Brooklyn Today for Jan. 28
Good morning. Today is the 28th day of the year. Jan 28, 1955, was the date of the last issue of the original edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Although the Eagle’s circulation enjoyed an all-time high at the time, it had been crippled by a recent strike. The Eagle had been founded in 1841, and its best-known editor was Walt Whitman, for two years in the 1840s. In the late 1890s it unsuccessfully campaigned against the annexation of Brooklyn to Greater New York. At various times, it also campaigned for the building of the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, the building of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, and the removal of the Fulton Street El. Some historians speculate that if the original Eagle had continued, it would have looked to Queens and Long Island for more readers.
The current version of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle dates to 1996. Around 2000, the late Frederick Halla, then Eagle editor-in-chief, tracked down Thomas N. Schroth, the last editor of the original Eagle, and interviewed him. Schroth spent his last years in Maine, Halla’s home state; was active in the Democratic Party there, and became a selectman (similar to a city councilman) for the town of Sedgwick.
Well-known people who were born today include actor Alan Alda (“Paper Lion,” “The Four Seasons”), signer Sarah McLachlan, artist-sculptor Claes Oldenburg, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and actor Elijah Wood (“Lord of the Rings” series).