Brooklyn Through the Years: February
By John B. Manbeck
February 1, 1914: “Go-to-Church Day” is introduced in Brooklyn.
February 2, 1917: Margaret Sanger is found guilty of disseminating birth control information in Brownsville.
February 3, 1944: Cadman Memorial Center is consecrated.
February 4, 1876: Brooklyn Board of Education decides not to teach German or French because schools should not “…subserve interests of any class of people….”
February 5, 1889: Bill is introduced into the New York state legislature to build a tunnel connecting cities of Brooklyn and New York.
February 6, 1965: Kelly, a musical based on the life of Steve Brodie, the first man who jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge, opens and closes the same night.
February 7, 1904: Fire destroys Crescent Athletic Club on Shore Road and 84th Street in Bay Ridge.
February 8, 1951: Trommers Beer sells its name and brewery to Piel.
February 9, 1856: East River is bridged with ice.
February 10, 1890: Cornerstone is laid for New Tabernacle, now Baptist Temple, on Third Avenue.
February 11, 1905: Carnegie Library at corner of Bushwick and DeKalb avenues opens officially.
February 12, 1896: Roentgen, or X-rays, discovered in 1895, are first demonstrated in Brooklyn at Adelphi Academy.
February 13, 1871: Ice bridge forms across East River allowing thousands to walk across.
February 14, 1702: Boundaries of the Town of New Utrecht, now Bensonhurst, fixes “white oak” as point between Towns of New Utrecht and Brooklyn.
February 15, 1865: Abraham & Wechsler department store, later Abraham & Straus (now Macy’s), opens.
February 16, 1660: Henric Selyns, first resident minister, is appointed by Dutch Reformed Church.
February 17, 1903: Brooklyn Law School and St. Lawrence University consolidate.
February 18, 1776: General Charles Lee posts 400 Pennsylvania troops from Wallabout to Gowanus in an attempt to halt the British army.
February 19, 1903: A powder magazine, stored in Ft. Lafayette off Ft. Hamilton, blows up, killing four.
February 20, 1952: Arrangement made for financially struggling Brooklyn Academy of Music to rent their building from the city for $1 a year.
February 21, 1774: First ferry leaves from foot of Coentes Market in Manhattan to foot of present-day Joralemon Street.
February 22, 1903: Booker T. Washington addresses large audience at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
February 23, 1960: Demolition Day at Ebbets Field with Brooklyn Dodgers attending ceremony.
February 24, 1916: Brooklyn Institute Museum, now Brooklyn Museum of Art, buys Luini’s Madonna Enthroned for $33,000.
February 25, 1692: Brooklyn’s common lands, secured from Delaware Indians in 1670, are divided.
February 26, 1895: Brooklyn City Hall burns and bell in cupola explodes.
February 27, 1947: The nonprofit First Families of Brooklyn is created.
February 28, 1665: Duke’s Laws convention, to establish British laws in the former Dutch colony, meets in Brooklyn.
February 29, 1876: Retrenchment policy of Kings County employees calls for salary reductions in City of Brooklyn payroll.
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