Brooklyn Today for Feb. 17
Good morning. Today is the 48th day of the year. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle for Feb. 17, 1902, reported on a huge snowstorm that tied up the Downtown Brooklyn business district the day before with “mountains of snow.” By noon, Fulton Street, Montague Street and Flatbush Avenue were clear, thanks to hundreds of volunteer snow shovelers. As for rapid transit, most of the elevated lines operated without too much trouble, but only about 60 percent of the streetcar lines were able to run by noontime. “The Brighton Beach line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit company was one huge joke,” one sentence read—in those days, the Brighton Beach line ran at street level.
The article also reported that “the Eastern District [Williamsburg and Bushwick] was completely snowed over, and Coney Island and Brighton Beach were completely cut off.”
Well-known people who were born today include Hall of Fame football player Jim Brown, Brooklyn-born Hall of Fame basketball player Michael Jordan, socialite Paris Hilton and actor Hal Holbrook.