
closed at Broadway Theater in NYC after 49 performances.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1957 Jun 17, Mob underboss Frank
Scalice was shot to death at a produce market in the Bronx, N.Y.
(AP, 6/17/07)
1957 Sep 24, The Brooklyn Dodgers
played their last game at Ebbets Field, defeating the Pittsburgh
Pirates 2-to-0. The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles for the following
season.
(AP, 9/24/97)(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.B1)
1957 Sep 29, The New York Giants
played their last game at the Polo Grounds, losing to the Pittsburgh
Pirates, 9-to-1. The Giants moved to San Francisco.
(AP, 9/29/97)
1957 Sep 29, The Brooklyn Dodgers
played their last game before moving to Los Angeles, losing to the
Phillies 2-1 in Philadelphia.
(AP, 9/29/07)
1957 Oct 8, The Brooklyn Baseball
Club announced it was accepting an offer to move the Dodgers from New
York to Los Angeles.
(AP, 10/8/07)
1957 Oct 19, "Damn Yankees" closed
at 46th St. Theater NYC after 1,022 performances.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1957 Oct 25, Umberto "Albert"
Anastasia (55), US gangster, died while taking a shave in a Manhattan
hotel.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1957 Oct 31, Jamaica, a musical,
opened on Broadway at Imperial Theater. The book was by Yip Harburg and
Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. Lena Horne
(1917-2010) starred in the musical. It continued for 558 performances.
(Econ, 5/22/10,
p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_%28musical%29)
1957 Nov 28, "Look Homeward,
Angel" with Anthony Perkins premiered in NYC.
(DT internet 11/28/97)(MC, 11/28/01)
1957 Dec 5, The William Inge play,
“The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,” opened at New York's Music Box
Theatre and ran for a total of 468 performances, closing on January 17,
1959. It was directed by Elia Kazan. The drama was reworked by Inge
from his earlier play, Farther Off from Heaven, first staged in 1947 at
Margo Jones' Theatre '47 in Dallas, Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_at_the_Top_of_the_Stairs)
1957 Dec 5, NYC became the 1st
city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in housing
market with its Fair Housing Practices Law.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1957 Dec 18, The motion picture
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" premiered at the RKO Pal-ace Theater in
New York City.
(AP, 12/18/97)
1957 Dec 19, The musical play "The
Music Man," starring Robert Preston, with book and songs by Meredith
Wilson, opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theater for 1,375
perform-ances.
(AP, 12/19/97)(MC, 12/19/01)
1957 Leo Castelli (d.1999 at 91)
opened his art gallery on East 77th Street in NYC. He be-came the
arbiter of a new movement, Neo-Dada, that quickly transformed to the
Pop Art scene.
(WSJ, 8/25/99, p.A16)
1957 The jazz opera "Shinbone
Alley" opened on Broadway. It was written by Joe Darion with music by
George Kleinsinger.
(SFC, 6/22/01, p.D4)
1957 The Brooklyn House of
Detention was built. It had a $45 million renovation in 2003.
(Econ, 9/20/03, p.33)
1957 Rev. Billy Graham led a New
York Crusade at Madison Square Garden that was tele-vised
coast-to-coast.
(SFEC, 9/21/97, Z1 p.3)
1957 Carlo Gambino (d.1976) became
head of the Gambino crime family and was later the model for Don
Corleone in the film "The Godfather."
(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.4)
1957 Mob boss Albert Anastasia of
Murder Inc. was gunned down by 2 hitmen in a New York barbershop.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.E4)(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.B1)
1958 Feb 20, The Broadway play
“The Day the Money Stopped” opened at the Belasco Thea-ter. It featured
the debut of actress Collin Wilcox-Paxton (d.2009 at 74).
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.D5)
1958 Apr 3, "Say, Darling" opened
at ANTA Theater NYC for 332 performances.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1958 Jun 24, Victor M. Gerena,
security guard who robbed $7 million (FBI wanted), was born in NYC.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1958 Sep 20, Rev. Martin Luther
King was stabbed by Izola Curry, a deranged woman, during a book
signing on 125th St. in Harlem. Dr. Aubre De Lambert Maynard (d.1999 at
97) per-formed a successful operation on King who had a knife embedded
in his sternum. Curry was later found mentally incompetent.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.C3)(AP, 9/20/08)
1958 Oct 14, Paul Osborn's "World
of Suzie Wong," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1958 Oct 26, Pan American Airways
flew its first Boeing 707 passenger service jetliner from New York’s
Idlewild Airport (later JFK) to Paris; the trip took eight hours and 41
minutes. 111 passengers flew aboard the Clipper America and a ticket
cost $489.60. The plane was chris-tened a week earlier by Mamie
Eisenhower. The first New York - London transatlantic jet pas-senger
service was inaugurated by BOAC. [see Oct 4]
(AP, 10/26/97)(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W6)(HN, 10/26/98)
1958 Dec 28, At Yankee Stadium the
Baltimore Colts beat the NY Giants in the NFL champi-onship game 23-17,
after the game went into overtime for the first time. In 2008 Mark
Bowden authored “The Best Game Ever: The Birth of the Modern NFL.”
(WSJ, 6/9/08,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_NFL_Championship_Game)
1958 The musical comedy
"Goldilocks" was written by Jean and Walter Kerr.
(SFC, 1/7/03, p.A22)
1958 William Gibson's play "Two
for the Seesaw," premiered in NYC with Anne Bancroft and Henry Fonda.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.D9)
1958 Durell Stone received a
commission to design 2 Columbus Circle in NYC.
(WSJ, 12/2/03, p.D10)
1959 Feb 3, An American Airlines
Lockheed Electra crashed into New York's East River while approaching
LaGuardia Airport, killing 65 of the 73 people on board.
(AP, 2/3/08)
1959 Feb 3, Vincent Astor
(b.1891), businessman and philanthropist, died. He left almost his
entire fortune to his wife, Brooke Astor (b.1902 as Roberta Brooke
Russell). In 2007 Frances Kiernan authored “The Last Mrs. Astor: A New
York Story.”
(WSJ, 5/18/07,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Astor)
1959 Feb 14, A $3.6 million heroin
seizure was made in NYC.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1959 Feb 16, Leonard Spigelgass'
"Majority of One," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1959 Feb 20, Joel Rifkind, NY
serial killer, was born.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1959 Mar 7, "Bells Are Ringing"
closed at Shubert Theater in NYC after 925 performances.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1959 Mar 9, The Barbie doll was
unveiled at the American Toy Fair in New York City. The Barbie Doll No.
1 was introduced by Mattel Toy Company for $3. Ruth Handler (d.2002),
co-founder of Mattel, had spotted the German Bild-Lilli doll in 1956
and asked toy designer Jack Ryan (d.1991) to create a version for
American girls. The first dolls were produced by Mattel Toy Co. in
Hawthorne, Ca. In 1994 one sold for $4000 as a collector’s item.
(WSJ, 12/9/94, p.R-8)(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A2)(SFC,
5/31/05, p.E1)(WSJ, 2/18/09, p.A15)
1959 Mar 10, Tennessee Williams'
"Sweet Bird of Youth," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1959 Mar 11, The Lorraine
Hansberry drama "A Raisin in the Sun" opened at New York City's Ethel
Barrymore Theater.
(AP, 3/11/98)
1959 Apr 3, David Hyde Pierce,
actor (Niles Crane-Fraiser), was born in NY.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1959 Apr 11, "Jamaica" closed at
Imperial Theater in NYC after 558 performances.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1959 Jun 27, The play, "West Side
Story", with music by Leonard Bernstein, closed at Winter Garden
Theater in NYC after 734 performances.
(MC, 6/27/02)
1959 Sep 4, "Mack the Knife" was
banned from WCBS Radio in New York City. The ban was due to teenage
stabbings in NYC.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1959 Oct 19, William Gibson's
"Miracle Worker," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1959 Oct 21, The Guggenheim
Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959), opened in NYC. In
2009 the museum published “The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright and the
Making of the Modern Museum.”
(AP, 10/21/97)(AH, 10/04, p.15)(SSFC, 7/26/09, p.F5)
1959 Oct 22, Bob Merrill's musical
"Take me Along," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1959 Nov 5, The Broadway play “The
10th Man” by Paddy Chayefsky opened at the Booth Theater. In 1961 it
moved to the Ambassador Theater.
(SFC, 10/28/09,
p.D5)(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2794)
1959 Nov 16, The Rodgers and
Hammerstein musical "The Sound of Music" opened on Broadway at Lunt
Fontanne Theater, NYC, for 1443 performances.
(AP, 11/1697)(MC, 11/16/01)
1959 Nov 17, William Shea
proposed a NYC stadium with transparent roof.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1959 Nov 23, The musical
"Fiorello!," with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick,
opened on Broadway.
(AP, 11/23/97)
1959 Dec 29, Saul Levitt's
"Andersonville Trial" premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1959 Jack Gelber's (d.2003 at 71)
play "The Connection" opened off Broadway at the Living Theater. It was
a graphic depiction of the dead-end life of drug addicts.
(SSFC, 5/11/03, p.A26)
1959 The NYC Atheneum Publishers
was co-founded by Alfred Knopf Jr. (1918-2009), editor Simon Michael
Bessie and editor Hiram Haydn.
(SFC, 3/15/99, p.A19)(SFC, 2/17/09, p.B4)
1959 In New York City Salvador
Agron (16), A Puerto Rican gang member, stabbed to death 2 white
teenagers whom he mistakenly took to be members of a rival gang. In
1998 Paul Simon wrote a musical titled "The Capeman" based on Agron’s
life story.
(WSJ, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1959 Sam Marcy (1911-1998) founded
The Workers World Party, an independent Communist party, in New York
City. In 1990 he wrote a collection of articles titled: "Perestroika: A
Marxist Critique."
(SFC, 2/9/98, p.A19)
1960 Feb 10, "Unsinkable Molly
Brown" ended at Winter Garden, NYC, after 532 perform-ances.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1960 Mar 3, The 9th largest
snowfall in NYC history dropped14.5".
(SC, 3/3/02)
1960 Mar 19, "Redhead" closed at
46th St Theater in NYC after 455 performances.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1960 Mar 31, Gore Vidal's "Best
Man," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1960 Apr 14, "Bye Bye Birdie"
opened at Martin Beck Theater in NYC for 607 performances.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1960 May 3, The musical "The
Fantasticks" opened at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich
Village. It featured the song "Try to Remember" by Tom Jones &
Harvey Schmidt and was 1st produced at Barnard College in 1959. Lore
Noto (d.2002), former actor and agent, produced the show, which became
the world’s longest-running musical. It closed Jan 13, 2002 after
17,162 shows.
(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A20)
1960 May 14, "At the Drop of a
Hat" closed at John Golden in NYC after 216 performances.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1960 Sep 18, Two thousand cheered
Castro's arrival in New York for the United Nations ses-sion.
(HN, 9/18/98)
1960 Sep 19, Cuban leader Fidel
Castro, in New York to visit the United Nations, angrily checked out of
the Shelburne Hotel in a dispute with the management. Castro accepted
an invi-tation to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem.
(AP, 9/19/07)
1960 Oct 25, The 1st electronic
wrist watch placed on sale in NYC.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1960 Nov 3, Tammy Grimes'
"Unsinkable Molly Brown," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1960 Dec 3, The Frederick Loewe
& Alan Jay Lerner musical "Camelot" opened on Broad-way.
(AP, 12/3/99)(MC, 12/3/01)
1960 Dec 16, 134 people were
killed when a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Super Con-stellation
collided over Staten Island, New York City.
(AP, 12/16/97)(MC, 12/16/01)
1960 Dec 19, A fire aboard USS
Constellation, under construction at Brooklyn, killed 50.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1960 Dec 26, Musical "Do Re Mi"
with Phil Silvers premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1960 Ira Eaker (1922-2002) and
Allen Zwerdling founded Back Stage, a NYC theater trade paper.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.A27)
1960 Isaac Stern (d.2001 at 81),
Russian-Jewish immigrant to the US and legendary violinist, saved
Carnegie Hall from the wrecking ball.
(SSFC, 9/23/01, p.A24)
1960 Pan Am constructed its World
Port terminal at Idlewild Airport, which was later renamed to JFK
Airport.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)
1961 Jan 10, Dashiell
Hammett (66), author, died in NYC from throat cancer. In 1983
Diane Johnson authored his biography. His books included “The Maltese
Falcon” and “The Thin Man,” both of which were turned into films. He
wrote “The Maltese Falcon” while living in San Fran-cisco at 891 Post
St., which was also given as the address of detective Sam Spade.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0358591/)(SFC, 6/7/04, p.C2)
1961 Feb 22, The Broadway play
“Come Blow Your Horn” by Neil Simon opened at the Brooks Atkinson
Theater.
(SFC, 10/28/09,
p.D5)(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2294)
1961 Mar 2, "13 Daughters" opened
at 54th St Theater NYC for 28 performances.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1961 Mar 8, Jean Kerr's "Mary,
Mary," premiered in NYC. It was adopted to film in 1963.
(MC, 3/8/02)(SFC, 1/7/03, p.A22)
1961 Mar 25, "Gypsy" closed at
Broadway Theater in NYC after 702 performances.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1961 Apr 3, Eddie Murphy, actor
(SNL, 48 Hours, Beverly Hill Cop, Raw), was born in Brook-lyn, NY.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1961 Apr 11, Folk singer Bob Dylan
performed in New York City for the first time, opening for John Lee
Hooker.
(HN, 4/11/01)
1961 Apr 13, "Carnival!" opened at
Imperial Theater in NYC for 719 performances.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1961 Apr 15, "Music Man" closed at
Majestic Theater in NYC after 1375 performances.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1961 May 18, "Donnybrook!" opened
at 46th St Theater in NYC for 68 performances.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1961 Sep 26, Nineteen-year-old Bob
Dylan made his New York singing debut at Gerde’s Folk City. [see Apr
11]
(HN, 9/26/00)
1961 Oct 1, Roger Maris of the New
York Yankees hit his 61st home run off of Tracy Stallard during a
162-game season. It compared to Babe Ruth's 60 home runs during a
154-game sea-son. The ball was caught by Sal Durante (19) who offered
it to Maris. Maris declined and Du-rante sold it for $5000 to a
restaurateur named Sam Gordon, who donated the ball to the Base-ball
Hall of Fame.
(AP, 10/1/97)(WSJ, 9/4/98, p.B1)(MC, 10/1/01)
1961 Oct 7, "Bye Bye Birdie"
closed at Martin Beck Theater NYC after 607 performances.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1961 Oct 14, "How to Succeed in
Business" opened at 46th St NYC for 1415 performances.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1961 Oct 17, NY Museum of Modern
Art hung Henri Matisse's "Le Bateau" upside-down It wasn't corrected
until December 3rd.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1961 Oct 28, Ground was broken for
Municipal (Shea) Stadium for NY Mets.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1961 Nov 9, Paddy Chayefsky's
"Gideon," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1961 Dec 28, Tennessee Williams'
"Night of the Iguana," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1961 Dec 31, "lrma La Douce"
closed at the Plymouth Theater in NYC after 527 perform-ances.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1961 Craig Claiborne (d.2000 at
79), food journalist for the New York Times, authored "The New York
Times Cookbook."
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A15)
1962 Jan 4, The 1st automated
(unmanned) subway train ran in NYC.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1962 Jan 26, Charles "Lucky"
Luciano (65), NYC Mafia gangster, died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1962 Feb 24, New York police
seized $20 million worth of heroin.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1962 Feb 26, Arthur Kopit's "Oh,
Dad, Poor Dad..." premiered in NYC.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1962 Mar 1, American Airlines 707
plunged nose 1st into Jamaica Bay, NY, killing 95.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1962 Mar 15, Richard Rodger's
musical "No Strings," premiered in NYC for 580 perform-ances.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1962 Mar 24, Emile Griffith
knocked out Benny Paret (b.1937) in the 12th round at Madison Square
Garden. 10 days later on April 3 Paret died from the beating. Referee
Ruby Goldstein was blamed by many for not stopping the fight soon
enough.
(www.ringsidereport.com/vitotrabucco972004.htm)(SFC,
4/20/05, p.E1)
1962 Apr 5, Herb Gardner's
"Thousand Clowns," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1962 May 8, The Stephen Sondheim
musical comedy "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" opened
at the Alvin Theater in NYC for 965 performances.
(AP, 5/8/97)(SFEC, 5/31/98, BR p.6)(MC, 5/8/02)
1962 Sep 23, New York's
Philharmonic Hall, since renamed Avery Fisher Hall, formally opened as
the first unit of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Opening
ceremonies in-cluded the premier of Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto by
John Browning (d.2003) and the Boston Symphony under Erich Leinsdorf.
(AP, 9/23/97)(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A17)
1962 Oct 3, "Stop the World"
opened at Shubert NYC for 886 performances.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1962 Oct 13, The four-character
drama "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," by Edward Albee, opened on
Broadway with Uta Hagen (d.2004) as Martha and Arthur Hill as George.
The open-ing coincided with co-star Melinda Dillon's 23rd birthday.
(SFC, 1/16/04, p.A23)(AP, 10/13/07)
1962 Oct 20, The musical, "Mr.
President," written by Irving Berlin, opened on Broadway.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1962 Oct 27, "Beyond the Fringe"
opened at John Golden Theater NYC for 673 perform-ances. It
starred Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan
Bennett.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1962 Nov 19, S.N. Behrman's "Lord
Pengo," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1962 Dec 8, A 114-day newspaper
strike began in NYC.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1962 Dec 9, "I Can Get It For You
Wholesale" closed on Broadway.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1962 Dow Jones launched the weekly
National Observer, a general interest national newspa-per. The paper
closed in 1977 with cumulative losses of $16.2 million.
(WSJ, 8/1/07, p.B6)
1962 Ralph Ginzburg (b.1929) began
publishing Eros, an erotic art quarterly in NYC. A year later he was
convicted in Philadelphia for salacious promotional methods. He wound
up serving 8 months of a 5 year sentence.
(SFC, 7/7/06, p.B9)
1962 The TWA terminal at Idlewild
was designed by Eero Saarinen.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)
1963 Jan 5, "Camelot" closed at
the Majestic Theater, NYC, after 873 performances.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1963 Jan 5, "Carnival!" closes at
Imperial Theater, NYC, after 719 performances.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1963 Jan 6, "Oliver!" opened at
Imperial Theater in NYC for 774 performances.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1963 Mar 20, The 1st "Pop Art"
exhibition was held in NYC.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1963
Apr 1, Most of New York City's daily newspapers
resumed publishing after settlement was reached in a 114-day
strike. Workers of the International Typographical Union ended
their strike that had closed nine New York City newspapers. The strike
ended 114 days after began on December 8, 1962.
(AP, 4/1/08)(OTD)
1963 May 18, "Beast in Me" closed
at Plymouth Theater in NYC after 4 performances.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1963 May 25, "Hot Spot" closed at
Majestic Theater in NYC after 43 performances.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1963 May 28, Down Jones went
public. 110,000 shares of Dow Jones common stock were sold to the
public.
(WSJ, 8/1/07,
p.B6)(www.scripophily.net/dowjocoinde.html)
1963 Jun 12, One of Hollywood's
costliest failures, "Cleopatra," starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard
Burton and Rex Harrison, premiered in New York.
(AP, 6/12/98)
1963 Jun 15, "Sound of Music"
closed at Lunt Fontanne Theater in NYC after 1443 perform-ances.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1963 Aug 3, Carlo Imperato, actor
(Fame), was born in Bronx, NYC.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1963 Sep 28, Murray The K, a NY DJ
played "She Loves You" on the radio.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1963 Oct 3, Meredith Wilson’s
Broadway musical “Here’s Love,” featuring Dom DeLuise, opened at the
Shubert Theater. The show close on July 25, 1964.
(SFC, 5/6/09,
p.A9)(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3024)
1963 Oct 23, Neil Simon's
"Barefoot in the Park," premiered in NYC. [see Oct 24]
(MC, 10/23/01)
1963 Oct 24, "Barefoot in the
Park" by Neil Simon opened on Broadway. [see Oct 23]
(SFEC, 9/29/96, BR p.5)
1963 Oct 28, In NYC the demolition
of Penn Station, completed in 1910, began.
(www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON004.htm)(WSJ,
1/12/07, p.W8)
1963 Dec 24, New York’s Idlewild
Airport was renamed JFK Airport in honor of the murdered President
Kennedy.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1963 Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
later senator and ambassador, authored "Beyond the Melting Pot," a
description of the ethnic groups in NYC.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A2)
1963 The 59-story Pan Am building
on Park Ave. was completed. Walter Gropius was the principal designer.
In 2004 Meredith D. Clausen authored “The Pan Am Building.”
(SFC, 8/23/00, p.A26)(WSJ, 12/9/04, p.D10)
1963 Frank Lloyd (d.1998 at 86)
opened the Marlborough Gallery. He was involved in the 1970s Rothko art
scandal.
(SFC, 4/8/98, p.B2)
1963 Barbara Epstein (1928-2006),
Jason Epstein, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick founded the NY
Review of Books.
(Econ, 7/1/06, p.79)
1963 P.S.1 was desanctified as a
public school. It was taken over by the alternative art scene in 1976.
(xxxx)
1964 Jan 16, The musical "Hello,
Dolly!," starring Carol Channing, opened on Broadway at the St. James
Theater, beginning a run of 2,844 performances.
(AP, 1/16/98)
1964 Jan 18, Plans were disclosed
for the World Trade Center in NYC. It was commissioned in 1962 to
Minoru Yamasaki.
(HN, 1/18/99)(WSJ, 12/2/03, p.D10)
1964 Jan 23, Arthur Miller's
"After the Fall," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1964 Feb 7, The British band
The Beatles began their first American tour as they arrived at New
York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, where they were greeted
by 25,000 scream-ing fans.
(SFEM, 3/9/96, p.35)(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1964 Feb 18, Muriel Resnik's "Any
Wednesday," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1964 Feb 27, "What Makes Sammy
Run?" opened at 84th St Theater in NYC for 540 per-formances.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1964 Mar 9, Supreme Court issued
its NY Times vs. Sullivan decision that public officials must prove
malice to claim libel & recover damages.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1964 Mar 26, The Broadway hit
musical "Funny Girl" premiered with Barbara Streisand as singer Fanny
Brice. Jule Styne and Bob Merrill produced the show, which ran at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC for 1,348 performances
(AP, 3/26/97)(SS, 3/26/02)(SSFC, 1/18/04, p.A1)
1964 Apr 17, Ford Motor Company
unveiled its new Mustang model at the New York World’s Fair. The base
price was $2,368. Donald Frey (d.2010 at 86), spearheaded the design
and de-velopment of the car. Industry experts in 1996 picked the 1964
Mustang as the number 1 favor-ite car.
(AP, 4/17/97)(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(SFC, 3/30/10,
p.C3)
1964 Apr 22, President Johnson
opened the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair in Queens. It featured the
futuristic Unisphere and a house made of formica. Ken Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters drove to the fair in a 1939 bus with Neal Cassidy
driving. The trip immortalized in "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by
Tom Wolfe in 1968.
(TMC, 1994, p.1964)(AP, 4/22/97)(SFEM, 2/22/98,
p.34)(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.W10)
1964 May 25, Frank Gilroy's
"Subject is Roses" premiered in NYC.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1964 Jul 18, Riots erupted in the
African American communities of NYC and Rochester, NY. The NYC race
riot began in Harlem and spread to Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F5)(MC, 7/18/02)
1964 Sep 22, The musical "Fiddler
on the Roof" opened at Imperial Theater on Broadway, beginning a run of
3,242 performances.
(AP, 9/22/97)
1964 Oct 15, St. Louis Cardinals
in their home park beat the New York Yankees in game 7 of Baseball’s
World Series (7-5). In 1994 David Halberstam authored “October 1964,”
an account centered on the series.
(www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1964ws.shtml)(WSJ,
9/24/05, p.P12)
1964 Oct 16, The New York Yankees
fired manager Yogi Berra one day after their World Se-ries loss to the
St. Louis Cardinals.
(http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1964ws.shtml)
1964 Oct 21, The movie musical "My
Fair Lady," starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, had its world
premiere at the Criterion Theater in NYC.
(AP, 10/21/04)
1964 Oct 29, Thieves made off with
the 565-carat Star of India and the 100-carat DeLong ruby along with
other gems and jewels from the American Museum of Natural History in
New York. The Star and most of the other gems were recovered; three men
were convicted of steal-ing them.
(AP, 10/29/97)(HN, 10/29/98)
1964 Nov 4, Lenny Bruce (d.1966),
stand up comic, was arrested in NYC at the Cafe au Go Go on obscenity
charges for his "bad language." In 2003 Gov. George Pataki granted
Bruce a posthumous pardon.
(WSJ, 5/29/03, p.D8)(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A1)
1964 Nov 11, Murray Schisgal's
"Luv," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1964 Nov 14, "Oliver!" closed at
Imperial Theater NYC after 774 performances.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1964 Nov 21, The upper level of
New York's Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which connected Brooklyn and
Staten Island, was opened. Designed by Swiss émigré
Othmar Ammann, it was the world's longest suspension bridge at the
time. It was.
(AP, 11/21/07)(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.D8)
1964 Nov 23, "Bajour" opened at
the Shubert Theater, NYC, for 232 performances.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1964 Dec 30, Edward Albee's "Tiny
Alice," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1964 Ralph Ginzburg began
publishing the magazine Fact in NYC. It began with responses from a
questionnaire sent to 12,000 psychiatrists on the psychological fitness
of Barry Goldwa-ter for the presidency of the US. Goldwater sued for
libel and won $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive
damages.
(SFC, 7/7/06, p.B9)
1964 Carolee Schneeman performed
"Meat Joy," an orgy-like work at New York's Judson Memorial Church.
Participants cavorted nude or nearly so in a human pile with animal
car-casses and blood.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.D5)
1964 Gilbert Millstein (d.1999 at
83) wrote the text for "New York: True North," a book of pho-tographs
by Sam Falk, a photographer for the NY Times.
(SFC, 5/11/99, p.A19)
1964 CBS completed its $40 million
headquarters in mid-Manhattan.
(SFC, 12/26/06, p.A2)
1965 Jan 2, The New York Jets
signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported
$427,000.
(AP, 1/2/08)
1965 Jan 8, the Star of India and
other stolen gems were returned to the American Museum of Natural
History in New York.
(AP, 1/8/05)
1965 Feb 19, Fourteen Vietnam War
protesters were arrested for blocking U.N. doors in New York.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1965 Feb 21, Former Black Muslim
leader El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, aka Malcolm X (born as Malcolm Little,
39), was shot to death in front of 400 people in New York by
assassins identi-fied as Black Muslims. He was murdered at the Audubon
Ballroom in Manhattan. His wife, Betty Shabazz, was pregnant with twins
and sat in the audience along with his 4-year-old daughter Quibilah.
Three men, Norman 3X Butler (Abdul Aziz), Khalil Islam, and Thomas
Hagan, con-nected to the Nation of Islam were convicted for the
assassination. Aziz was paroled in 1985 and in 1998 was appointed by
Louis Farrakhan to head a Harlem mosque. In 1992 James H. Cone authored
a book about Malcom X and Martin Luther King.
(TMC, 1994, p.1965)(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A3)(AP,
2/21/98)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A3)(HN, 2/21/99)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A7)
1965 Mar 2, The movie version of
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “The Sound of Mu-sic,” starring Julie
Andrews and Christopher Plummer, had its world premiere at New York’s
Rivoli Theater. The musical, about the Trapp Family, was a hit on the
Great White Way for 3-1/2 years and one of the most popular motion
pictures of all time. It remains a classic even to-day. The movie
brought instant stardom for Miss Andrews, who went on to star in other
singing roles in the theatre, on television, in movies and as a popular
recording artist.
(AP, 3/2/05)
1965 Mar 10, Neil Simon's play
"The Odd Couple," starring Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Art
Carney as Felix Unger, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 3/10/99)
1965 Mar 15, T.G.I. Friday's 1st
restaurant opened in NYC.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1965 Mar 25, The opera "Lizzie
Borden" premiered in NYC. It was composed by Jack Beeson with a
libretto by Kenward Elmslie. The initial scenario was written by
Richard Plant (d.1997 at 87).
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.A20)
1965 Apr 21, New York World's Fair
reopened for a 2nd and final season.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1965 Aug 27, Bob Dylan was booed
off stage in NY's Forest Hills.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1965 Oct 17, The musical "On A
Clear Day You Can See Forever," with a score by Burton Lane and book
and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 10/17/05)
1965 Nov 9, A major power failure
hit the East Coast of the US. New York City experienced a major
blackout just after 5:30 PM. In the great Northeast blackout several US
states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of power failures
lasting up to 13 1/2 hours. Nine Northeastern states and parts of
Canada went dark in the worst power failure in history, when a switch
at a station near Niagara Falls failed.
(HFA, '96,p.42)(SFE,10/1/95, Z1, p.10)(AP,
11/9/97)(HN, 11/9/98)
1965 Nov 22, The musical "Man of
La Mancha" opened in New York City. Joe Darion (d.2001 at 90) wrote the
lyrics for "The Impossible Dream" and Mitch Leigh wrote the score.
(AP, 11/22/97)(SFC, 6/22/01, p.D4)
1965 Nov, John Lindsay (d.2000)
was elected mayor. In 2001 Vincent J. Cannato authored "The
Ungovernable City," a look at Lindsay’s 8 years as mayor.
(WSJ, 7/5/01, p.A10)
1965 Dec 8, Abe Burrows' "Cactus
Flower," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1965 Dec 21, Four pacifists were
indicted in New York for burning draft cards.
(HN, 12/21/98)
1965 Dec 26, "Funny Girl" with
Barbra Streisand closed on Broadway.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1965 Salvador Dali donated a
sketch depicting Jesus Christ to the prison at Riker's Island, NYC, in
lieu of a planned visit. On Mar 1, 2003, 4 prison officials staged a
fake fire drill, stole the sketch and replaced it with a fake. The
guards were caught by June and claimed the origi-nal was destroyed.
(SFC, 10/6/03, p.A2)
1965 In NYC the 1910 grand
Pennsylvania Station was torn down and replaced. Demolition had begun
in 1963.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T4)
1965 NYC enacted its landmark
Preservation Act. Lawyer Albert Bard (1866-1963) was chief among the
preservation champions. The act was prompted by the demolition of the
original Pennsylvania Station, to make way for the construction of the
current Madison Square Garden, which was being relocated from 50th
Street and Eighth Avenue. In 2008 Anthony C. Wood au-thored “Preserving
New York,” and illustrated history of how the act came about.
(WSJ, 1/12/08, p.W8)(http://tinyurl.com/3afjyj)
1966 Jan 1, A 12 day transit
worker strike shut down NYC subway and buses.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1966 Jan 29, "Sweet Charity"
opened on Broadway for 608 performances. Cy Coleman com-posed the music.
(www.prigsbee.com/Musicals/shows/sweetcharity.htm)(SFC, 11/20/04, p.B6)
1966 Mar 3, James Goldman's "Lion
in Winter" premiered in NYC.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1966 Mar 8, "Golden Boy" closed at
Majestic Theater in NYC after 569 performances.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1966 Mar 31, An estimated 200,000
anti-war demonstrators marched in New York City. 25,000 anti war
demonstrators marched in NYC.
(HN, 3/31/98)(SFEC, 11/28/99, p.A28)(MC, 3/31/02)
1966 May 24, The Broadway musical
"Mame" opened with Angel Lansbury and Bea Arthur at Winter Garden
Theater in NYC for 1508 performances. It was directed by Gene Saks and
was based on the novel "Auntie Mame" by Patrick Dennis.
(SFEC, 12/8/96, Par p.18)(SSFC, 12/24/00, Par
p.10)(SSFC, 4/26/09, p.B6)
1966 Jun
11, The musical "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever" closed at the Mark
Hellin-ger in NYC after 280 performances. It had opened on October 17,
1965.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3255)
1966 Jul 16, "Half a Sixpence"
closed at Broadhurst Theater in NYC after 512 performances.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1966 Jul 25, Yankee manager Casey
Stengel was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1966 Aug 22, The Beatles arrived
in NYC.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1966 Sep 16, The Metropolitan
Opera opened its new opera house at New York's Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts.
(AP, 9/16/97)
1966 Sep 22, Edward Albee's
"Delicate Balance," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1966 Oct 18, "Apple Tree" opened
at Shubert Theater NYC for 463 performances.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1966 Nov 7, Jean-Claude van
Itallie's "America Hurrah," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1966 Nov 20, "Cabaret" opened at
Broadhurst Theater, NYC, for 1166 performances.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1966 The Broadway musical "Mame"
opened with Angel Lansbury. It was based on the novel "Auntie Mame" by
Patrick Dennis.
(SFEC, 12/8/96, Par p.18)(SSFC, 12/24/00, Par p.10)
1966 Construction began on the
World Trade Center in NYC. It was designed by Minoru Ya-masaki.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A6)
1966 John V. Lindsay (d.2000)
began serving as mayor. His 2 terms were marked by strikes, racial
divisions, fiscal problems and the alienation of the city’s white
working and middle classes.
(SFC, 12/21/00, p.A31)
1966 Banker Edmund Safra (d.1999)
founded the Republic National Bank. The bank gave away televisions and
home appliances to draw new deposits.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A15)
1967 Feb 22, Barbara Garson's
"MacBird!," a notorious counterculture drama, premiered in NYC. It
satirically depicted President Lyndon Johnson as Macbeth and his wife,
Lady Bird Johnson, as Lady Macbeth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBird)
1967 Apr 11, Harlem, NYC, voters
defied Congress and reelected Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908-1972). In
January, 1967, the House Democratic Caucus had stripped Powell of his
com-mittee chairmanship following allegations that Powell had
misappropriated Committee funds for his personal use and other charges.
In June, 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that the House had acted
unconstitutionally when it excluded Powell, a duly elected member. He
returned to the House, but without his seniority.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_Jr.)
1967 Mar 7, Clark Gesner's musical
"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown” premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_a_Good_Man,_Charlie_Brown)
1967 Mar 26, The 21st Tony Awards
were held at the Schubert Theater in NYC. “The Home-coming” won for
Best Play and “Cabaret” won for Best Musical.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Tony_Awards)
1967 Apr 11, Harlem, NYC, voters
defied Congress and reelected Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908-1972). In
January, 1967, the House Democratic Caucus had stripped Powell of his
com-mittee chairmanship following allegations that Powell had
misappropriated Committee funds for his personal use and other charges.
In June, 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that the House had acted
unconstitutionally when it excluded Powell, a duly elected member. He
returned to the House, but without his seniority.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_Jr.)
1967 May 13, NY Yankee
Mickey Mantle (b.1931) hit career HR #500 off Stu Miller.
(www.baseball-almanac.com/boxscore/05141967.shtml)
1967 Jul 1, "Funny Girl" closed at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC after 1348 performances.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1967 Jul 19, The 1st air
conditioned NYC subway car was R-38 on the F line.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1967 Aug 3, John Femia, actor
(Square Pegs, Hello Larry), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1967 Oct 17, "Hair," subtitled The
American Tribal Love/Rock Musical, premiered off Broad-way at the
Public Theater. It moved to the Biltmore Theater on Broadway on April
29, 1968, where it stayed for 1,873 performances.
(http://www.new-age-guide.com/new_age/hair_(musical).htm)
1967 Nov 14, Barney Kilgore
(b.1908), WSJ columnist and Chairman of Dow Jones & Co., died. He
is credited as the visionary who made The Wall Street Journal into a
national newspa-per. In 2009 Richard J. Tofel authored “Restless
Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Jour-nal, and the Invention of
Modern Journalism.”
(www.nassauchurch.org/cemetery/docs/bernard_kilgore.htm)(WSJ, 3/9/09,
p.A17)
1967 Dec 2, Cardinal Francis
Spellman died in New York City at age 78.
(AP, 12/2/97)
1967 The opera "Mourning Becomes
Electra" premiered at the NYC Metropolitan Opera House. It was composed
by Marvin David Levy and Henry Butler (d.1998 at 79) wrote the
li-bretto.
(SFC, 8/11/98, p.B2)
1967 Writer Cleveland Amory
(d.1998) founded The Fund for Animals in NYC.
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.D4)
1967 Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies
tossed fistfuls of paper money onto the floor of the NY Stock Exchange.
Plexiglas screens were soon installed to prevent such displays.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.T4)
1968 Jan 10, Lyle Menendez was
born in NY and grew up in Princeton, NJ. In 1989 he and his brother
Erik killed their parents.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm1062652/)
1968 Jan 13, Hester &
Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Own_Thing)
1968 Jan 22, The off Broadway show
"Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" pre-miered at the
Village Gate Theater. A film version was produced in 1975. Brel
(1929-1978), a Belgian singer, was later buried in the Marquesas Island
of Hiva Oa, in the same cemetery as Paul Gauguin.
(www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sfla/sfla176.html)
1968 Jan, Ralph Ginzburg
(1929-2006), American author and publisher, began publishing Avant
Garde, a literary and arts magazine in NYC. The magazine continued to
July, 1971.
(SFC, 7/7/06,
p.B9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Ginzburg)
1968 Feb 1, The Pennsylvania
Railroad and NYC Central merged into Penn Central.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Central)
1968 Feb 7, The Arthur
Miller play "Price" premiered in NYC.
(www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/arthur_miller_timeline.html)
1968 Mar 3, The musical "Here's
Where I Belong" opened and closed at Billy Rose Theater in NYC. The
book was by Alex Gordon and Terrence McNally, lyrics by Alfred Uhry,
and music by Robert Waldman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_Where_I_Belong)
1968 Apr 8, Clay Felker
(1925-2008), former editor of the New York Herald’s Sunday maga-zine,
re-introduced New York magazine as a glossy after the paper folded.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A2)
1968 Apr 14, The gay-themed play,
"The Boys in the Band" by Mart Crowley, opened off Broadway at Theater
Four and set a new genre. A film version was released in 1970.
(AP, 4/14/08)(WSJ, 8/28/96,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_in_the_Band)
1968 Apr 23, At Columbia Univ. in
NYC the SDS held a rally in support of the IDA Six. An 8-day student
sit-in began at Columbia Univ. to protest ties to the Defense Dept. and
plans to build a gym over neighborhood objections. Within 72 hours
students seized 5 buildings and 628 people were arrested. [see Apr 24]
In 2009 Mark Rudd, prominent student leader at Columbia, authored
“Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen.”
(www.wikicu.com/1968_protests)(SFC, 9/1/03,
p.B4)(WSJ, 3/28/09, p.W8)
1968 Apr 24, Leftist students at
Columbia University in New York City began a weeklong oc-cupation of
several campus buildings in protest over the Vietnam War [See Apr 23].
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 4/24/97)(HN, 4/24/99)
1968 Apr 29, The counterculture
musical "Hair" opened on Broadway following limited en-gagements
off-Broadway.
(AP, 4/29/08)
1968 Oct 3, The Howard Sackler
play, "Great White Hope," starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander,
opened on Broadway.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1968 Nov 5, Shirley Chisholm
(1924-2004) of Brooklyn, New York, became the first black woman elected
to serve in the US House of Representatives.
(HN, 11/5/98)(SFC, 1/3/05, p.A3)
1968 Dec 1, Burt Bacharach and Hal
David's musical "Promises, Promises" opened at Shu-bert Theater in NYC
for 1281 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promises,_Promises)
1968 Dec 26, Jay Allen's "Forty
Carats," premiered in NYC. It was adapted from the French original by
Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy. The 1973 film adaptation starred
Liv Ullman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Carats)
1968 Nicky Cruz (b.1939 in Puerto
Rico), former NYC city gangster, wrote his autobiography "Run, Baby,
Run." He had converted to Christianity in 1958 and begun ministering to
inner city youth.
(WSJ, 10/23/98,
p.W13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Cruz)
1968 Zvi Kolitz (d.2002 at 89)
co-produced the Broadway show "The Megilla of Itzik Manger."
(SFC, 10/12/02, p.A21)
1968 The 1879 Madison Square
Garden was moved across town from Madison Square.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T4)
1968 Bill Graham opened the
Fillmore East in NYC and moved his SF operation to the former Carousel
Ballroom, renamed the Fillmore West.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)
1968 Calvin Klein founded Calvin
Klein Ltd. in NYC for $10,000.
(SSFC, 11/29/09,
p.N6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Klein)
1968 In a move toward
decentralization it was planned to give community districts more
con-trol over the NYC school system. The process was derailed when many
white teachers were fired in Brooklyn on account of race in districts
that came under control of black nationalists. In 2007 Richard D.
Kahlenberg authored “Tough Liberal,” a biography of Albert Shanker
(1928-1997), head of the NYC teacher’s union. Shanker led the series of
teacher strikes that fought total community control.
(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/28/07, p.D6)
1968-1974 Donald Richie served as the curator of film
at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2001 Artura Silva edited "The Donald
Richie Reader."
(SSFC, 6/17/01, DB p.66)
1969 Jan 2, The play "To be Young,
Gifted & Black," by Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) premiered in NYC.
(www.aetna.com/foundation/aahcalendar/1992gifted.html)
1969 Jan 12, The New York Jets
defeated the Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III at the Orange
Bowl in Miami.
(AP, 1/12/99)
1969 Feb 2, Giovanni Martinelli
(b.1885), Italian opera singer, died. He enjoyed a long career at the
Metropolitan Opera in New York City and appeared at other international
theatres.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Martinelli)
1969 Feb 6, The Broadway musical
"Dear World," a musical version of Jean Giraudoux’s The Madwoman of
Chaillot, opened with Angel Lansbury at the Mark Hellinger Theater.
(SFEC, 12/8/96, Par
p.18)(www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=202004)
1969 Mar 1, "Red, White, and
Maddox" closed at Cort Theater in NYC after 41 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3452)
1969 Mar 1, Mickey Mantle of the
NY Yankees announced his retirement from baseball.
(HN,
3/1/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mantle)
1969 Apr 14, In NYC the student
Afro-American Society seized Columbia College.
(http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/stand_columbia/Timeline1965-69.html)
1969 May 18, "Canterbury Tales"
closed at Eugene O'Neill in NYC after 121 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3455)
1969 Jun 17, The raunchy musical
review "Oh! Calcutta!" opened in New York.
(AP, 6/17/97)
1969 Jun 28, In the early hours 8
police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's
Greenwich Village. Police raided the bar because it had refused to pay
an increase in bribery. This led to a clash in what came to be called
The Stonewall Rebellion, an incident considered the birth of the
homosexual rights movement. Some 400 to 1,000 patrons rioted against
police for 3 days The event was described by gay historian Martin
Duberman in his book “Stonewall” (1993).
(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.32)(AP, 6/27/97)(AP,
6/27/08)(SFC, 6/22/09, p.E1)(SFC, 6/26/09, p.F3)
1969 Aug 19, Miles Davis and
associates began a 3-day session recording the album "Bitches Brew"
with Tony Williams on drums at Columbia's 30th Street Studio. Other
players included Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Airto Moreira, Herbie
Hancock, Bennie Maupin, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Chick Corea and
Lenny White. The album was released in the spring of 1970 and became a
commercial success.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, DB
p.40)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitches_Brew)
1969 Sep 6, "Cabaret" closed at
Broadhurst Theater NYC after 1166 performances.
(http://theatre-musical.com/cabaret/show.html)
1969 Oct 16, The New York Mets
capped a miraculous season, winning the World Series in Game 5, a 5-3
victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
(AP, 10/16/99)
1969 Oct 21, The play "Butterflies
are Free," premiered in NYC at the Booth Theater. It was written by
Leonard Gershe (d.2002). It closed in 1972 after 1128
performances. Director Milton Katselas (1933-2008) then directed a film
version.
(SFC, 3/23/02,
p.A27)(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3299)(SFC, 11/4/08, p.B5)
1969 Dec 28, Neil Simon's "Last of
the Red Hot Lovers," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Red_Hot_Lovers)
1969 Andy Logan wrote her 1st
About city Hall column for the New Yorker.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D9)
1969 Gay Talese authored “The
Kingdom and the Power,” an inside story of the NY Times from the post
war period through the 1960s.
(WSJ, 1/21/06, p.P11)
1969 Artists Douglas Huebler
(d.1997 at 72), Robert Barry and Lawrence Weiner held an ex-hibition in
New York that was later (1971) credited by a critic as originating the
conceptual movement. This was an emphasis on art as an idea rather than
an object in a reaction to the pop and op art of the 1960s.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A18)
1969 Katherine Hepburn starred in
"Coco," a Broadway musical based on Coco Chanel's life.
(WSJ, 10/13/03, p.B1)
1969 Arthur Mitchell and Karel
Shook founded the Dance Theater of Harlem.
(WSJ, 10/21/99, p.A20)
1969 Earl Butcher (1903-1996)
received the Great Teacher Award of New York Univ. He was an early
practitioner of tooth transplants and implants.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.B2)
1969 Rev. Bruce Ritter (d.1999 at
72) founded Covenant House, a shelter for runaways. He resigned under
pressure of financial and sexual improprieties in 1990.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.C2)
1969 American Museum of Natural
History in NYC installed a 94-foot, 21,000-pound, syn-thetic Blue
Whale. It was based on a female carcass found in the South Atlantic in
1925.
(WSJ, 7/24/03, p.D10)
1969 Ben Shahn, painter and
photographer, died. Much of his photography of done in New York’s Lower
East Side and Greenwich Village.
(WSJ, 12/1/98, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/1/00, p.A24)
1970 Jan 3, "Mame" closed at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC after 1508 performances.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3142)
1970 Jan 10, Charles Olson
(b.1910), American poet, died in NYC. Volume Three of his Maximus Poems
appeared posthumously in 1975.
(SFC, 6/12/06,
p.D8)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olson/life.htm)
1970 Jan 25, The Robert Altman
film "M*A*S*H" premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MASH_(film))
1970 Feb 17, Robert Marasco's
"Child's Play," opened at the Royal theater on Broadway.
(http://tinyurl.com/3thznf)
1970 Feb 25, Mark Rothko (b.1903),
painter, committed suicide in NYC. He was born in Dvinsk, Russia, which
is now Daugavpils, Latvia, and his family moved to Portland, Ore., in
1913. His work moved to abstraction in the 1940s. The execution of his
will provoked a long drawn out court case. His daughter charged the
executors and the owner of Rothko’s gallery with conspiracy and
conflict of interest, and won. A 1998 show was accompanied by the book
"Mark Rothko" by Jeffrey Weiss with contributions by John Cage,
Carol-Mancusi-Ungaro, Bar-bara Novak, Brian O’Doherty, Mark Rosenthal
and Jessica Stewart.
(WSJ, 6/4/98, p.A16)(SFEC, 6/7/98, BR p.4)(AP,
11/11/03)(http://slate.msn.com/?id=2923)
1970 Feb 26, "Georgy" opened at
Winter Garden Theater in NYC for 4 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy)
1970 Mar 6, In NYC’s Greenwich
Village a townhouse at 18 West 11th St. exploded. SDS Weathermen
members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins were killed at
the site where a bomb was being manufactured. Other members went
underground and became known as the Weather Underground. The 1988 film
"Running on Empty" was based on Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. In
2001 Bill Ayers, former Weatherman, authored "Fugitive Days, A Memoir."
(SSFC, 9/9/01, DB p.67)(SFC, 7/21/03,
p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Oughton)
1970 Mar 15, "Purlie" opened at
Broadway Theater in NYC. In December it moved to the Win-ter Garden
Theater and in March 1971 to the ANTA Playhouse where it closed in
November af-ter a total of 688 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3514)
1970 Mar 18, The US Postal Service
was paralyzed by the first postal strike. A walkout of let-ter carriers
in Brooklyn and Manhattan set off a strike that involved 210,000 of the
nation’s 750,000 postal employees. Pres. Nixon declared a state of
national emergency and assigned military units to NYC post offices.
(HN, 3/18/98)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1970 Mar 26, "Minnie's Boys"
opened at Imperial Theater in NYC for 80 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie%27s_Boys)
1970 Mar 30, The musical
"Applause" with Lauren Bacall opened on Broadway. It was based on the
movie "All About Eve."
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Par p.7)(AP, 3/30/07)
1970 Apr 7, "Effects of Gamma Rays
on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds," premiered in NYC. The play was written
in 1964 by Paul Zindel, playwright and science teacher. Zindel received
the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Effect_of_Gamma_Rays_on_Man-in-the-Moon_Marigolds)
1970 Apr 14, The Sandy Wilson
musical "Boy Friend" opened at Ambassador Theater in NYC for 119
performances. The original London production was in 1954.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Friend)
1970 Apr 26, The musical,
"Company," opened at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway. It starred Elaine
Stritch and ran for [690] 705 performances. It was directed by Hal
Prince. George Furth wrote the book and Stephen Sondheim (b.1930) wrote
the score.
(AP, 4/26/98)(http://www.sondheim.com/works/company/)
1970 May 8, Anti-war protests took
place across the United States and around the world. Construction
workers broke up an anti-war protest on New York City's Wall Street.
(AP, 5/8/07)
1970 May 29, Eva Hesse, artist
(34), died in NYC. She is one of 3 artists covered by Anne Middleton
Wagner in "Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism in the Art of Hesse,
Krasner and O’Keefe."
(HFA, '96, p.42)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.T-7)(SSFC, 2/3/02,
p.D3)
1970 Jun 7, The Who's Tommy was
performed at NY's Lincoln Center.
(www.bigozine2.com/archive/ARrarities/ARwhoortommy.html)
1970 Aug 14, City University of NY
inaugurated open admissions.
(www.kipnotes.com/Colleges.htm)
1970 Oct 3, "Coco" closed at Mark
Hellinger Theater NYC after 333 performances.
(www.playbill.com/news/article/117071.html)
1970 Oct 19, J. Bock's and S.
Harnick's musical "Rothschilds," premiered in NYC and ran for 505
performances.
(www.answers.com/topic/the-rothchilds-musical)
1970 Dec 18, "Me Nobody Knows"
opened at Helen Hayes Theater in NYC for 587 perform-ances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Me_Nobody_Knows)
1970 Dec 27, "Hello, Dolly!"
closed at the St. James Theater on Broadway after a run of 2,844
performances.
(AP,
12/27/97)(www.nodanw.com/shows_h/hello_dolly.htm)
1970 New York City’s Off-Track
Betting Corp. was created, in part to take gambling out of the hands of
organized crime. In 2008 it was taken over by the state.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.36)
1971 Jan 19, The revival of "No,
No Nanette," first produced on March 11, 1925, opened at 46th St
Theater NYC and continued for 861 performances.
(www.broadwayworld.com/bwidb/sections/productions/index.php?var=6282)
1971 Feb 10, The play "The House
of Blue Leaves" by John Guare (b.1938), American play-wright, opened
off Broadway.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB
p.37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Blue_Leaves)
1971 Feb 25, "Oh, Calcutta" opened
at the Belasco Theater.
(www.broadwayworld.com/bwidb/sections/productions/index.php?var=2746)(SFEC,
11/3/96, DB p.38)
1971 Mar 8, Joe Frazier fought
Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight championship at Madison Square Garden.
Frazier won. They fought rematches in 1974 and 1975. In 2001 Mark Kram
au-thored "Ghosts of Manila," and account of the Frazier-Ali boxing
matches.
(WSJ, 5/25/01,
p.W8)(http://espn.go.com/classic/s/silver_ali_frazier.html)
1971 Mar 28, In the 25th Tony
Awards held in NYC “Sleuth” won for best play & “Company” won for
best musical.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25th_Tony_Awards)
1971 Apr 3, Manfred Bennington Lee
(65), detective writer, died. Brooklyn cousins Daniel Na-than,
alias Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred
Bennington Lee (b.1905), used Ellery Queen as both a fictional
character and a pseudonym.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellery_Queen)
1971 Apr 4, Stephen Sondheim’s
musical "Follies" was produced at the Winter Garden in NYC and ran for
524 performances. The book was written by James Goldman (d.1998 at 71).
(www.nodanw.com/shows_f/follies.htm)(SFC, 1/20/98,
p.E1)(SFC, 10/30/98, p.D4)
1971 Apr 6, Igor
Stravinsky (b.1882), Russian-born composer, died in NYC.
(AP,
4/6/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Stravinsky)
1971 Apr 8, The 1st legal
off-track betting (OTB) system began in NYC.
(www.nycotb.com/newnycotb/AboutUs/NYCOTBHistory/tabid/57/Default.aspx)
1971 Apr 29, Bill Graham announced
the close of the Fillmore in SF and the Fillmore East in NYC along with
his retirement from concert promotion. He was angered by his perceived
greed of rock bands and the anger and distrust of his audience. He soon
relented and put on shows with Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, Pink
Floyd, the Who and the Grateful Dead. The final concert at Fillmore
East took place on June 27.
(SFC,12/13/97,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_East)
1971 May 17, The musical
"Godspell," by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak, pre-miered
off-Broadway.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godspell)
1971 May 25, Justin Henry Rye,
actor (Kramer vs. Kramer, 16 Candles), was born in NY.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1971 Jun 16, An El Greco sketch,
"The Immaculate Conception," stolen in Spain 35 years earlier, was
recovered in New York City by the FBI.
(www.historynet.com/tdih0616.htm)
1971 Jun 26, "Man of La Mancha"
closed at ANTA Wash Square Theater in NYC after 2329 performances.
(www.broadwayworld.com/bwidb/productions/Man_of_La_Mancha_5857/)
1971 Jul 26, Diane Arbus [Nemerov]
(b.1923), photographer, committed suicide in NYC. In 1984 Patricia
Bosworth authored: "Diane Arbus: A Biography."
(http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa110600c.htm)
1971 Aug 1, The Concert For
Bangladesh, two benefit concerts organized by George Harri-son and Ravi
Shankar, played to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concert_for_Bangladesh)
1971 Oct 12, The rock opera "Jesus
Christ Superstar" opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway. It
closed July 1, 1973 after 711 performances.
(AP,
10/12/97)(www.ronaldbrucemeyer.com/rants/1012b-almanac.htm)
1971 Oct 16, H. Rap Brown (b.1943)
was captured following a shootout with police in NYC. He was charged
with inciting a riot and carrying a gun across state lines. Brown
converted to Is-lam in jail and became Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
(SSFC, 1/6/02,
p.A13)(http://americanascherrypie.tripod.com/id3.html)
1971 Nov 6, The musical "Purlie"
closed at ANTA Playhouse in NYC after a total of 688 per-formances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3514)
1971 Nov 11, Neil Simon's
"Prisoner of Second Avenue," premiered in NYC.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0072034/)
1971 Fritz Koenig, German
Sculptor, created a 27-foot-tall brass ball and called it "The Sphere."
It was installed at the NYC World Trade Center and was the only piece
of art to sur-vive.
(WSJ, 3/7/02, p.A22)
1971 Richard Moore (Dhoruba
al-Mujahid bin Wahad), a Black Panther field secretary, was charged
with shooting and wounding 2 police officers guarding the home of
Manhattan’s district attorney. The case was overturned in 1990 and in
2000 the city agreed to pay Moore $490,000 for 19 years of wrong
imprisonment.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A15)
1971-1977 Bella Savitzky Abzug (1920-1998), radical
feminist and anti-war activist, served as a Democratic Congress
representative from Manhattan.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A5)
1972 Jan 1, "Promises Promises"
closed at Shubert Theater NYC after 1281 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3438)
1972 Feb 5, Marianne Moore
(b.1887), American poet, died in NYC. Her longest work was the 1923
poem "Marriage." In 1998 her the book: "The Selected letters of
Marianne Moore" was ed-ited by Bonnie Costello, Celeste Goodridge and
Cristanne Miller.
(WSJ, 1/8/98,
p.A7)(www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/moore.html)
1972 Feb 13, "1776" closed at 46th
Street Theater in NYC after 1,217 performances. A film version was
released in November.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_(musical))
1972 Feb 14, The musical "Grease"
opened at the Eden Theatre off Broadway. The show turned out to be a
surprise hit and soon moved to the Broadhurst Theatre and then to the
Royale where it remained until April 13, 1980. The show had a record
run until it was taken over by A Chorus Line.
(http://musicalheaven.com/g/grease.shtml)
1972 Mar 1, David Rabe's "Sticks
and Bones" premiered in New York City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_and_Bones)
1972 Mar 26, "Only Fools Are Sad"
closed at Edison Theater in NYC after 144 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3626)
1972 Apr 2, Tennessee Williams'
"Small Craft Warnings," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Craft_Warnings)
1972 Apr 4, Adam Clayton Powell
Jr. (b.1908), American politician, died in Florida. He was elected to
the US House of Representatives from Harlem in 1945 and became chair of
the Education and Labor Committee in 1961. He was the first black
Congressman from New York.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_Jr.)
1972 Apr 7, "Crazy" Joe Gallo,
flamboyant mobster, was gunned down at his 43rd birthday party in
Manhattan’s Umberto's Clam House.
(SFC, 12/30/04, p.A2)
1972 Apr 19, The Broadway
production Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope" opened at the Play-house
Theatre, where it ran for two months before transferring to the Edison.
It had a total run of 1065 performances. The cast included Grant, Alex
Bradford, and Hope Clarke.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Bother_Me,_I_Can't_Cope)
1972 Apr 23, In the 26th Tony
Awards, held in NYC, "Sticks & Bones" won as best play and "Two
Gentlemen of Verona" won as best musical.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26th_Tony_Awards)
1972 May 2, The play "That
Championship Season" by Jason Miller (1939-2001) premiered in NYC off
Broadway. A film version premiered in 1982.
(http://www.bookrags.com/guides/championshipseason/)
1972 Jun 2, Dion & the
Belmonts held a reunion concert at Madison Square Garden.
(www.softshoe-slim.com/lists/d/dion.html)
1972 Jun 7, The musical "Grease"
opened at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it ran for five months before
transferring to the Royale Theatre. It had initially opened at the Eden
Theater in Manhattan on Feb 14,1972.
(AP,
6/7/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_(musical))
1972 Jun, George Balanchine and
his NYC Ballet presented 22 new dances set to the music of Stravinsky:
"Symphony in Three Movements."
(WSJ, 11/21/02, p.D6)
1972 Jul 1, "Hair" closed at
Biltmore Theater in NYC after 1750 performances.
(www.geocities.com/hairpages/hairhistory.html)
1972 Jul 27, "Applause" closed at
Palace Theater in NYC after 900 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3519)
1972 Aug 12, "Oh! Calcutta!"
closed at Belasco Theater in NYC.
(http://www.blogwaybaby.com/2005/01/bring-back-oh-calcutta.html)
1972 Oct 17, Bob Randall's play "6
Rooms Riv Vu," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_Rms_Riv_Vu)
1972 Oct 23, The musical "Pippin"
opened on Broadway and ran for 1944 performances.
(AP, 10/23/97)(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippin_(musical))
1972 Nov 8, The Green Channel of
Manhattan became Home Box Office (HBO). Time Life gained control of HBO
in March, 1973. HBO soon began transmitting programs to cable TV
subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The 1st cablecast was a National
League Hockey game.
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.B1)(SFC, 4/3/01, p.C1)
1972 Nov 15, Circle-in the-Square
Theater opened at 1633 Broadway NYC with a revival of Mourning Becomes
Electra.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_in_the_Square_Theatre)
1972 Dec 20, Neil Simon's
"Sunshine Boys," premiered in NYC.
(www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/97/sp720-97.html)
1972 Bernard B. Jacobs (1916-1996)
became the president of the Shubert Organization, which owns Broadway
theaters and produced such plays as Cats and Amadeus.
(SFC, 8/28/96,
p.C2)(www.shubertorganization.com/organization/news/article.asp?id=7)
1972 The Tonight Show moved from
New York to Los Angeles.
(SFEM, 10/5/97, p.16)
1972 The Port Authority was
renamed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A10)
1972 Frank Serpico, police
officer, exposed corruption in the police force.
(SFC, 9/24/97, p.A3)
1972 Seaman Schepps (b.1881), NYC
jewelry designer, died.
(WSJ, 10/8/04, p.W10)
1973 Jan 3, The Columbia
Broadcasting System (CBS) got out of the baseball business this day by
selling the New York Yankees to a 12-man syndicate headed by George
Steinbrenner III for $8.8 million. Steinbrenner (1930-2010) put up
barely $100,000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_New_York_Yankees_season)(Econ,
7/17/10, p.38)
1973 Jan 10, An empty liquefied
natural gas (LNG) tank in Bloomfield on Staten Island ex-ploded and 40
workers were killed.
(www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyrichmo/history.shtml)
1973 Feb 3, "No, No Nanette"
closed at 46th St. Theater in NYC after 861 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3580)
1973 Feb 13, Musical "El Grande de
Coca-Cola," premiered in NYC. The off-Broadway show closed April 13,
1975
(www.broadwayworld.com/bwidb/productions/El_Grande_de_Coca-Cola_8236/)
1973 Feb 18, Frank Costello
(b.1891), Italian-born US gangster, died in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Costello)
1973 Feb 25, The Stephen Sondheim
musical "A Little Night Music" opened at Broadway's Shubert Theater.
(AP, 2/25/98)
1973 Mar 1, In the Paumanok
Handicap at Aqueduct, NYC, Robyn Smith rode North Star to victory,
becoming the first woman jockey to win a stakes race.
(www.hickoksports.com/calendar/mar01.shtml)
1973 Mar 3, "Shelter" closed at
John Golden Theater in NYC after 31 performances.
(www.broadwayworld.com/bwidb/sections/productions/index.php?var=7111)
1973 Mar 4, Khalid Duhham
Al-Jawary (b.1947), and possibly others readied cars with bombs in
anticipation of Israeli PM Golda Meir's visit to NYC. The bombs failed
to detonate and were discovered after two cars on Fifth Avenue were
towed. The FBI learned about a third car at JFK and notified police. In
1979 Border police stopped Al-Jawary's car as he and another man tried
to cross into Germany from Austria. In the trunk of the car, police
found 88 pounds of high ex-plosives, electronic timing-delay devices
and detonators hidden in a suitcase. They also un-earthed cash and nine
passports inside a portable radio that could be used to monitor
transmis-sions from ships, airplanes or the police. Germany released
Al-Jawary long before the FBI knew that he had been taken into custody.
In 1991 he was detained in Rome and picked up by the FBI. In 1993 a
jury convict Al-Jawary, just days after the first attack on the World
Trade Center, based on evidence that included his fingerprints on one
of the NYC bombs. In 2009 Al-Jawary was deported to Sudan after
completing only about half his term, including time served prior to his
sentencing and credit for good behavior.
(AP, 1/25/09)(SFC, 2/27/09, p.A5)(WSJ, 3/5/09, p.A6)
1973 Mar 5, During spring training
in Florida, Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich
announced they had swapped wives.
(www.around-the-horn.com/?p=131)
1973 Apr 3, In NYC Martin Cooper,
a general manager for Motorola, called rival AT&T making the first
cell phone call using a cell phone the size of a brick.
(SFC, 4/4/08, p.C1)
1973 Apr 6, Yankee Ron Blomberg
(b.1948) became the 1st designated hitter. He walked.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Blomberg)
1973 May 20, "The Two Gentlemen of
Verona" closed at St. James Theater in NYC after 613 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Gentlemen_of_Verona)
1973 Jul 1, The rock opera "Jesus
Christ Superstar" closed at the Mark Hellinger Theater on Broadway. It
closed July 1, 1973 after 711 performances.
(www.ronaldbrucemeyer.com/rants/1012b-almanac.htm)
1973 Sep 18, Sondheim’s "A Little
Night Music" moved to the Majestic Theater on Broadway.
(www.sondheimguide.com/night.html)
1973 Oct 12, The ballet
“Remembrances” by Robert Joffrey (1930-1988) premiered in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/3nxhm3)
1973 Oct 18, "Raisin" opened at
46th St. Theater NYC for 847 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raisin_(musical))
1973 Nov 6, Abraham D. Beame
(1906-2001) was elected as the New York city’s 104th and 1st Jewish
mayor. He served until 1978.
(SFC, 2/12/01,
p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Beame)
1973 Nov 27, Neil Simon's "Good
Doctor," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Doctor_(play))
1973 Dec 31, Mayor John V. Lindsay
left office after 2 terms.
(SFC, 12/21/00, p.A31)
1973 The twin towers of the World
Trade Center were completed and became the tallest buildings in the
world. The World Trade Center was completed at a cost of $350 million.
The twin 110-story towers housed 55,000 employees working for 350
firms. In 2000 Aric Darton au-thored "Divided We Stand," the story
behind the building of the Trade Center; Angus Kress Gil-lespie
authored "Twin Towers," a cultural history that also covered the
engineering challenges overcome by architect Minoru Yamasaki.
(HT, 5/97, p.28)(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.A24)(SFC, 9/12/01,
p.A6)
1973 SoHo was named a historic
district.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T5)
1974 Mar 3, "Sextet" opened at
Bijou Theater in NYC for 9 performances.
(www.broadwayworld.com/bwidb/sections/productions/index.php?var=2784)
1974 Mar 5, A revived "Candide"
opened at Broadway Theater in NYC for 740 performances. The book and
lyrics were revised from the 1956 version.
(SFC, 1/11/05, p.E1)
1974 Mar 6, "Over Here" opened at
Shubert Theater in NYC for 341 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_Here!)
1974 Apr 5, The World Trade Center
(WTC), the tallest building in the world at 110 stories, opened in NYC.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1974 May 28, "Magic Show" opened
at Cort Theater in NYC for 1859 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3468)
1974 Aug 7, French stuntman
Philippe Petit walked a tightrope strung between the twin tow-ers of
New York's World Trade Center. In 2002 Petit authored "To Reach the
Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers." In 2003 Steven
Galloway authored "Ascension," a novel that featured a fictional Gypsy
tightrope walker named Ursari, who makes a final, fateful sky-walk
between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on July 4, 1976. In
2008 James Marsh produced his documentary film of the event: Man On
Wire.”
(AP, 8/7/97)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.M4)(SSFC, 10/11/03,
p.M3)(WSJ, 8/8/08, p.W1)
1974 Aug 16, The Ramones 1st
performed at the CBGB in NYC. Dee Dee Ramone (d.2002) had formed the
Ramones punk rock band in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens along
with Jeffrey Hyman, John Cummings (aka Johnny Ramone, d.2004) and Tom
Erdelyi.
(SFC, 6/8/02, p.D4)(Econ, 9/25/04, p.100)
1974 Sep 7, The musical "Irene"
closed at Minskoff Theater NYC after 605 performances.
(www.debbiereynoldsonline.com/irene.htm)
1974 Sep 23, The 1959
Broadway show "Gypsy" reopened on Broadway with Angel Lans-bury
(b.1925), following a 1973 run in London.
(SFEC, 12/8/96, Par
p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy:_A_Musical_Fable)
1974 Oct 2, Pele (b.1940),
Brazilian soccer player born as Edson Arantes do Nascimento, came out
of retirement to join the NY Cosmos of the North American Soccer
League. Steve Ross (1927-1992), chairman of Warner Brothers and founder
of the Cosmos, offered him a re-ported $7 million for a 3-year
contract. In 2006 Gavin Newsham authored “Once in a Lifetime: The
Incredible Story of the New York Cosmos.”
(SFC, 6/26/06,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pel%C3%A9)
1974 Oct 27, "Don't Bother Me, I
Can't Cope" closed at the Edison Theater in NYC after 1065 performances.
(http://tinyurl.com/3r9pv9)
1974 Nov 28, John Lennon
(1940-1980) made what would become his last concert appear-ance at an
Elton John concert at New York's Madison Square Garden. Lennon joined
Elton John to sing "Whatever Gets You Through the Night", "Lucy In The
Sky With Diamonds", as well as "I Saw Her Standing There". Backstage,
Lennon has a brief reunion with Yoko Ono, from whom he'd been separated
for over a year.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon)
1974 Nov 30, "Good Evening" with
Dudley Moore and Peter Cook closed at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater in NYC
after 438 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=3658)
1974 Dec 18, The Broadway
production "Of Mice and Men" opened. It starred James Earl Jones and
featured Joe Seneca (d.1996). The first stage production was in 1937.
(SFC, 8/17/96,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Mice_and_Men)
1974 Ron Link (d.1999 at 58)
produced the off-Broadway play "Women Behind Bars" with au-thor Tom
Eyen. The prison spoof play ran for over a year at the Astor Place
theater in NYC.
(SFC, 6/14/99, p.A24)
1974 Peter Maas published his book
"King of the Gypsies." It highlighted the Tene-Bimbo Gypsy clan in New
York City.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.A21)
1974 In NYC a 40-story building at
130 Liberty Street, named 1 Bankers Trust Plaza, was completed. In 2001
it received a 15-story gash in its façade when the South Tower
of the World Trade Center fell in the Sep 11 attack. In 2004 the
building was slated for demolition, a process that continued into 2007.
(WSJ, 5/23/07, p.A1)
1974 In New York the Solow
Building was completed. The 50-floor building was designed by
architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.B10)(www.thecityreview.com/57w9.html)
1974 Cornell Capa (1918-2008),
photojournalist and author of “The Concerned Photographer” (1968),
founded the International Center of Photography in NYC.
(SFC, 5/24/08, p.B5)
1975 Jan 5, "The Wiz," a musical
version of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," opened at the
Majestic Theater on Broadway with an all-black cast. It ran for 1672
perform-ances.
(AP, 1/5/00)
1975 Jan 7, "Shenandoah" opened at
Alvin Theater, NYC, for 1050 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_(musical))
1975 Jan 24, In New York City, the
FALN, a militant group seeking independence for Puerto Rico, sets off a
bomb in Fraunces Tavern. Four people were killed and 53 injured.
(NYT, 2/7/75, p.1)
1975 Feb 26, "Night... Made
America Famous" opened at Barrymore in NYC for 75 perform-ances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_That_Made_America_Famous)
1975 Mar 3, "Goodtime Charley"
opened at Palace Theater in NYC for 104 performances.
(www.musicalheaven.com/Detailed/1787.html)
1975 Mar 10, "Rocky Horror Show"
opened at Belasco Theater in NYC for 45 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocky_Horror_Show)
1975 Mar 13, Bernard Slade's "Same
Time, Next Year," premiered in NYC. In 1978 it was made into a film
starring Ellen Burstyn and Alan Alda.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s1314)
1975 Jun 3, The musical "Chicago"
opened on Broadway with a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, and music by
John Kander.
(WSJ, 11/15/96,
p.A14)(http://broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/chicago.htm)
1975 Jun 24, In New York 113
people were killed when an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashed while
attempting to land during a thunderstorm at John F. Kennedy
International Air-port. The crash was later attributed to a microburst,
not experienced at the control tower be-cause of a sea breeze front.
(AP, 6/24/97)(SFC, 6/24/09, p.D8)
1975 Jul 25, "A Chorus Line," the
longest-running Broadway show (6,137), premiered on Broadway. It had
opened off-Broadway at The Public Theater on May 21, 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Chorus_Line)
1975 Sep 1, NYC transit fares rose
from 35 cents to 50 cents.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_transit_fares)
1975 Oct 21, "Treemonisha," a 1911
opera by Scott Joplin (1868-1917), opened at Uris Thea-ter NYC for 64
performances. The 1st full professional staging was done in 1975 by the
Houston Grand Opera.
(www.nodanw.com/shows_t/treemonisha.htm)(SFC,
6/21/03, p.D1)
1975 Oct 30, The New York Daily
News ran the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" a day after President
Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1975 Nov 10, The UN General
Assembly approved a resolution equating Zionism with racism. However,
the world body repealed the resolution in December 1991.
(AP,
11/10/97)(www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg851.cfm)
1975 Dec 6, The US Congress
authorized a $2.3 billion emergency loan to save New York City from
bankruptcy.
(http://tinyurl.com/6axxe2)
1975 Dec 8, "Raisin" closed at
46th St Theater NYC after 847 performances.
(www.hbdirect.com/album_detail.php?pid=136295)
1975 Dec 9, President Ford signed
a $2.3 billion seasonal loan-authorization that officials of New York
City and State said would prevent a city default.
(AP, 12/9/00)
1975 Dec 29, A bomb exploded in
the main terminal of New York's LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 people.
(AP, 12/29/97)
1976 Jan 4, "Candide" closed at
Broadway Theater in NYC after 740 performances.
(www.sondheim.org/php/news.php?id=1675)
1976 Mar 2, The musical revue
Bubbling Brown Sugar" opened at ANTA Theater in NYC for 766
performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbling_Brown_Sugar)
1976 Apr 26, Pan Am began non-stop
flights between NYC and Tokyo.
(www.wingnet.org/rtw/rtw006hh.htm)
1976 Sep 10, 5 Croatian terrorists
captured a TWA-plane at La Guardia Airport, NY.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1976 Dec 12, QB Joe Namath played
his last game as a NY Jet. In 2004 Mark Kriegel au-thored “Namath: A
Biography.”
(www.newyorkjets.com/history)(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.M3)
1976 Harold Parrot, a Brooklyn
Dodgers road secretary, published "The Lords of Baseball."
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.A3)
1976 Composer Philip Glass and
director/designer Robert Wilson collaborated on their pro-duction of
"Einstein on the Beach" at the NY Met.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.E1)(Econ, 7/22/06, p.82)
1976 Celestine Tate Harrington
(d.1998 at 42), a NYC deformed entertainer, won the right to raise her
own daughter when she demonstrated her ability to change a diaper using
her mouth. She was born stunted due to a botched abortion attempt by
her teenage mother.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A19)
1976 Dorothy Schiff (1903-1989)
sold the New York Post, founded in 1801, to Rupert Mur-doch, Australian
media tycoon, for $30 million.
(WSJ, 4/7/07, p.P10)(www.ketupa.net/murdoch2.htm)
1977 Feb 21, In NYC 74 Unification
Church couples were wed.
(www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Topics/U-Stuff/BLSS-HST.htm)
1977 Apr 21, The musical play
"Annie" opened on Broadway, the 1st of 2,377 performances. Laurie
Beechman (d.1998) made her debut in the show based on the “Little
Orphan Annie” comic strip. Beechman later played Grizabella for 5 years
in “Cats.”
(SFC, 3/10/98, p.A17)(AP, 4/21/08)
1977 Apr 26, NY's famed disco
Studio 54 opened. It closed in March, 1986.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_54)
1977 May 16 Five people were
killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling atop the Pan Am
Building in midtown Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade
flying.
(AP, 5/16/97)
1977 May 26, George H. Willig
scaled the outside of the South Tower of New York City's World Trade
Center. He was arrested at the top of the 110-story building.
(AP, 5/26/97)
1977 May 27, New York City fined
"human fly" George H. Willig $1.10 -- one penny for each of the 110
stories of the World Trade Center he scaled the day before.
(AP, 5/27/97)
1977 May 30, Paul Desmond
(b.1924), jazz alto saxophonist, died in NYC.
(http://musicbase.h1.ru/PPB/ppb2/Bio_224.htm)
1977 Jun 12, "Pippin" closed at
Imperial Theater in NYC after 1944 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippin_(musical))
1977 Jul 13, A 25-hour power
blackout hit the New York City area and looters rampaged in the city
after lightning struck upstate power lines. Some 9 million people were
affected.
(TMC, 1994, p.1977)(AP, 7/13/97)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A7)
1977 Aug 7, "Shenandoah" closed at
Alvin Theater in NYC after 1,050 performances.
(www.angelfire.com/stars/scottbakula/Theatrecredits.html)
1977 Aug 27, "Chicago" closed at
46th St Theater in NYC after 947 performances.
(www.curtainup.com/chicago.html)
1977 Oct 18, The New York Yankees
won Game 6 and the World Series as Reggie Jackson hit 3 homeruns for
the 8-4 win.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_World_Series)
1977 Oct 19, The supersonic
Concorde made its first landing in New York City.
(AP, 10/19/97)
1977 Oct 20, David Mamet's play,
"Life in the Theater," opened in NYC. It was first produced in Chicago
at the Goodman Theater's Stage Two, opening February 3, 1977.
(www.theatrewesternsprings.com/Actives/archives/LifeTheatre/LifeInTheTheatre.htm)
1977 Dec 4, Neil Simon's "Chapter
Two," premiered in NYC.
(http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/simon.html)(http://tinyurl.com/yvtv65)
1977 Dec 14, The film "Saturday
Night Fever," starring John Travolta, premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Fever)
1977 Dec 22, Thomas Helms (26)
climbed to the edge of the observation deck on the eighty-sixth floor
of the Empire State Building, and jumped intending to kill himself on
the streets 1000s of feet below. He only fell twenty feet before
landing on a narrow ledge on the 85th floor. Helms suffered no major
injuries but was knocked unconscious for half-an-hour--adequate time
for an emergency crew to bring him safely inside.
(www.funtrivia.com/en/Humanities/Architecture-1944.html)
1977 Dec 31, "Bubbling Brown
Sugar" closed at ANTA Theater NYC after 766 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbling_Brown_Sugar)
1977 In 2005 Jonathan Mahler
authored “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball,
Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City,” an account of this
year in NYC.
(WSJ, 4/7/05, p.D8)
1977 Marcia Tucker (1940-2006)
established the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC on 5th Ave. at
14th Street.
(SFC, 10/20/06, p.B8)
1978 Feb 26, Ira Levin's
"Deathtrap" premiered at the Music Box Theater in NYC.
(www.madstage.com/oldshows/MTGPast.html#Deathtrap)
1978 Feb 28, Robert Rowe (d.1997)
of Brooklyn killed his wife and 3 children with a baseball bat. He was
tried and later released from a mental institution and became a father
again. In 2001 Julie Salamon authored "Facing the Wind," a narrative of
the Rowe case.
(WSJ, 3/30/01, p.W8)
1978 Mar 1, "Timbuktu!" opened at
Mark Hellinger Theater in NYC for 243 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu!)
1978 Mar 27, Bob Fosse's "Dancin'"
opened at Broadhurst Theater in NYC for 1,774 perform-ances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancin')
1978 May 8, David R. Berkowitz
pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn courtroom to the "Son of Sam" killings
that had terrified New Yorkers.
(AP, 5/8/98)
1978 May 9, "Ain't Misbehavin'"
opened at Longacre Theater NYC for 1604 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't_Misbehavin')
1978 Jun 12, David Berkowitz was
sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each of the six "Son of
Sam" .44-caliber killings that had terrified New Yorkers.
(AP, 6/12/98)
1978 Jun 19, "Best Little
Whorehouse..." opened at 46th St NYC for 1584 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4066)
1978 Jul 2, The New York Times
produced its last issue using Linotype machinery. In 1980 David Loeb
Weiss (d.2005) produced his documentary “Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu,” which
docu-mented that last production night.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.B7)
1978 Sep 20, "Eubie!" opened at
Ambassador Theater NYC for 439 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eubie!)
1978 Sep 26, NY District Court
Judge Constance Baker Motley ruled that women sportswrit-ers cannot be
banned from NYC sports locker rooms.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1978-9/1978-09-27-CBS-17.html)
1978 Oct 12, Nancy Spungen
(b.1958), girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, was found dead
on the bathroom floor of their NYC hotel room. She had bled to death
from a single stab wound to the abdomen.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Spungen)
1978 Oct 23, Sid Vicious attempted
suicide while at Riker's Detention Center in NYC.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1978 Nov 15, Margaret Mead (76),
anthropologist (Thoughts & Female), died in NY. "Marga-ret Mead and
Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth" by Derek
Free-man was published in this year.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.7)(MC, 11/15/01)
1978 Dec 11, Six masked men bound
10 employees at Lufthansa cargo area at NY Kennedy Airport & made
off with $5.8 M in cash & jewelry. Nicholas Pileggi wrote "Wise
Guys," which described his participation in the heist. The robbery
inspired the movie "Goodfellas."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_heist)(SFC,
5/10/97, p.A3)
1978 Kevin McAuliffe authored "The
Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the Village Voice."
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D6)
1978 The Plasmatics punk band made
their debut in New York City clubs. Wendy O. Williams (d.1998 at 48),
the lead singer, was charged a number of times for simulated sex acts
on stage.
(SFC, 4/8/98, p.B2)
1978 Jeamette Watson opened her
Books & Co. bookstore on the Upper East Side. It closed in 1997. In
1999 Lynne Tillman authored ""Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeanette
Watson and Books & Co."
(SFEC, 12/12/99, BR p.6)
1978 An 18-inch snow fall closed
down schools in NYC.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.28)
1978-1991 Zubin Mehta served as music director of the
New York Philharmonic.
(SFC, 1/6/98, p.D1)
1979 Jan 28, "The Wiz" closed at
Majestic Theater in NYC after 1672 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wiz)
1979 Feb 2, John Simon Ritchie
(b.1957), better known as Sid Vicious, the bassist for the British Sex
Pistols rock group, overdosed from heroin in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Vicious)
1979 Feb 10, The NYC Metropolitan
Museum announced the first major theft in 110-year his-tory, a $150,000
Greek marble head.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1979 Feb 11, In NYC "They're
Playing Our Song" opened at the Imperial Theater and played for 1082
performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They're_Playing_Our_Song)
1979 Feb 28, Ernest Thompson's
play "On Golden Pond," premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3923)
1979 Mar 1, "Sweeney Todd" with
Angel Lansbury opened at Uris Theater in NYC for 557 performances. The
score was by Stephen Sondheim.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweeney_Todd)(SFEC,
5/31/98, BR p.1)
1979 Mar 4, "Grand Tour" closed at
Palace Theater in NYC after 61 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3913)
1979 Mar 22, The opera "Miss
Havisham’s Fire" by Dominick Argento premiered at the NYC Opera with
two 80-minute acts. It was based on a character in the 1861 novel
“Great Expecta-tions” by Charles Dickens.
(WSJ, 7/2/01,
p.A12)(www.historicopera.com/listing_operas.htm)
1979 Apr 5, The play “Faith
Healer” by Brian Friel opened on Broadway with James Mason as Frank. It
closed after 3 weeks.
(Econ, 2/25/06,
p.88)(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3933)
1979 Aug 25, "Madwoman of Central
Park West" closed at 22 Steps in NYC after 86 perform-ances.
(www.sondheimguide.com/other.html)
1979 Sep 18, The Who played the
5th of their 5 concerts at Madison Square Garden.
(www.thewholive.de/konzerte/zeige_konzert.php?GroupID=1&Status=0&Jahr=1979)
1979 Oct 8, "Sugar Babies" opened
at the Mark Hellinger Theater in NYC and continued for 1208
performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Babies)
1979 Oct 23, Billy Martin
(1928-1989), NY Yankee baseball manager, was involved in a bar-room
altercation when he sucker punched Joseph Cooper, a Minnesota
marshmallow sales-man. Cooper required 15 stitches. Martin was fired.
(www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/October_23)
1979 Nov 8, Bernard Slade's
"Romantic Comedy," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_Comedy_(play))
1979 Dec 9, Archbishop Fulton J.
Sheen, the religious broadcaster, died in New York City at age 84.
(AP, 12/9/97)
1979 Dec 30, Richard Rodgers
(b.1902), composer (Rodgers & Hammerstein), died in NYC. His
Broadway shows included "Oklahoma" and other classics.
(www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/rodgers_r.html)
1979 The opera "Miss Havisham’s
Fire" by Dominick Argento premiered at the NYC Opera with 2 80-minute
acts.
(WSJ, 7/2/01, p.A12)
1979 Itzhak Perlman and the New
York Philharmonic premiered the Violin Concerto of Earl Kim (d.1998 at
78) at Avery Fisher Hall.
(SFC, 11/28/98, p.C2)
1979 Tim and Nina Zagat began a
mimeographed list of restaurants rated by a few friends that grew into
the Zagat restaurant guides. Their first guide covered restaurants in
NYC. Sales exceeded $20 million in 2002.
(SFC, 3/16/02,
p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagat's_Survey)
1980 Jan 18, Steve Rubell &
Ian Schrager, owners of the Studio 54 disco in NYC, were sen-tenced to
3 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $20,000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Rubell)
1980 Jan 28, Jimmy Durante (b.
1893), ‘Schnozzel,’ comedian (Jimmy Durante Show), died in NYC.
(HN, 2/10/99)(AP, 2/10/01)(MC, 1/28/02)
1980 Mar 18, John Favara struck a
killed Frank Gotti (12), the son of mobster John Gotti, as the boy
darted in front of his car on a minibike in Brooklyn. Favara
disappeared on July 28. In 2009 it was reported that mobster Charles
Carneglia (62) had killed Favara and dissolved his body in acid.
(SFC, 1/9/09, p.A2)
1980 Apr 13, "Grease" closed at
Broadhurst Theater in NYC after 3,388 performances.
(www.awesometickets.net/Theatre/Grease+Tickets/index.php)
1980 May 25, "Musical Chairs"
closed at Rialto Theater in NYC after 15 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4852)
1980 May 29, In NYC "Billy Bishop
Goes to War" opened at the Morosco Theater for 12 per-formances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3957)
1980 Jun 29, "Sweeney Todd" closed
at Uris Theater NYC after 557 performances.
(www.sondheim.com/shows/sweeney_todd/#OBC_info)
1980 Aug 25, The Broadway musical
"42nd Street" opened in NYC for 3486 performances. Producer David
Merrick stunned both cast and audience during the curtain call by
announcing that the show’s director, Gower Champion, had died earlier
that day.
(AP,
8/25/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42nd_Street_(musical))
1980 Aug 31-Sep 8, Bill Evans made
live recordings at the Village Vanguard just weeks be-fore his death.
They were scheduled to be released by Warner Bros. in 11/96.
(WSJ, 9/11/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/16/00, p.B1)
1980 Sep 15, Bill Evans (b.1929),
jazz pianist, died. In 1998 Peter Pettinger published "Bill Evans: How
My Heart Sings."
(SFEC, 11/10/96, DB p.35)(WSJ, 8/28/98, p.W7)(SFC,
10/16/00, p.B1)
1980 Nov 5, Lanford Wilson's "5th
of July," first produced in 1978, moved to the New Apollo in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/2lnkyu)
1980 Dec 8, John Lennon, musician
and one of the Beatles, was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman
outside his New York City apartment building. Chapman was a
schizophrenic with the delusion that he himself was John. In 1984 Prof.
Jonathan M. Wiener wrote a book on Lennon and later got the FBI to
surrender its secret files on Lennon.
(SFC, 9/25/97, p.A2)(AP, 12/8/97)
1980 Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
founded the Central Park Conservancy and was made the ad-ministrator of
Central Park.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A6)
1980 Philip Guston (b.1913),
painter, died. He was recognized as a lesser master of the first
generation New York School of abstraction. He quit abstract painting in
1967 and confined him-self to drawing. His work included "Back View"
(1977).
(SFC, 1/15/98, p.E5)(SFC, 6/28/03, p.D1)
1981 Jan
8, The "Pirates of Penzance" opened at the Uris Theater, NYC, for 772
perform-ances. Linda Ronstadt (b.1946) debuted Mabel.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4088)
1981 Jan 15, Emanuel Celler (92),
(Rep-D-NY, 1923-73), died.
(http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000264)
1981 Jan 30, An estimated two
million New Yorkers turned out for a ticker-tape parade honor-ing the
freed American hostages from Iran.
(AP, 1/30/02)
1981 Mar 1, "Sophisticated Ladies"
opened at Lunt-Fontanne in NYC for 767 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophisticated_Ladies)
1981 Mar 29, "Woman of the Year"
opened at Palace Theater in NYC for 770 performances. John Kander
composed the music and Fred Ebb (d.2004) wrote the lyrics.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_of_the_Year_(musical))(SFC,
9/13/04, p.B4)
1981 Jun 22, Mark David Chapman
(b.1955) pleaded guilty to killing John Lennon on Decem-ber 8, 1980. He
was sentenced 20 years to life in prison.
(HN,
6/22/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_David_Chapman)
1981 Jul 16, Singer Harry Chapin
(38) was killed when his car was struck by a tractor-trailer on New
York’s Long Island Expressway.
(AP, 7/16/01)
1981 Jul 29, Robert Moses
(b.1888), "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long
Island, and other suburbs, died. Moses shaped NYC from the 1930s to the
1960s using urban renewal projects to replace many lively neighborhoods
that became barren and danger-ous housing projects. In 1974 Robert Caro
authored “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York," a
biography of Robert Moses.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses)(Econ,
9/23/06, p.33)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.88)
1981 Aug 24, Mark David Chapman
(b.1955) was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for
the murder of rock star John Lennon.
(AP,
8/24/97)(www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/app_c_sentencinghearing.htm)
1981 Sep 6, "They're Playing Our
Song" closed at Imperial NYC after 1082 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3919)
1981 Sep 8, Civil rights activist
Roy Wilkins (80), former head of the NAACP, died in NYC.
(AP, 9/8/01)
1981 Sep 19, Simon & Garfunkel
reunite for a NYC Central Park concert.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_and_Garfunkel)
1981 Oct 16, Harvey Fierstein's
"Torch Song Trilogy," premiered off-Broadway in NYC.
(www.matthewbroderick.net/credit/stage/torchsong.html)
1981 Dec 20, Harry Krieger and Tom
Eyen's musical "Dreamgirls" opened at Imperial Theater in NYC for 1522
performances.
(www.broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/dreamgirls.htm)
1981 Larry Kramer helped found the
Gay Men’s Health Crises in NYC. He later split with the group and
founded ACT UP (1987) to press for a more forceful response to AIDS.
His work in-cluded the novel "Faggots" (1978) and the play The Normal
Heart."
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A10)
1981-1989 The "Tilted Arc," a 120-foot curved wall
sculpture of steel by Richard Serra, stood at the plaza of the 2
federal buildings in lower Manhattan. It had been commissioned by the
General Services Administration and was taken down after being deemed
inappropriate by the GSA.
(SFC, 9/1/97, p.E4)
1982 Jan 21, Convict-turned-author
Jack Henry Abbott was found guilty in New York City of first-degree
manslaughter in the stabbing death of waiter Richard Adan in 1981.
Abbott was later sentenced to 15 years to life in prison; he committed
suicide in 2002.
(AP, 1/21/07)
1982 Jan 27, "Joseph & the
Amazing Dreamcoat" opened at Royale NYC for 747 perform-ances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_and_the_Amazing_Technicolor_Dreamcoat)
1982 Feb 4, Musical "Pump Boys
& Dinettes," premiered in NYC for 573 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4161)
1982 Feb 20, Carnegie Hall in New
York began $20 million renovations.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1982 Feb 21, "Ain't Misbehavin'"
closed at Longacre Theater, NYC, after 1604 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4058)
1982 Feb 21, Murray Kaufman
(b.1922), NYC DJ also known as Murray the K, died. During the early
days of Beatlemania, he was frequently referred to as "the Fifth
Beatle."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_the_K)
1982 Feb 28, The FALN, a Puerto
Rican Nationalist Group, bombed Wall Street. 4 powerful bombs detonated
in front of business institutions in New York's financial district.
(http://judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/91599drw.htm)
1982 Mar 27, The musical "Best
Little Whorehouse in Texas" closed at 46th St in NYC after 1577
performances.
(www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/albm94.html)
1982 Apr 12, In Manhattan 3 CBS
employees were shot to death on a rooftop parking lot. Donald Nash (47)
was charged with using a .22 caliber handgun kill Margaret Barbera, who
was cooperating with a Federal investigation into a $6 million fraud,
and Leo Kuranuki, Robert Schulze and Edward Benford, three CBS
technicians who the police believe were coming to her aid. Mr. Nash was
convicted in 1983 and sentenced to four consecutive 25-year terms in
prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/2jvq2q)
1982 May 1, Richard LaMotta
(1942-2010) dispatched 60 street-cart vendors to the streets of
Manhattan to begin selling his 4½-ounce Chipwich cookies, which
included 3½ ounces of ice cream. Within weeks he was selling
40,000 a day at $1 each. He sold the company to Cool-brands Int’l., a
Canadian distributor in 2002.
(SSFC, 5/16/10, p.C9)
1982 May 9, The musical "Nine,"
inspired by Federico Fellini's film "Eight and a-Half," opened on
Broadway.
(AP, 5/9/07)
1982 Jun 10, The play "Torch Song
Trilogy," by Harvey Fierstein, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 6/10/08)
1982 Jun 12, Some one million
anti-nuclear demonstrators rallied in Central Park, NYC.
(www.thenation.com/doc/20070702/schell)
1982 Jun 27, The Broadway show
"Dancin'" closed at the Ambassador Theater after 1,774 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4051)
1982 Jul 1, In NYC Sun Myung Moon
wed 2,075 Unification Church couples at Madison Square Garden.
(http://hoopedia.nba.com/index.php/Madison_Square_Garden)
1982 Jul 27, Menken and Ashman's
musical "Little Shop of Horrors" premiered in NYC.
(www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/albm42.html)
1982 Aug 28, The burlesque musical
"Sugar Babies" closed at the Mark Hellinger Theater in NYC after 1208
performances.
(www.historyforsale.com/html/prodetails.asp?source=froogle&documentid=266183)
1982 Oct 7, The Andrew Lloyd
Webber-Tim Rice musical "Cats," featuring the popular song "Memory,"
opened on Broadway at Winter Garden Theater. The show closed Sept. 10,
2000 af-ter a record 7,485 performances.
(AP,
10/7/01)(www.broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/cats.htm)
1982 Oct 17, Sam Shepard's "True
West" premiered in NYC.
(www.cherrylanetheatre.org/historyMainstage.htm)
1982 Oct 31, The Nehemiah housing
plan in New York broke ground in Brownsville. It was fathered by I.D.
Robbins (1910-1996) and consisted of low-cost, 3-bedroom brick
townhouses that sold for $39,000. The plan was helped by the Industrial
Areas Foundation established by the Chicago housing advocate Saul
Alinsky.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tow9q)
1982 Nov 28, "Pirates of Penzance"
closed at Uris Theater, NYC, after 772 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4088)
1982 Dec 12, The Sentry Armored
Car Company in NYC was robbed of $11.4 million from its headquarters.
It was the biggest cash theft in US history.
(http://tinyurl.com/36gcc9)
1982 The musical "Nine" opened on
Broadway. It was an adaptation of Fellini’s "8½"The mu-sic and
lyrics were by Maury Yeston and the book by Arthur Kopit. It was
revived in 2003.
(WSJ, 4/8/03, p.D4)(WSJ, 4/11/03, p.W9)
1983 Jan 2, The musical play
"Annie," based on the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip, closed at
Broadway’s Alvin Theater after a run of 2,377 performances.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1983 Jan 2, "Sophisticated Ladies"
closed at the Lunt-Fontanne, NYC, after 767 perform-ances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4098)
1983 Mar 6, "On Your Toes" opened
at Virginia Theater in NYC for 505 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4208)
1983 Mar 13, "Woman of the Year"
closed at Palace Theater NYC after 770 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4104)
1983 Mar 13, "Woman of the Year"
closed at Palace Theater NYC after 770 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4104)
1983 Feb 24, Tennessee Williams,
US playwright born as Thomas Lanier Williams (1911), died in NYC. He
left a $10 million estate to support his sister and directed that
anything left go to support aspiring writers at the Univ. of the South
of Sewanee. His plays included “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “The Rose
Tattoo” originally titled "The Eclipse of May 29, 1919." In 1995 Lyle
Leverich (d.1999 at 79) published "Tom: The Unknown Tennessee
Williams," a definitive work on the playwright's formative years. In
2007 editor Margaret Bradham Thornton published “Notebooks: Tennessee
Williams.”
(http://tinyurl.com/s8zm5)(SFC, 12/25/99,
p.B4)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M6)
1983 Feb 25, Tennessee Williams
(71), playwright, was found dead in his NYC hotel suite.
(AP, 2/25/08)
1983 May 1, "My One & Only"
opened at St James Theater in NYC for 767 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4221)
1983 May 25, The 1st National
Missing Children's Day was observed under a proclamation by Pres.
Reagan. This marked the May 25, 1979, date when Etan Patz (6)
disappeared while walk-ing to the bus stop on his way to school in
Manhattan.
(www.vdem.state.va.us/newsroom/missingchildrensday2007.cfm)
1983 Jun 5, In the 37th Tony
Awards: “Torch Song Trilogy” won for best play and “Cats” won for best
musical.
(http://tinyurl.com/2wetwl)
1983 Jun 18, IRA's Joseph Doherty
was arrested in NYC for illegally entering the US. The British sought
his extradition on charges relating to the death of a member of a
British com-mando unit.
(http://ftp.fas.org/irp/congress/1990_cr/h900803-terror.htm)
1983 Jun 26, "Evita" closed at
Broadway Theater in NYC after 1568 performances.
(www.glopad.org/pi/de/record/production/1001072)
1983 Sep 15, New York City Cops
beat to death Michael Stewart for graffiting the subway.
(http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/jwb/Collab/CivRts/StewartRslt.htm)
1983 Oct 6, Cardinal Terence Cooke
(62), the spiritual head of the Archdiocese of New York, died.
(AP, 10/6/08)
1983 Nov 21, "Doonesbury" opened
at Biltmore Theater in NYC for 104 performances.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0258532/)
1983 The film "Angelo, My Love"
was directed by Robert Duvall and was about Gypsies in New York City.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.44)
1983 The IBM corporate
headquarters at Madison and 57th Ave. in Manhattan, designed by Edward
Larrabee Barnes (1915-2004), was completed.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.B7)
1983 Betsey Cushing Roosevelt
Whitney (d.1998 at 89) and her daughters founded the Gre-entree
Foundation to support community groups in the New York metropolitan
region.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B4)
1983 The US Post Office featured
the Brooklyn Bridge on a stamp.
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.A19)
1983 An intruder broke into the
Brooklyn home of a police officer as he and his wife were sleeping. The
assailant restrained the husband and raped the wife. Scott Fappiano was
ar-rested in 1984 but his trial ended in a hung jury. He was convicted
in a 2nd trial in 1985 and sentenced to 20-50 years in jail. Fappiano
(44) was freed in 2006 after his DNA did not match that found at the
crime scene.
(www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=935591&sidelines=1)
1984 Feb 26, Reverend Jesse
Jackson acknowledged that he had called NYC: "Hymietown."
(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921581,00.html)
1984 Mar 21, A ground-breaking
ceremony was held as part of NYC’s Central Park was named Strawberry
Fields honoring John Lennon.
(www.centralpark.com/pages/attractions/strawberry-fields.html)
1984 Apr 28, "La Tragedie de
Carmen" closed at Beaumont Theater in NYC after 187 per-formances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0998)
1984 May 20, "On Your Toes" closed
at the Virginia Theater in NYC after 505 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4208)
1984 Jul 4, The NY Yankee Phil
Niekro became the 9th pitcher to strikeout 3,000 batters.
(www.thebaseballpage.com/players/niekrph01.php)
1984 Sep 2, "Zorba" closed at the
Broadway Theater in NYC after 362 performances.
(www.nodanw.com/shows_z/zorba.htm)
1984 Sep 6, Lanford Wilson's play
"Balm in Gilead," written in 1965, premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balm_in_Gilead)
1984 Oct 11, August Wilson's "Ma
Rainey's Black Bottom," premiered in NYC.
(http://wps.ablongman.com/long_kennedy_lfpd_9/0,9130,1353603-content,00.html)
1984 Oct 24, In NYC 11 members of
Colombo crime family were indicted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennaro_Langella)
1984 Dec 22, Bernhard Goetz shot
at four black teens who attempted to rob him in a New York subway. He
later claimed self-defense and was acquitted of attempted murder in
1987 in a trial where lawyer William Kunstler represented Darrel Cabey,
who was paralyzed in the shoot-ing. 3 other wounded teens, James
Ramseur, Barry Allen, and Troy Canty went to jail.
(SFC, 4/8/96, p.A-3)(AP, 12/22/98)
1984 Dec 31, NYC subway gunman
Bernhard Goetz surrendered to police in NH.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199801/ai_n8770775)
1984 Jay McInerney published his
novel "Bright Lights Big City." In 1999 it was produced as a rock
musical at the New York Theater Workshop.
(WSJ, 3/3/99, p.A17)
1984 Philip Ashforth Coppola
authored "Silver Connections," a compendium on the NYC sub-ways.
(SFC, 9/2/02, p.D8)
1984 Dan Goggin created
"Nunsense," an off-Broadway cabaret featuring singing, dancing, punning
nuns that was intended to run just four weeks.
(WSJ, 2/17/04, p.B1)
1984 German choreographer Pina
Bausch first brought her absurdist dance-dramas to New York.
(WSJ, 10/29/97, p.A20)
1985 Jan 3, Soprano Leontyne
Price, part of the Met since 1961, bid adieu to the Metropoli-tan Opera
in New York. She sang the title role of Aida.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1985 Feb 7, "New York, New York"
became the official anthem of NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985)
1985 Mar 3, "My One and Only"
closed at St. James Theater in NYC after 767 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4221)
1985 Mar 28, Neil Simon's "Biloxi
Blues," premiered in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/ygdptw)
1985 May 12, Amy Eilberg was
ordained in New York as the first female rabbi in the Conser-vative
Jewish movement.
(AP, 5/12/05)
1985 Jun 27, A hotel strike in NYC
took place. It ended June 27.
(http://tinyurl.com/yr7tgw)
1985 Aug 11, "Dreamgirls" closed
at Imperial Theater in NYC after 1521 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4152)
1985 Sep 29, Andre Kertesz
(b,1894), Hungarian-born photographer, died in NYC.
(Econ, 8/27/05,
p.69)(http://galeria.origo.hu/kertesz/akeng.html)
1985 Oct 9, In NYC Central Park's
Strawberry Fields was dedicated.
(www.centralparknyc.org/virtualpark/southend/strawberryfields)
1985 Oct 10, Actor Yul Brynner
died of lung cancer in NYC at age 65.
(AP, 10/10/97)
1985 Oct 15, Shelley Taylor of
Australia made the fastest swim ever around Manhattan Is-land, doing it
in 6 hours 12 minutes 29 seconds.
(www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi?askmonth=10&askday=15)
1985 Oct 27, Billy Martin was
fired by Yankees for the 4th time.
(www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/M/Martin_Billy.stm)
1985 Nov 19, Herb Gardner's "I'm
Not Rappaport," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Not_Rappaport)
1985 Dec 16, Reputed
organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New
York City restaurant on orders from John Gotti (d.2002). Gotti seized
power in the Mafia after he had Paul Castellano killed.
(AP 12/16/97)(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A2)(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par
p.5)
1985 Howard Stern started his
radio show on WXRK in NYC. His later became known as a shock jock for
his "street-talk" style.
(WSJ, 3/8/04, p.B1)
1985 Anthony Corallo (d.2000 at
87), aka Tony Ducks, Luchese family member of the Mafia politburo, was
arrested and later convicted for racketeering.
(SFC, 9/2/00, p.A23)
1985 Abraham Mondrowitz (38) fled
to Israel as NYC police investigated charges against him. In December
1984, New York police had charged that on two occasions in June of that
year, Mondrowitz abused a 10-year-old boy at his home. The US requested
Mondrowitz's extradition and Israel ordered his expulsion in 1987, but
it was unable to carry out the order as its extradi-tion treaty with
the US did not cover sodomy.
(AP, 11/19/07)
1985 Crack cocaine was first
discovered in use in New York City.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A5)
1985 The NY Newsday daily
newspaper was launched. It folded in 1995 after losing over $100
million.
(SFC, 4/17/02, p.A2)
1985 The New Yorker Magazine was
sold to the Newhouse publishing empire.
(SFEM, 4/12/98, p.10)
1986 May 18, "Singin' in the Rain"
closed at the Gershwin Theater in NYC after 367 perform-ances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4376)
1986 Jun 2, NYC transit system
issued a new brass with steel bull’s-eye token.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1986 Jun 14, Alan Jay Lerner (67),
Broadway librettist, died in NY.
(AP, 6/14/06)
1986 Jul 3, President Reagan
presided over a gala ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the
relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.
(AP 7/3/97)
1986 Jul 4, Liberty Weekend was
capped with a spectacular fireworks display that lighted up New York
Harbor.
(AP, 7/4/06)
1986 Jul 5, Statue of Liberty was
reopened after being refurbished.
(http://www.nps.gov/archive/stli/prod02.htm)
1986 Jul 29, A federal jury in New
York found that the National Football League had commit-ted an
antitrust violation against the rival United States Football League.
But in a hollow victory for the USFL, the jury ordered the NFL to pay
token damages of only $3.
(AP, 7/29/06)
1986 Aug 10, "Me and My Girl"
opened at Marquis Theater in NYC for 1420 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=5982)
1986 Aug 26, In the so-called
"preppie murder" case, 18-year-old Jennifer Levin was found strangled
in New York's Central Park; Robert Chambers later pleaded guilty to
manslaughter for strangling Jennifer Levin during a tryst in Central
Park. Chambers was released from prison in 2003 after serving a 15-year
sentence. He owed the Levin family $25 million from a wrongful death
suit [see Mar 25, 1988]. In 2007 Chambers was arrested for dealing
cocaine. He pleaded guilty and faced another long term in prison.
(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A4)(AP, 8/26/04)(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A6)
1986 Oct 28, The Statue of Liberty
turned 100 years old. The true centennial of the Statue of Liberty was
celebrated in New York with ceremonies that were modest compared with
the hoopla of "Liberty Weekend" the previous July.
(TMC, 1994, p.1986)(AP, 10/28/06)
1986 Dec 4, Neil Simon's "Broadway
Bound" premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4434)
1986 Dec 20, White teenagers beat
blacks in Howard Beach, NYC. One of the victims, Mi-chael Griffith, was
killed when a passing motorist's car ran over him on the Belt Parkway
as he was attempting to flee from the pursuers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Beach)
1986 Macy’s chairman Edward
Finkelstein took the publicly traded institution private. In 1992 the
Manhattan based retail chain filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.72)(http://tinyurl.com/k6664)
1987 Feb 12, White youths in
Queens County, NYC, connected to the Howard Beach racial attacks of
December, 1986, were indicted on charges ranging from second-degree
murder to inciting to riot and criminal facilitation.
(www.queenstribune.com/anniversary2003/1987.htm)
1987 Mar 12, "Les Miserables"
opened on Broadway. It was written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel
Schonberg.
(AP,
3/12/98)(www.jimsdeli.com/theater/1997-before/les-miserables.htm)
1987 Mar 15, "Starlight Express"
by Andrew Lloyd Weber, opened at Gershwin Theater in NYC for 761
performances. The initial production had opened at the Apollo Victoria
Theatre in London on March 27 1984.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlight_Express)
1987 Mar 26, "Fences" by August
Wilson (1945-2005) premiered in NYC.
(www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/august_wilson_timeline.html)
1987 Apr 15, Alfred Uhry's
"Driving Miss Daisy," premiered in NYC.
(www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1525)
1987 May 16, "Bobro 400," a barge
carrying 3,200 tons of garbage, set sail from NY, begin-ning an
unsuccessful 8-week search for a dumping site.
(www.440.com/twtd/archives/may16.html)
1987 Jun 16, NYC subway gunman
Bernhard Goetz was acquitted on all but gun possession charges after
shooting 4 black youths who tried to rob him [see Oct 20]. In 1996, a
civil jury or-dered Goetz to pay $43 million to one of the persons he'd
shot.
(http://tinyurl.com/q2px6)(AP, 6/16/07)
1987 Sep 20, "Big River: The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" closed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in
NYC after 1005 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_River_(musical))
1987 Oct 15, Lanford Wilson's
"Burn This," premiered in NYC.
(http://allstarz.hollywood.com/~malkovich/nyburnthis.html)
1987 Oct 20, NYC subway gunman
Bernhard Goetz was sentenced to 6 months in jail. [see Jan 13, 1989]
(http://tinyurl.com/zbf5m)
1987 Nov 1, Ibrahim Hussein of
Kenya won the New York City Marathon in two hours, 11 minutes and one
second; Priscilla Welch of Britain led the women in two hours, 30
minutes and 16 seconds.
(AP, 11/1/97)
1987 Nov 4, Lisa Steinberg (6) was
pronounced dead at a New York City hospital in a child-abuse case that
sparked national outrage; Joel Steinberg, a lawyer who adopted her
illegally, served 17 years in prison for manslaughter.
(AP, 11/4/07)
1987 Nov 15, "La Cage aux Folles"
closed at Palace Theater in NYC after 1761 perform-ances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4231)
1987 Dec 18, Ivan F. Boesky was
sentenced to three years in prison for plotting Wall Street's biggest
insider-trading scandal. Boesky served about two years of his sentence.
(AP, 12/18/97)
1987 Dec 21, In New York City
three white teen-agers from the Howard Beach section of Queens were
convicted of manslaughter in the death of a black man who was chased
onto a highway, where he was struck by a car. A fourth defendant was
acquitted.
(AP, 12/21/97)
1987 The play "Frankie and Johnny
in the Clair de Lune" by Terrence McNally opened off Broadway.
(WSJ, 8/13/02, p.D4)
1987 The "Winnie the Pooh" stuffed
animals, the original toys of author A.A. Milne, given to publisher
E.P. Dutton in 1947, were turned over to the New York Public Library.
In 1998 the British requested that they be returned to England.
(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A12)
1988 Jan 26, The Andrew Lloyd
Webber musical "Phantom of the Opera" opened at Broad-way's Majestic
Theater. It ran for 4,000+ performances.
(AP, 1/26/98)(www.broadway.com/gen/show.aspx?SI=1235)
1988 Feb 20, Peter Kalikow
purchased the NY Post from Rupert Murdoch for $37.6 million.
(http://tinyurl.com/qjxa2)
1988 Mar 20, David Henry Hwang's
"M. Butterfly" premiered in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/pztxh)
1988 Mar 25, In New York
City's so-called "preppie murder case," Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleaded
guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old
Jennifer Levin. Cham-bers was convicted of the killing after what he
described as a session of rough sex. Chambers received a sentence of
five to 15 years in prison. He walked out of the Auburn Correctional
Fa-cility in Auburn, N.Y, Feb, 2003, after serving a full 15-year
maximum sentence for the 1986 Central Park killing.
(AP, 3/24/08)
1988 Apr 17, Louise Nevelson, the
Russian-born sculptor who became one of the world's best-known women
artists, died in New York at the age of 88.
(AP, 4/17/98)
1988 May 26, The New England
Journal of Medicine reported that the 1st NYC cases of Rocky Mountain
Spotted Fever struck 4 people between May and July of 1987.
(http://tinyurl.com/nsejy)
1988 Jun 6, In NYC 2 large
snapping turtles were found in a Bronx sewage plant.
(http://ebeltz.net/column/chs/1988colu.html)
1988 Jun 20, The US Supreme Court
unanimously upheld a New York City law making it ille-gal for private
clubs to generally exclude women and minorities.
(AP, 6/20/98)
1988 Jul 6, Medical waste and
other debris began washing up on seashores near New York City, forcing
the closing of several popular beaches.
(AP, 7/6/98)
1988 Aug 8, A renovated NYC
Central Park Zoo reopened after 4 years.
(http://nyzoosandaquarium.com/czabout)
1988 Aug 29, In NYC the Macy’s
Tap-o-Mania set a Guinness record.
(www.amug.org/~jpaul/aug29.html)(http://tinyurl.com/jk8dp)
1988 Oct 20, A man armed with
explosives blew himself up in 125 St. subway station in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/koyac)
1988 The Museum of American
Finance was founded in NYC and housed on Broadway. On Jan 11, 2008, it
opened in new quarters at 48 Wall Street, the former headquarters of
the Bank of New York.
(Econ, 1/19/08, p.93)(www.financialhistory.org/)
1989 Jan 8, "42nd Street" closed
at Winter Garden Theater, NYC, after 3,486 performances.
(www.theatermirror.com/TA42sbcp.htm)
1989 Jan 11, A kindergarten
student was caught with loaded handgun at a Bronx school.
(http://tinyurl.com/zldce)
1989 Jan 13, New York City subway
gunman Bernhard H. Goetz was sentenced to one year in prison for
possessing an unlicensed gun that he used to shoot four youths he said
were about to rob him. Goetz was freed the following September.
(AP, 1/13/99)
1989 Jan 30, Former criminal
defense lawyer Joel Steinberg was convicted in New York of first-degree
manslaughter in the death of his illegally adopted 6-year-old daughter,
Lisa.
(AP, 1/30/99)
1989 Feb 20, US agents and NYC
police arrested 12 people and confiscated 100 lbs heroin at 3 homes in
Queens.
(http://tinyurl.com/h637t)
1989 Feb 26, The musical "Jerome
Robbins' Broadway" opened at Imperial Theater in NYC for 634
performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0355)
1989 Mar 9, Wendy Wasserstein's
"Heidi Chronicles," first produced by the Seattle Repertory Theater,
opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theater.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4538)
1989 Mar 22, US Supreme Court
upheld 1 person 1 vote rule of NYC Board of Estimate.
(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=489&invol=688)
1989 Mar 29, Michael Milken, junk
bond king, was indicted in NYC for racketeering.
(http://tinyurl.com/hf4fb)
1989 Apr 19, A jogger was raped
and beaten in Central Park and 5 black and Latino youths (14-16) were
arrested and convicted in a case that attracted worldwide headlines. In
2002 DNA evidence identified Matias Reyes (31) as the rapist. A judge
then overturned the original convic-tions. 3,254 other rapes were
reported in the park in 1989. In 2003 Trisha Meili identified herself
as the victim in her book “I Am the Central Park Jogger.”
(NG, 5/93, p.16)(SFC, 9/6/02, p.A3)(SFC, 11/21/09,
p.A7)
1989 May 12, The MTA declared
victory over graffiti. The last graffiti covered NYC subway car was
retired.
(http://www.africaresource.com/content/view/11/90/)
1989 Jun 30, NY State Legislature
passed the Staten Island secession bill.
(http://tinyurl.com/htf9r)
1989 Aug 6, "Oh! Calcutta!" closed
at Edison Theater in NYC after 5959 performances.
(www.totaltheater.com/referencialongrunsbroadwayResultList1.asp)
1989 Aug 23, In a case that
inflamed racial tensions in New York City, Yusuf Hawkins, a black
teen-ager, was shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by
white youths in a Brook-lyn neighborhood.
(AP, 8/23/99)
1989 Aug 27, Some 100 marched
through Bensonhurst, NYC, protesting racial killings.
(www.city-journal.org/article01.php?aid=1615)
1989 Aug 30, A federal jury in New
York found "hotel queen" Leona Helmsley guilty of income tax evasion
but acquitted her of extortion. Helmsley served 18 months behind bars,
a month at a halfway house and two months under house arrest.
(AP, 8/30/99)
1989 Aug 30, Dorothy Schiff
(b.1903) former owner of the New York Post, died. In 2007 Marilyn
Nissenson authored “The Lady Upstairs: Dorothy Schiff and the New York
Post.”
(WSJ, 4/7/07,
p.P10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Schiff)
1989 Sep 3, "Into the Woods"
closed at Martin Beck Theater NYC after 764 performances.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4486)
1989 Sep 12, David Dinkins,
Manhattan borough president, won New York City's Democratic mayoral
primary, defeating incumbent Mayor Ed Koch and two other candidates on
his way to becoming the city's first black mayor.
(AP, 9/12/99)
1989 Nov 7, NYC elected it's 1st
black mayor, David N. Dinkins, and female comptroller, Elizabeth
Holtzman.
(AP,
11/7/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Dinkins)
1989 Nov 12, The Broadway musical
"Grand Hotel," written by George Forrest and Robert Wright, opened at
the Martin Beck Theater for 1018 performances. William A. Drake's 1932
screenplay was based on his own play adaptation of Vicki Baum's novel
Menschen im Hotel.
(SFC, 10/13/99,
p.C2)(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4254)
1989 Dec 12, In New York, hotel
queen Leona Helmsley was sentenced to four years in prison for tax
evasion. Helmsley served 18 months behind bars, plus a month at a
halfway house and two months of house arrest.
(AP, 12/12/99)
1989 Dec 31, "Me & My Girl," a
revival of the 1937 British musical, closed at Marquis Theater, NYC,
after 1420 performances.
(http://tinyurl.com/k3y4d)
1989 Roy Lichtenstein (d.1997) was
commissioned by the MTA for a Times Square Subway mural. It was
unveiled Sep 5, 2002.
(SFC, 9/2/02, p.D8)
1989 Sculptor Arturo Di Modica
placed his 7,000-pound sculpture of a charging bull in front of the New
York Stock Exchange. It was soon moved to the foot of Broadway, where
it remained on “temporary” display. In 1998 he registered a copyright
on the bull.
(WSJ, 9/22/06, p.C3)
1989 The Brooklyn Salvation Army
began to allow the Elite Pool Checker Club to play regu-larly in their
library.
(WSJ, 10/22/02, p.A17)
1989 The late Manhattan real
estate developer Seymour Durst put the National Debt Clock up in New
York City to call attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion
debt. In 2008 the clock ran out of digits to record the growing figure
as it passed $10.2 trillion.
(AP, 10/9/08)
1990 Jan 12, Civil Rights activist
Rev. Al Sharpton was stabbed in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
(http://tinyurl.com/fpmgu)
1990 Feb 9, John Gotti (1940-2002)
was acquitted of charges that he commissioned the Wes-ties gang to
shoot a union official in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. This earned him
the nickname "The Teflon Don."
(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A2)
1990 Mar 8, NYC's Zodiac killer
shoot his 1st victim, Mario Orosco. Orozco survived a bullet lodged
near his spine.
(http://karisable.com/skazzodiac.htm)
1990 Mar 25 Eighty-seven
people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed
when an arson fire raced through the illegal Happy Land Social Club in
New York City. Ju-lio Gonzalez, 36, was charged with arson and murder.
Gonzalez was convicted in August 1991 and was sentenced to 174
twenty-five-year sentences (a total of 4,350 years), the longest
sen-tence ever handed down in New York. He is eligible for parole in
2015.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Gonz%C3%A1lez_(arsonist))
1990 May 8, NY Newsday reporter
Jimmy Breslin was suspended for a racial slur.
(http://www.totse.com/en/ego/literary_genius/yuh.html)
1990 May 16, Jim Henson (53),
"Muppets" creator, died in NYC.
(AP, 5/16/00)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0001345/)
1990 May 31, In NYC the Zodiac
killer shot a 3rd victim. Joseph Ponce died from his wound on June 24.
(http://karisable.com/skazzodiac.htm)
1990 Jun 19, NYC's Zodiac killer
shot a 4th victim, Larry Parham, who survived.
(http://karisable.com/skazzodiac.htm)
1990 Jul 16, NYC's Empire State
Building caught fire, but there were no fatalities.
(www.nycfiremuseum.org/inner/history/5alarm.htm)
1990 Jul 30, George Steinbrenner
was forced by Commissioner Fay Vincent to resign as prin-cipal partner
of NY Yankees.
(http://tinyurl.com/bjbgt)
1990 Aug 20, George Steinbrenner
stepped down as NY Yankee owner.
(http://tinyurl.com/bjbgt)
1990 Sep 10, The Ellis Island
Immigration Museum opened following a 6-year, $170 million restoration.
(SFEC, 6/20/99,
p.T11)(www.nps.gov/stli/serv02.htm#Ellis)
1990 Sep, A 61-year-old woman
disappeared in NYC and her dismembered body was found weeks later in
two plastic bags. In 2007 Montenegro police arrested Smail Tulja (67)
in his home in Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, on an international
arrest warrant that the authorities received from FBI and Interpol
agents. He was wanted for the killing and dismemberment of an elderly
woman in New York City in 1990 and is also suspected in similar
slayings of women throughout Europe.
(AP, 2/22/07)
1990 Oct 11, The Center for Urban
Archaeology opened in NYC South Street Seaport Mu-seum.
(www.southstseaport.org/archaeology/nyunearthed.shtm)
1990 Oct 14, Leonard Bernstein
(b.1918), American composer and conductor, died in New York City. In
2009 Barry Seldes authored “Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an
American Musician.”
(AP, 10/14/97)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.85)
1990 Oct 18, "Les Miserables,"
opened at the Imperial Theatre in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/qb53p)
1990 Oct 25, NY Daily News went on
strike. It lasted through March, 1991.
(www.journalism.indiana.edu/gallery/Ethics/like.html)
1990 Nov 8, The play "6 Degrees of
Separation," written by John Guare opened at Vivian Beaumont NYC for
496 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4622)
1990 Dec 4, Due to Persian Gulf
crisis gas prices hit $1.60 per gallon in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/s8h6r)
1990 Dec 28, Two people died in a
subway fire in New York City.
(AP, 12/28/00)
1990 Joseph Volpe took over as
head of the NYC Metropolitan Opera. He had come to the Met in 1963 as a
carpenter and high school graduate. In 2006 he authored “The Toughest
Show On Earth: My Rise and Reign At the Metropolitan Opera.”
(WSJ, 5/5/06, p.W8)
1991 Feb 12, Former New York City
Mayor Robert Wagner died at age 80.
(AP, 2/12/01)
1991 Feb 21, Neil Simon's "Lost in
Yonkers," premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4632)
1991 Mar 2, "Aspects of Love"
closed at Broadhurst Theater in NYC after 377 performances.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1991 Mar 2, "La Bete" closed at
Eugene O'Neill Theater in NYC after 24 performances.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1991 Mar 3, "Big Love" opened at
Plymouth Theater in NYC for 41 performances.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1991 Mar 26, Fuel pipe exploded
under 58th street and Lexington Ave, NYC.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1991 Apr 3, "Penn & Teller
Refrigerator Tour" opened at Eugene O'Neill in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4636)
1991 Apr 11, The musical "Miss
Saigon," denounced by detractors as racist and sexist, opened on
Broadway.
(AP, 4/11/01)
1991 Apr 25, "Secret Garden"
opened at St. James Theater in NYC for 709 performances.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4640)
1991 Apr 28, The musical "A Chorus
Line" closed after 6,137 performances on Broadway.
(AP, 4/28/01)
1991 May 1, "Will Rogers Follies"
opened at Palace Theater in NYC for 983 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4643)
1991 Jun 10, New York City staged
a massive celebration for US veterans of the Persian Gulf War,
code-named Desert Storm.
(AP, 6/10/01)
1991 Aug 15, Some 750,000 attended
Paul Simon's free concert in Central Park. The event was recorded and
became available on video.
(http://tinyurl.com/rdhv8)
1991 Aug 19, Yankel Rosenbaum
(29), an Australian Hasidic scholar, was killed in rioting that erupted
in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn following the traffic death of
a black child. Earlier in the day Gavin Cato (7) had been hit and
killed by a car in a Rabbi’s motorcade. On Oct 29, 1992, a New York
City jury acquitted 17-year-old Lemrick Nelson of Rosenbaum’s mur-der.
In February 1997, a jury convicted Nelson and Charles Price of
violating Rosenbaum's civil rights. In 1998 Lemrick Nelson Jr. was
sentenced to 19 and 1/2 years in prison. In 1998 the city settled a
suit for $1.35 million brought by Jews who accused City Hall of
insufficient protection during the riots. In 2002 Lemrick Nelson and
Charles Price had their verdicts thrown out and a new trial scheduled.
In 2005 NYC agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle a suit brought by the
Rosenbaum family.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A2)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.A2)(SFC, 1/8/02,
p.A3)(SSFC, 6/19/05, p.A3)
1991 Aug 28, In NYC 5 subway
riders were killed after subway motorman Robert Ray fell asleep drunk
while in control of a train. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1992
and sen-tenced to 15 years. He was set free in 2001 for good behavior.
(http://tinyurl.com/bk4uq)
1991 Sep 22, NY MTA yanked 6,000
ads for "Dr. Tusch" (Dr. Jeffrey Lavigne).
(MC, 9/22/01)
1991 Nov 26, Condoms were handed
out to thousands of NYC High School students.
(www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3573/is_199611/ai_n8414037)
1991 Dec 28, Nine people died in a
crush to get into a basketball game at City College in New York. The
game was promoted by rapper Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. Combs later
testified that security at the Nat Holman facility was supposed to be
provided by NYCC.
(AP, 12/28/97)(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A3)
1991 Walter Annenberg, media
baron, donated art valued at $1 billion to the NYC Metropoli-tan Museum
of Art.
(WSJ, 1/20/04, p.A1)
1991 The opera "The Ghosts of
Versailles" by John Corigliano premiered at the Metropolitan Opera.
(SFC, 12/31/99, p.C7)
1991 The Aaron Diamond AIDS
Research Center opened in lower Manhattan. Irene Diamond (d.2003 at 92)
saw the project completed after the death of her husband.
(SFC, 1/29/03, p.A18)
1991 Joe Massino took over as head
of the Bonanno family in NYC. In 2004 he faced trial on racketeering
charges and 7 murders.
(SFC, 5/10/04, p.A4)
1991 The US Supreme Court ruled
that the New York "Son of Sam" law was unconstitutional. The "Son of
Sam" law referred to the New York serial killer David Berkowitz, who
claimed that he received telepathic messages to kill from a dog named
Sam. The law made it illegal for con-victed criminals to profit from
their crimes.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A6)
1991 Construction crews in
Manhattan discovered an Negro Burial Ground on lower Broad-way.
Archeologists exhumed over 427 remains that included some of America's
first slaves.
(SFC, 2/7/00, p.A3)
1992 Jan 19, "City of Angels"
closed at Virginia Theater in NYC after 878 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0351)
1992 Feb 19, "Crazy For You"
opened at Shubert Theater in NYC for 1622 performances.
(http://www.musicals101.com/1990s.htm)
1992 Feb 26, "Search and Destroy"
opened at the Circle in the Square Theater in NYC for 46 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0415)
1992 Feb 28, La Lupe (53), Cuban
singer, died of a heart attack in the Bronx.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1992 Mar 1, "Little Hotel on the
Side" closed at Belasco in NYC after 41 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0405)
1992 Mar 1, "Visit" closed at
Criterion Theater in NYC after 45 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0426)
1992 Mar 11, Manuel De Dios Unanue
(48), US anti-drug journalist and former editor of El Diario-La Prensa,
was murdered by two bullets to the head in a restaurant in the Jackson
Heights section of the borough of Queens, New York City. His death was
linked to his writing critically about the Colombian Drug Cartel.
(http://tinyurl.com/2f3c4x)
1992 Mar 22, The show
"Conversations with My Father" opened at the Royale Theatre in NYC for
462 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4669)
1992 Apr 2, John Gotti (d.2002),
Mafia boss, was convicted in New York City of 5 murders and
racketeering. Underboss Sammy "the Bull" Gravano provided testimony.
The murders in-cluded the 1985 hit on Paul Castellano, head of the
Gambino family. He was sentenced to life in prison on June 23.
(AP, 4/2/98)(USAT, 9/24/98, p.11A)(SFC, 6/11/02,
p.A2)(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.4)
1992 Apr 8, "Five Guys Named Moe"
opened at Eugene O'Neill Theater in NYC for 445 per-formances.
(www.ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=3583)
1992 Apr 14, "Guys and Dolls"
opened at Martin Beck Theater in NYC for 1143 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4679)
1992 Apr 26, The musical "Grand
Hotel" closed at the Martin Beck Theater NYC after 1,017 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4254)
1992 Apr 29, "Falsettos" opened at
John Golden Theater in NYC for 487 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4686)
1992 Jun 19, In NYC a botched
kidnapping attempt left Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels,
critically wounded from a pair of gunshots. John Gotti Jr. was later
indicted on racket-eering charges and for ordering the attack on Sliwa.
In 2006 a deadlocked federal jury led to a mistrial for Gotti.
(SFC, 3/11/06, p.A2)
1992 Jul 13, Democrats opened
their 41st national convention at New York's Madison Square Garden with
speakers who taunted George Bush as a failed president ripe for defeat
in No-vember.
(AP, 7/13/97)
1992 Jul 15, Arkansas Gov. Bill
Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's
convention in New York City.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1992 Jul 16, Bill Clinton
delivered his acceptance speech a day after winning the Democratic
presidential nomination at the party's convention in New York City. To
the dismay and anger of supporters, Ross Perot announced he would not
run for president. He later changed his mind.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1992 Aug 18, "Real Inspector
Hound" opened at Criterion in NYC for 61 performances.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1992 Oct 15, NYC Subway motorman
Robert Ray was convicted of manslaughter in death of 5 riders, when he
fell asleep drunk while in control of train on Aug 28, 1991.
(http://tinyurl.com/bk4uq)
1992 Oct 22, Wendy Wasserstein's
"Sisters Rosensweig," opened in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/cwtnr)
1992 Oct 22, Red Barber (84),
sportscaster (Dodgers, Yankees), died.
(www.radiohof.org/sportscasters/redbarber.html)
1992 Oct 29, A New York City jury
acquitted 17-year-old Lemrick Nelson of murdering Yankel Rosenbaum, an
Australian Hasidic scholar who was killed in rioting that erupted in
the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in August 1991 following the
traffic death of a black child who was hit by a Hasidic driver. In
February 1997, a jury convicted Nelson and Charles Price of violating
Rosenbaum's civil rights.
(AP, 10/29/97)
1992 Debbie Stoller, Marcelle Karp
and Laurie Henzel created their Bust magazine. In 1999 they published
"The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order."
(SFEC, 10/3/99, BR p.5)
1992 Henry Buhl started a private
partnership to employ street people to sweep sidewalks and participate
in work skills programs. Buhl later continued the idea to San Francisco.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.A14)
1992 Sam Tesemberis founded the
Pathways to Housing Program in NYC. It was directed at helping NYC’s
homeless mentally ill.
(SFC, 6/14/04, p.A10)
1993 Feb 26, The parking garage of
the 107-story World Trade Center was bombed in NYC by terrorists. The
bombing killed 6 and injured over 1000 people. 4 Islamic extremists
were con-victed and each sentenced to 240 years in prison. Militant
Muslims Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Is-moil fled the country. Yousef was
captured in Pakistan in 1995 and Ismoil was picked up in Jor-dan. The
two were convicted in 1997 of conspiracy. In 1998 Yousef was sentenced
to life plus 240 years in prison after declaring: "I am a terrorist and
I am proud of it." Ismoil was sentenced to 240 years in prison. In 2000
Laurie Mylroie authored "Study of Revenge," an investigation of the
bombing.
(WSJ, 10/24/96, p.A16)(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A2)(AP,
2/26/98)(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/24/01, p.A20)
1993 Mar 1, George Steinbrenner
was reinstated as owner of New York Yankees.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1993 Mar 4, Authorities announced
the arrest of Mohammad Salameh, a suspect in the bombing of the World
Trade Center in New York City. Salameh was later convicted of playing a
key role.
(AP, 3/4/98)
1993 Mar 10, Authorities announced
the arrest of Nidal Ayyad, a second suspect in the bomb-ing of the
World Trade Center in New York City.
(AP, 3/10/98)
1993 Apr 22, Peter Townshend's
rock musical "Tommy," premiered in NYC.
(www.musicalheaven.com/t/tommy.shtml)
1993 May 3, "Kiss of the Spider
Woman" opened at Broadhurst in NYC for 906 performances. John Kander
composed the music and Fred Ebb (d.2004) wrote the lyrics.
(www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/albm57.html)(SFC,
9/13/04, p.B4)
1993 May 8, Keron Thomas (16)
disguised himself as a motorman and took a NYC subway train and 2,000
passengers on a 3 hour ride.
(www.mndaily.com/daily/gopher-archives/1993/05/14/Subway_joyride_ends_with_arrest.txt)
1993 Jun 6, The freighter Golden
Venture, a 150 foot cargo vessel carrying illegal immigrants from
Fujian Province on the southern coast of China ran aground in New York
harbor. It carried 286 illegal Chinese passengers, 10 of whom drowned
while trying to swim ashore. In 1997 Lee Peng Fei (47) was extradited
from Thailand for running the immigrant smuggling ring that was
responsible. A Chinese freighter holding 300 illegal aliens ran aground
off New York. A TV Dateline special was presented in 2001. In 2005
gangster Ah Kay turned government witness in the federal trial of Cheng
Chui Ping, the reputed mastermind of the smuggling attempt.
(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-16)(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A8)(AP,
6/6/98)(WSJ, 8/3/01, p.W9)(AP, 5/21/05)
1993 Jun 24, Eight Muslim
fundamentalists were arrested in New York, accused of plotting a day of
bombings of the United Nations, a federal building and the Holland and
Lincoln tunnels. They and two others were later convicted of seditious
conspiracy.
(AP, 6/24/03)
1993 Jul 4, Pizza Hut blimp
deflated & landed safely on W 56th street in NYC.
(Maggio)
1993 Aug 16, New York police
rescued business executive Harvey Weinstein from a covered 14-foot-deep
pit, where he'd been held for ransom for nearly two weeks.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1993 Sep 5, "Jelly's Last Jam"
closed at Virginia Theater NYC after 569 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4684)
1993 Sep 5, "Will Rogers Follies"
closed at Palace Theater NYC after 983 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=9383)
1993 Nov 2, Rudolph Giuliani (R)
was elected the 107th mayor of NYC. Giuliani defeated New York’s first
black mayor, David Dinkins. He became the first Republican mayor in 2
decades and the city’s 107th.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A3)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A3)(MC, 11/2/01)
1993 Nov 10, "Joseph & the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" opened at Minskoff Theater NYC for 223
performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4581)
1993 Dec 31, Scott Douglas (38)
beat his wife, Anne Scripps Douglas (b.1946), with a claw hammer in
their Bronxville home. She went into a coma and died Jan 6, 1994. Anne
Scripps Douglas was the great-great-granddaughter of Detroit News
founder James Scripps. Douglas disappeared, though his car was found on
the off the Tappan Zee Bridge. His body was found washed up in the
Bronx on March 30, 1994. In 2009 Anne Morell Petrillo (38), the
daughter of Anne Scripps Douglas from a previous marriage, committed
suicide off the Tappan Zee Bridge.
(SFC, 9/29/09,
p.A9)(http://acollectionofarticlesannscripps.blogspot.com/)
1994 Jan 2, The new Republican
mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, delivered his in-augural
address in which he called for unity while promising to crack down on
crime and tackle the city's budget problems.
(AP, 1/2/99)
1994 Mar 1, A Lebanese immigrant
opened fire on a van of Hasidic students on New York's Brooklyn Bridge,
killing one.
(AP, 3/1/99)
1994 Mar 3, "Damn Yankees" opened
at Marquis Theater in NYC for 510 performances.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1994 Apr 5, "Jackie Mason
Politically Incorrect" opened at Golden in NYC for 347 perform-ances.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1994 May 9, "Passion" opened at
Plymouth Theater in NYC for 280 performances.
(www.sjsondheim.com/passion.html)
1994 May 9, Mass murderer Joel
Rifkind was found guilty in NY.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1994 May 19, Former first lady
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
cancer in New York City at age 64.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, Par p.2)(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.A3)(AP,
5/19/97)
1994 May 29, "Joseph & the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" closed at Minskoff Theater in NYC after
223 performances.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1994 May 29, "Picnic" closed at
Criterion Theater in NYC after 45 performances.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1994 Jun 26, Hundreds of thousands
of homosexuals gathered in New York City to com-memorate the 25th
anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riot, considered the birth of the
gay-rights movement.
(AP, 6/26/99)
1994 Jul 16, "Sisters Rosensweig"
closed at Barrymore Theater in NYC after 556 perform-ances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0449)
1994 Sep 20, Jule Styne (88),
Broadway composer (Gypsy, Funny Girl), died in New York.
(AP, 9/20/99)
1994 Oct 30, The National Museum
of American Indian opened in NYC.
(http://tinyurl.com/a6f5y)
1994 Nov 17, The Andrew Lloyd
Webber musical "Sunset Boulevard" opened at Minskoff Theater on
Broadway with Glenn Close as faded movie star Norma Desmond. It ran for
977 performances.
(AP, 11/17/99)
1994 Nov 30, Rapper and actor
Tupac Shakur (1971-1996) was shot five times during a rob-bery outside
a New York recording studio. Two days later a jury found him guilty of
sexually abusing a woman, but acquitted him of more serious sex and
weapons charges.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur#September_1996_shooting)(AP,
11/30/04)
1994 Dec 21, A firebomb on the #4
train at Fulton St. New York City subway injured 48 peo-ple. Unemployed
computer programmer Edward Leary was later convicted of attempted
murder and sentenced to 94 years in prison.
(AP, 12/21/99)
1994 Ormonde de Kay (d.1998 at 74)
authored "From the Age That Is Past," a history of the Harvard Club of
NYC.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A22)
1994 NYC Police Officer Carol
Shaya was fired for appearing nude in Playboy Magazine.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A4)
1994 Salim Moussa Achi (b.1909),
aka Dr. Dahesh, Lebanese author and humanist, died. His art collection
later formed the core of the Dahesh Museum of Art in NYC.
(WSJ, 9/9/03, p.D6)
1995 Jan 8, "Guys & Dolls"
closed at Martin Beck Theater, NYC, after 1143 performances.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0398)
1995 Feb 9, A preview of "Heiress"
opened at Cort Theater NYC for 340 performances.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4287)
1995 Feb 17, Colin Ferguson was
convicted of six counts of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail
Road shootings. He was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in
prison.
(AP, 2/17/00)
1995 Mar 2, "Smokey Joe's
Café," previewed on Feb 9, opened at Virginia Theater in NYC.
(www.jimsdeli.com/theater/1997-before/smokey-joes-cafe.htm)
1995 Mar 23, "How To Succeed in
Business Without Really Trying" opened at the Roy Rod-gers NYC for 548
performances.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1995 Mar 26, "Defending the
Caveman" opened at Helen Hayes Theater in NYC for 671 per-formances.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1995 Mar 26, "Moliere Comedied"
closed at Criterion Theater in NYC after 56 performances.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1995 Apr 2, The NYC Police Dept
and Transit Police merged into one organization.
(www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/transportation/tpd.html)
1995 Apr 10, NYC enacted the Smoke
Free Air Act which banned smoking in all restaurants that seated 35 or
more.
(http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/10/2/199)
1995 Jul 1, "Kiss of the Spider
Woman" closed at Broadhurst in NYC after 904 performances.
(www.chitarivera.com/productions/kiss_of_the_spider_woman.htm)
1995 Aug 27, A wildfire in the
Hamptons, the largest in 50 years, ended after 4 days. A 16-alarm at
the St. George Hotel complex began in Brooklyn.
(www.emergency.com/hampton.htm)(www.fdnewyork.com/stgeorge.asp)
1995 Oct 25, "Victor/Victoria,"
opened at Marquis Theater NYC for 738 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4310)
1995 Nov 26, Two men set fire to a
subway token booth in Brooklyn, N.Y., fatally burning the clerk inside.
(AP, 11/26/05)
1995 Dec 19, A gunman opened fire
inside a Bronx, New York, shoe store, killing five people.
(AP, 12/19/00)
1995 The Encyclopedia of New York
City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, was published.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, Par p.20)(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T5)
1995 James B. Reston, NY Times
columnist, died. His memoir "Deadline" was published in 1991.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.A18)
1996 Jan 5, Lincoln Kirstein
(b.1906), American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cul-tural
figure in New York City, died. In 1946 Balanchine and Kirstein founded
the Ballet Society, renamed the New York City Ballet in 1948. Together
they made this one of the most innovative dance companies in the world.
His books included the 1932 novel “Flesh Is Heir,” a historical
romance. In 2007 Martin Duberman authored “The Worlds of Lincoln
Kirstein.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Kirstein)(WSJ,
2/17/07, p.P18)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M3)
1996 Jan 7, "Crazy After You"
closed at Shubert Theater, NYC, after 1622 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=2807)
1996 Apr 23, A three-night auction
of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' possessions be-gan at Sotheby's
in NYC with a bidding frenzy. The 4-day auction took in $34.5 million.
(AP, 4/23/97)(MC, 4/23/02)
1996 Apr 29, "Rent" opened at
Nederlander Theater in NYC.
(www.broadway.com/_grp/groups_show.aspx?SI=1257)
1996 Jun 18, Heriberto Seda, a
28-year-old recluse obsessed with guns and the Bible, shot his teenage
sister in New York City. He later admitted to being the Zodiac killer,
guilty of mur-ders from 1990. He was convicted Jun 24, 1998, and was
sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 6/20/96, p.C12)(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A3)(SFC,
7/23/98, p.A3)
1996 Jun 19, New York City police
announced that a shooting suspect in custody had been linked to the
"Zodiac" shootings that terrorized New Yorkers in the early 1990's.
(AP, 6/19/97)
1996 Aug 31, New York City police
found the body of 4-year-old Nadine Lockwood in her fam-ily's
apartment; she'd been starved to death. The girl's mother, Carla
Lockwood, was later sen-tenced to serve at least 15 years in prison.
Nadine's father, Leroy Dickerson, was sentenced to 25 years to life in
prison.
(AP, 8/31/06)
1996 Oct 20, "Summer & Smoke"
closed at Criterion Theater in NYC.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1996 Oct 29, Hundreds of thousands
of New York Yankees fans participated in an enormous blue-and-white
ticker-tape parade for the World Series champions.
(AP, 10/29/97)
1996 Nov 17, "Present Laughter"
opened at Walter Kerr Theater NYC.
(www.theatredb.com/QShow.php?sid=s0571)
1996 Nov 26-1996 Nov 27, Mayor
Giuliani closed the streets of NYC to all but emergency traf-fic after
a snow storm dropped 20 inches.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.28)
1996 The 1st New York Int'l.
Fringe Festival was held.
(SFC, 8/8/03, p.D18)
1996 The legendary Lion’s Head bar
at 59 Christopher St. closed.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)
1996 Michael Alig killed Angel
Melendez. He cut off the legs of Melendez and stuffed the torso into a
box and dumped it into the Hudson River. The 1998 documentary film
"Party Mon-ster," directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, was
about the 1980s drug-abusing night crawlers called the Party Kids led
by Alig.
(SFC, 11/13/98, p.C6)
1996-1998 A ring of thieves at JFK Airport stole
millions of dollars worth of cargo. In 1998 56 people were indicted
including warehouse owners, Teamster shop stewards and store owners
across the city who sold the stolen goods.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.A13)
1997 Feb 23, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal,
a Palestinian teacher, opened fire on the 86th-floor ob-servation deck
of New York City's Empire State Building, killing one person and
wounding six others before shooting himself to death.
(AP, 2/23/98)
1997 Feb, Tattooing was
re-legalized in NYC after a 36-year ban caused by fears of hepatitis.
(Econ, 5/24/08,
p.48)(http://nymag.com/guides/everything/tattoos/37978/)
1997 Mar 22, The show "Sunset
Boulevard" closed at Minskoff in NYC after 977 perform-ances.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4275)
1997 Mar 23, "Mandy Patinkin in
Concert" closed at Lyceum Theater NYC.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1997 Mar 26, "Annie" opened at
Martin Beck Theater NYC.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg
(b.1926), the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet
laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His
last book of poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by
Bob Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan following his death. In 2000
Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In
2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The
Selected In-terviews, 1958-1996." In 2006 Bill Morgan authored “I
Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg.”
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99,
p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR
p.2)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M1)
1997 Apr 28, "Jekyll & Hyde"
opened at Plymouth Theater NYC.
(www.mtishows.com/show_home.asp?id=000181)
1997 May 18, "King David" opened
at New Amsterdam Theater in NYC.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1997 May 30, Jonathan Levin,
31-year-old Bronx high-school teacher, was killed by a former student,
Corey Arthur (19). Arthur and Montoun Hart had withdrawn $800 withdrawn
from an ATM on Mr. Levin’s card. In 1998 Arthur was sentenced 25 years
to life.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A22)(SFC, 12/11/98,
p.D6)(www.cnn.com/US/9810/20/levin.trial/)
1997 Jun 15, Rent control on more
than 1 million apartments was due to end at midnight on Jun 15.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, p.A2)
1997 Jul 25, US immigration agents
rounded up 17 deaf Mexicans in Sanford, North Carolina. This followed
the revelation of 50 deaf Mexicans held in servitude in NYC and forced
to sell trin-kets on the streets.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A5)
1997 Jul 31, In New York City,
police seized five bombs believed bound for terrorist attacks on city
subways. 2 potential suicide bombers were shot and wounded in an
explosives laden Brooklyn apartment. Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer (23) and
Lafi Khalil (22) were recovering from wounds. In 1998 Khalil was
acquitted and Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer was convicted of plotting to bomb
a subway station. Mezer was sentenced to life in prison in 1999.
(SFC, 8/1/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A3)(WSJ, 7/24/98,
p.A1)(HN, 7/31/98)(SFC, 3/2/99, p.A3)
1997 Jul, Vincent "Chin" Gigante
(69), boss of the Genovese crime family, was convicted of murder
conspiracy and racketeering. In Dec. he was sentenced to 12 years in
prison.
(SFC,12/19/97, p.A3)
1997 Aug 5, Ramzi Yousef,
mastermind of world trade center bombing, went on trial.
(MC, 8/5/02)
1997 Aug 9, In NYC police officer
Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima in the bathroom of the 70th
precinct in Brooklyn. [see Aug 13] In 1999 Volpe was sentenced to 30
years in prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. In 2001 a
tentative settlement awarded Abner Louima $9 million.
(SFC, 5/26/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A3)(SFC,
3/23/01, p.A4)
1997 Aug 12, Two New York City
police officers were placed in desk jobs as authorities inves-tigated
the charges of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who accused police of
sodomizing him after his arrest in a nightclub fight. Louima's
subsequent civil suit against the city resulted in a settlement of
$8.75 million on July 30, 2001, the largest police brutality settlement
in NYC his-tory. After legal fees, Louima collected approximately $5.8
million.
(AP,
8/12/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima)
1997 Aug 13, A NYC police officer
of the 70th precinct in Flatbush was arrested for sexually assaulting a
Haitian immigrant who was arrested in a nightclub fight. Officer Justin
Volpe sod-omized Abner Louima with a toilet plunger and then forced the
handle into Louima’s mouth. Volpe’s partner, Thomas Bruder, was ordered
off active duty and Mayor Giuliani ordered a shakeup and investigation.
Officer Charles Schwartz was later arrested for his participation. Two
more officers, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder, were later arrested for
beating Louima after his arrest. In 1998 federal civil rights
charges were filed against the involved officers. Offi-cer Volpe was
jailed in 1999 after he pleaded guilty that he had sodomized Abner
Louima. In 1999 Officer Schwarz was found guilty of holding Louima
down. Officers Bruder, Wiese and Bellomo were acquitted. In 2000
officers Bruder, Schwartz and Wiese were convicted of cover-ing up the
assault on Louima. Schwartz was sentenced to 15 years and 8 months in
prison and ordered to pay $277,495 in restitution. Bruder and Wiese
were sentenced to 5 years each. In 2002 a federal appeals court
overturned the convictions against Schwarz, Wiese and Bruder.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A4)(SFC,
8/16/97, p.A5)(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A3)(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A6)(SFC, 5/26/99,
p.A1)(SFC, 6/9/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A3)(SFC, 6/28/00, p.A3)(SFC,
3/1/02, p.A3)
1997 Sep 11, In Manhattan Elie
Wiesel helped dedicate the new Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery
Park, designed by Kevin Roche. It was dubbed a Living memorial to the
Holocaust.
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/17/97, p.A12)
1997 Sep 29, Roy Lichtenstein (b.
10/28/23), American pop artist, died at 73 in New York.
(SFC, 9/30/97, p.A7)
1997 Nov 2, John Kagwe of Kenya
won the 28th New York City Marathon in two hours, 8 min-utes and 12
second; Franziska Rochat-Moser of Switzerland led the women in two
hours, 28 minutes and 43 seconds.
(WSJ, 11/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Nov 13, "Lion King," opened
at New Amsterdam Theater, NYC. It was based on the Disney film.
(www.applause-tickets.com/newyork/thelionking.asp)(SFC, 2/11/04, p.A23)
1997 Nov 27, Macy's Thanksgiving
Day Parade in New York was marred when a wind gust knocked part of a
lamppost onto a 34-year-old woman, fracturing her skull and leaving her
in a coma for almost a month.
(AP, 11/27/98)
1997 Dec 19, Reginald Bannerman
died after he was struck by a train. He was fleeing a beat-ing by 6 NYC
narcotics detectives, who had been out drinking. He was dragged and
kicked out-side a Crown heights nightclub and was fired upon when he
fled onto the tracks of the Steeling St. subway station.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A13)
1998 Jan 8, Ramzi Yousef was
sentenced in New York to life in prison for the 1994 bombing of a
Philippines airliner and 240 years for masterminding the 1993 bombing
of the World Trade Center.
(www.courttv.com/news/flashback/January.html)
1998 Jan 13, Three robbers stole
$1.17 million at the NYC World Trade Center from guards delivering
money to a currency exchange center. They returned to their Brooklyn
neighborhood where neighbors reported them and 2/3 were arrested.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/16/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 25, "Grease" closed at
Eugene O'Neill Theater NYC after 1,503 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4610)
1998 Feb 3, Norman J. Block, the
founding proprietor of Dunhill Tailors, died at age 93.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A24)
1998 Feb 6, Rev. John Garcia
Gensel (80), head of the "jazz ministry" at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
in NYC, died.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.A24)(SFC, 4/27/05, p.D10)
1998 Feb 14, The rock musical
"Hedwig and the Angry Inch" opened off Broadway at the Jane Street
Theater. It was written by John Cameron Mitchell.
(SFC, 11/20/02, p.D1)
1998 Feb 22, The new book "The
Landmarks of New York III" by Barbaralee Diamonstein was reviewed.
(SFEM, 2/22/98, p.34)
1998 Feb 22, Revival of "King
& I," closed at Neil Simon Theater in NYC after 781 perform-ances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4673)
1998 Feb 24, Henny Youngman died
in New York City at age 91-92. He was a tireless comic who quipped
"Take my wife -- please" and countless other one-liners during a career
that spanned seven decades.
(SFC, 2/25/98, p.C2)(AP, 2/24/99)
1998 Mar 1, "Art" opened at Royale
Theater NYC.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1998 Mar 18, The NYC Board of
Education voted to require its schoolchildren to wear uni-forms. The
dress code would begin in 1999.
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.A5)
1998 Mar 31, Former New York
Congresswoman Bella Abzug died at age 77.
(AP, 3/31/99)
1998 Apr, A Woody Guthrie archive
opened at W. 57th St.
(SFC, 11/27/98, p.C11)
1998 May 13, Thousands of yellow
cab drivers went on a one day strike in NYC.
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.A3)
1998 Jun 3, In New York City
hundreds of sidewalk food vendors held a 1-day strike and pa-raded
through lower Manhattan.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A3)
1998 Jun 14, In NYC Antoine Reid,
a squeegee man, was allegedly shot by off-duty officer Michael Meyer
after soaping Meyer’s car window. Reid later filed a $100 million suit
against the city and the police dept.
(SFC, 6/29/98, p.A4)
1998 Jun 30, In NYC some 20,000
construction workers rallied to protest the city’s use of a nonunion
contractor.
(SFC, 7/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 5, Irene Silverman (82),
an Upper East Side millionaire, was last seen. In Dec. Sante Kimes (64)
and her son Kenneth (24) were charged with the murder of Silverman,
whose body was still missing. The Kimes were convicted of 2nd degree
murder in 2000. Kenneth Kines later admitted that he threw Silverman
into a ditch at a construction site. The Kines were also sus-pects in
other cases and in 2001 were subjects for a TV movie.
(SFC, 12/17/98, p.A13)(SFC, 5/19/00, p.A16)(SFC,
11/17/00, p.A10)
1998 Jul 21, In NYC a 48-story
elevator scaffold collapsed at the construction site of the Conde Nast
building on West 43rd St. One woman (85) was killed.
(SFC, 7/22/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 9, A strike by 73,000
telephone workers of NYC-based Bell Atlantic began.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A2)
1998 Aug 11, Bell Atlantic workers
returned to work after reaching a tentative agreement with management.
(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A9)
1998 Aug 26, In NYC a judge ruled
to allow a Million Youth March for Sep 5. It was being or-ganized by
Khalid Abdul Muhammad and was opposed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 1, A federal appeals
court in NY ruled that the Million Youth March in NYC may take place
with a reduced duration to 4 hours from 12, and a limited range to 6
blocks from 29.
(SFC, 9/2/98, p.A3)
1999 Sep 4, In NYC the 2nd Million
Youth March headed by Khalid Abdul Muhammad was attended by 1-2
thousand people and watched over by 1,400 police officers.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, p.A2)
1998 Sep 5, In NYC the Million
Youth March ended in a wild melee as police rushed the speaking
platform after the event ran minutes over the allotted time. An
estimated 20,000 peo-ple were in attendance. Mayor Giuliani later
supported the police action at the rally where 6,000 people had
gathered. Some 3,000 officers were massed in the area. A grand jury was
later asked to investigate.
(SFEC, 9/6/98, p.A3)(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A3)(SFC, 9/9/98,
p.A3)
1998 Oct 14, Author and animal
rights pioneer Cleveland Amory died at age 81 in Manhattan. His work
included the trilogy on social history: "The Proper Bostonians," "The
Lat Resorts," and "Who Killed Society."
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.D4)
1998 Oct 24, Axel Kappfjell (32)
of Norway parachuted from the Empire State Building. [Oct 25 also cited]
(SFC, 4/2/99, p.A3)(SFC, 7/9/99, p.D6)
1998 Oct 27, Axel Kappfjell (32)
parachuted from the Chrysler Building.
(SFC, 4/2/99, p.A3)
1998 Nov 1, John Kagwe of Kenya
won the NY Marathon in 2:8:45. Franca Fiacconi of Italy won among the
women in 2:25:17.
(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.A1)
1998 Edwin G. Burrows and Mike
Wallace published "Gotham: A History of New York to 1898." Vol. 1 was
1,383 pages and was 20 years in the making. A 2nd volume covering 1898
to the present was scheduled for 2000.
(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.A20)
1998 George L. Lankevich published
"American Metropolis: A History of New York City."
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.W6)
1998 Philip Lopate edited "Writing
New York: A Literary Anthology" for the Library of America.
(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.A20)
1998 "The Neighborhoods of
Brooklyn" with text, photos and maps was published by Yale Univ. Press.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, Par p.21)
1999 Jan 3, Andrew Goldstein (29)
pushed Kendra Webdale (32) into the path of an oncom-ing train at
Manhattan's 23rd St. and Broadway station. Goldstein, a schizophrenic
who refused to take his anti-psychotic medicine, was later convicted
for 2nd degree murder. This led to "Kendra's Law," which allows
violent patients to be medicated by force.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A5)
1999 Feb 3, The Armed Forces
Recruiting station in Times Square was demolished. The 400-sq-foot
station was to be replaced by a new $1 million 500-sq-foot station by
Jul.
(SFC, 2/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Feb 4, In NYC plainclothes
police officers fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo (22), a Bronx street
peddler and immigrant from Guinea, who was unarmed in front of his
Bronx home. Police were searching for a rapist and Daillo was killed
with 19 gunshot wounds. Officers Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward
McMellon and Richard Murphy were later indicted for 2nd degree murder.
All 4 officers were acquitted by a jury in 2000. Further litigation
under civil rights was planned.
(SFC, 2/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/26/99,
p.A3)(SFC, 3/31/99, p.A3) (SFC, 2/26/00, p.A1)
1999 Feb 22, In NYC Mayor Giuliani
put into effect a plan that allowed police to seize the ve-hicles of
drunken drivers.
(SFEC, 2/21/99, p.A2)
1999 Mar 25, Axel Kappfjell (32)
parachuted from the World Trade Center. He later pleaded guilty to 3
counts of reckless endangerment and was sentenced to 7 days of
community ser-vice. Kappfjell was killed in 1999 during a miscalculated
jump in Norway.
(SFC, 4/2/99, p.A3)(SFC, 7/9/99, p.D6)
1999 Mar 28, Raymond Rogers (28),
a member of the Lost Boyz hip-hop group, was shot to death as he left a
party at a Queens hotel.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A6)
1999 Mar 31, Four New York City
police officers were charged with murder for killing Amadou Diallo, an
unarmed African immigrant, in a hail of bullets. They were acquitted in
Feb 2000.
(AP, 3/31/04)
1999 Apr 7, Isaac Jones (38) was
arrested and charged with 4 rapes. He was suspected to be responsible
for some 51 rapes beginning in 1993.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 9-11, The People's Poetry
Gathering, sponsored by City Lore, was scheduled to take place all
around Manhattan.
(SFC, 4/1/99, p.E5)
1999 Apr 15, Erotica USA, a
pornography trade show, opened a 4-day exhibit at the Javits Center.
(SFC, 4/16/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 23, The Whitney Museum In
NYC opened its mammoth "The American Century" show.
(WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A16)
1999 Apr 27, A Black New Jersey
man, Harold Dusenbury (42), settled out of court for $2.75 million for
being beaten by police officers who mistook him for a knife-wielding
suspect.
(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A3)
1999 May 4, Five New York police
officers went on trial for the torture of Haitian immigrant Abner
Louima. One officer later pleaded guilty; a second was eventually
convicted of perjury; the remaining three were acquitted of brutality
charges. Two of those three were later convicted of conspiring to
obstruct justice; those convictions were overturned.
(AP, 5/4/04)
1999 Jun 20, Police shot a black
bull named Roughrider in Queens after it escaped from an illegal
traveling rodeo.
(SFC, 6/21/99, p.A6)
1999 Jun 24, The new 6.5 acre
Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit opened at the Bronx Zoo.
(WSJ, 6/24/99, p.A20)
1999 Jul 7, In NYC "The Peony
Pavilion," a 22-hour Chinese opera, opened at the LaGuardia High School
Theater. It was shown in 6 3-hour episodes.
(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 7/13/99, p.A20)
1999 Aug 3, Reform Rabbi David J.
Seligson died at age 92. He held the pulpit at Central Synagogue in
Manhattan for 20 years. He authored the memoir "Rabbi, Chaplain and
Burra Sahib."
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A23)
1999 Aug 31, In NYC 5 police shot
twelve times and killed Gideon Busch (31), a Jewish man and former
medical student, who refused to drop a hammer he’d used to threaten
neighbor-hood children. The officers were brought up on charges and, on
November 17, 2003, a federal jury cleared the officers of civil
wrongdoing in the fatal shooting.
(SFC, 9/1/99, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/qcxba)
1999 Sep 4, In NYC the 2nd Million
Youth March headed by Khallid Abdul Muhammad was attended by 1-2
thousand people and watched over by 1,400 police officers.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, p.A2)
1999 Sep 9, In NYC it was reported
that 3 people had died from mosquito-borne St. Louis en-cephalitis in
the last few weeks. The virus was later identified as the West Nile
Virus, never be-fore reported in the Western Hemisphere. 3 years later
the virus reached California.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.A3)(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A9)(Econ,
8/2/08, p.34)
1999 Sep 29, The opening of the
1997 British art exhibition "Sensation" created a big stir due to its
controversial subject matter. Mayor Giuliani threatened to revoke city
support to the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
(WSJ, 9/29/99, p.A20)
1999 Oct 2, The controversial art
show "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Col-lection"
opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Mayor Giuliani withheld the
museum's monthly city subsidy and started eviction proceedings. The
show included Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary" fashioned with some
elephant dung.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Oct 23, A Ku Klux Klan rally
was allowed to proceed with no masks. 16 Klansmen and 2 Klan women
appeared at Folley Square along with some 6,000 protestors and 2,000
tourists.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A3)(WSJ, 10/26/99, p.A26)(SFEC,
10/24/99, p.A2)
1999 Oct 27, The New York Yankees
beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 and swept the World Series in 4 games.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 1, US District Judge Nina
Gershon ruled that Mayor Giuliani had no right to cut off subsidies to
the Brooklyn Museum of Art for displaying art that he opposed.
(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A3)
1999 Nov 7, Joseph Chebet of Kenya
won the NY Marathon in 2 hrs, 9 min. and 14 sec. Adri-ana Fernandez of
Mexico won for the women in 2:25:06.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 28, Robert Bingham,
author and member of a prominent Kentucky newspaper pub-lishing family,
died at age 33 of heroin overdose. His work included the novel
"Lightning on the Sun," scheduled for publication in 2000.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.A37)
1999 Dec 14, The New York City
Board of Education identified nine employees, four regular teachers,
two substitute teachers and three teachers' aides who were dismissed
last week for helping students cheat on standardized tests.
(http://tinyurl.com/yz8ucj)
1999 Dec, The LVMH Tower, designed
by Christian de Portzamparc, officially opened at 19 East 57th St.
(WSJ, 1/10/00, p.A24)
1999 F.E.D.S. Magazine, edited by
Antoine Clark (30), became a sensation among prison in-mates. The
letters stood for "Finally Every Dimension of the Streets" and featured
a gruesome authenticity to street life.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.AA1)
1999 US authorities uncovered a
money laundering scheme that involved the Bank of New York and its
branch in Russia. In 2000 Lucy Edwards and her husband Peter Berlin
pleaded guilty to fraud charges. In 2005 the bank agreed to pay $14
million in fines directly related to the Russia scandal and to adopt
antifraud overhauls. In 2007 Russia sued the Bank of New York for $22.5
billion for its role in the money laundering scheme.
(WSJ, 5/18/07, p.A3)
1999 John A. Gotti Jr. pleaded
guilty to racketeering and extortion and accepted a 6-year prison
sentence.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.5)
1999 King’s College reopened in
the Empire State Building. It was founded in Tuxedo, NY, in 1938 and
went bankrupt in the 1990s, when it was bought by the Campus Crusade
for Christ.
(WSJ, 7/5/02, p.W11)
2000 Feb 5, Kathleen Roskot (19)
was slashed to death by her boyfriend, Tom Nelford, in her dorm room at
Columbia Univ. Hours later Nelford hurled himself under a subway train
at the 181st St. station.
(SFEC, 2/6/00, p.A23)
2000 Feb 11, An early morning bomb
exploded in NYC on the corner of Wall and Water streets in front of an
office building owned by Barclay's Bank. One person was slightly
injured.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A2)
2000 Feb 19, The new Rose Center
for Earth and Space and the new Hayden Planetarium opened at the
American Museum of Natural History.
(SFEC, 3/5/00, Par p.17)
2000 Feb 26, In NYC thousands of
people marched to protest the acquittal in Albany of 4 po-lice officers
for the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo. Diallo's parent filed a $61
million suit in April.
(WSJ, 2/228/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/19/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 15, The unknown East Side
rapist was indicted under DNA evidence in a John Doe indictment for 7
rapes between 1994-1998 to prevent the 5 year stature of limitations
from ex-piring 3 of the cases.
(SFC, 3/16/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 16, In NYC police killed
Patrick Dorismond, an unarmed Haitian immigrant (26). Some 3,000
protestors marched at Dorismond's funeral on mar 25 and clashed with
police.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A7)
2000 Apr 24, In NYC an 8th livery
cab driver was found shot to death in the Bronx. 11 drivers were killed
in 1999.
(SFC, 4/25/00, p.A5)
2000 May 3, New York’s Cardinal
John O’Connor died at age 80.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A3)
2000 May 19, NYC Mayor Giuliani
dropped out of the race for a US senate seat due to pros-tate cancer.
He was also beleaguered by a personal scandal.
(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A1)
2000 May 24, Two gunmen killed 5
workers in a Wendy’s restaurant in the Queens borough of NYC. John
Taylor (36) and Craig Godineaux (31) were arrested 2 days later. Taylor
was sen-tenced to death in 2002.
(SFC, 5/26/00, p.A2)(SFC, 5/27/00, p.A2)(WSJ,
11/27/02, p.A1)
2000 Jun 25, The Broadway show
"Cats" was scheduled to close after 7397 performances. It was extended
to September.
(SFEC, 5/7/00, Par p.30)(SFC, 9/11/00, p.F4)
2000 Jun 4, In NYC 150 people
posed face-down flat nude beneath the Williamsburg Bridge for a photo
shoot by Spencer Tunick.
(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A7)
2000 Jun 11, In Central Park young
male gangs attacked some 47 women with harassment, molestation and
robbery during the annual Puerto Rico Day parade. 16 of 60 suspects
were ar-rested over the next week. Some police officers also faced
discipline for lack of response.
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.A6)(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A2)
2000 Jul 11, In NYC a brownstone
apartment building collapsed in Brooklyn and at least 3 people were
killed. An adjacent building also collapsed.
(SFC, 7/13/00, p.A7)
2000 Aug, The Library Hotel opened
at 299 Madison Ave., with individual floors devoted to general subjects
such as History, Literature, or Religion.
(SSFC, 4/14/02, p.C18)
2000 Sep 10, The Broadway show
"Cats" closed after nearly 18 years and 7,485 perform-ances at the NYC
Winter Garden.
(SFC, 9/11/00, p.F4)
2000 Sep 12, Hillary Rodham became
the first first lady to win an election as she claimed vic-tory in the
New York Democratic Senate primary, defeating little-known opponent Dr.
Mark McMahon.
(AP, 9/12/01)
2000 Oct 18, The Broadway show
"Mama Mia!," based on the music of Abba, was scheduled to open at the
Winter Garden.
(SFC, 9/11/00, p.F4)
2000 Oct 26, The New York Yankees
became the first team in more than a quarter century to win three
straight World Series championships, beating the New York Mets 4-to-2
in game five of their "Subway Series." The Yankees matched the Oakland
Athletics' three in a row from 1972-74, and won their fourth title in
five years.
(AP, 10/26/01)
2000 Nov 22, Andy Logan, former
reporter for the New Yorker Magazine, died at age 80. Her work also
included "The Man Who Robbed the Robber Barons," an account of Col.
William d’Alton Mann.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D9)
2000 Nov 28, Mayor Giuliani
awarded Piers 9,11, 13 & 14 along with $32.8 million in capital
funding over 5 years for a new Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank O.
Gehry.
(WSJ, 11/30/00, p.A20)
2000 Dec 20, John V. Lindsay,
former NYC mayor (1966-1973), died at age 79.
(SFC, 12/21/00, p.A31)
2000 Jerold S. Kayden authored
"Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experi-ence."
(WSJ, 10/11/00, p.A24)
2000 James Lardner and Thomas
Reppetto authored "NYPD," a history of the city’s police force.
(WSJ, 8/2100, p.A14)
2000 Elizabeth Gold spent a year
teaching in a progressive NYC high school. In 2004 she au-thored "Brief
Intervals of Horrible Sanity," based on her experiences.
(WSJ, 3/25/04, p.D6)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = NYC
Go to NYC 2001-2010