From the Brooklyn Aerie: February 15, 2012

February 15, 2012 A Weekly Column of Trivia and Observations By David Ansel Weiss Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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There is not only a Brooklyn in Michigan, but also in Maryland, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana — and in Cleveland there is a Brooklyn Heights.

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Although Abraham Lincoln never visited Brooklyn after he became president, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, did several times when she came to New York on shopping trips during her days in the White House. Among the sites she visited here were the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Green-Wood Cemetery as well as Plymouth Church, where she heard Reverend Henry Ward Beecher preach.

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Only two players in the entire history of the Brooklyn Dodgers hit four home runs in one game — Joe Adcock and Gil Hodges.

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In 1908 the Long Island Furniture Company at Pearl Street and Myrtle Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn advertised that the charge for ‘‘furnishing your house, floor or flat was ONE DOLLAR A WEEK. NO MONEY DOWN.”

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If you think there is one specific formula for mixing a “Brooklyn” cocktail just as there is for mixing a “Manhattan,” you are mistaken. Depending on how your bartender was trained, you will get a drink whose main component will be either rye, blended whiskey, bourbon or vodka.

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As any prizefighter knows, it’s the final round that counts. British General Charles Cornwallis won more battles than George Washington did, but Washington won the final one, which gave the Continental Army the victory in the American Revolution.

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Not all our street signs are accurate as far as spelling is concerned. Walk down Beverley Road and you will see some signs that spell the street “Beverly” and other signs that read  “Beverley.”

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The Dutch originally called the Hudson River the Mauritius River, claiming that this was what Henry Hudson named it in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau, but they could not get the name to stick.

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The owners of Junior’s restaurant say it took them 10 years to develop their famous cheesecake.

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There’s only one subway line that doesn’t go into Manhattan: Brooklyn’s G Line.

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George Tilyou of Steeplechase Park fame got his entreprenurial start at a very young age, selling Coney Island sand in a box for five cents.  If you also wanted brine, that was an extra five cents.

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When it opened in 1888, LICH’s Hoagland Laboratory, which stood at the corner of Henry and Pacific streets, was the world’s first privately funded laboratory devoted to bacteriological, pathological and histological research. The man who funded it was Brooklynite Cornelius Hoagland, who with his brother invented Royal Baking Powder, still the leader in its field.

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