Brooklyn Today for May 28
Good morning. Today is the 148th day of the year. On this day in 1902, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Brooklyn Rapid Transit (BRT), the company that owned most of the borough’s streetcars and elevated lines, and the Long Island Rail Road were at odds in court over which company had the right to build a tunnel and elevated line on Atlantic Avenue.
Eventually, the matter was decided in favor of the Long Island Rail Road, which then constructed its line from Jamaica down Atlantic Avenue to the current Brooklyn terminal at Flatbush and Atlantic avenues (although the original terminal building was torn down around 1990). One little-known fact: A connecting track from the subway to the railroad once existed at Atlantic Avenue so that August Belmont, president of the IRT subway system, could take his plush, wood-paneled private car directly from Midtown Manhattan to the Hamptons.
Well-known people who were born today include Brooklyn-born former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, singer Gladys Knight (“Every Beat of My Heart,” ‘Midnight Train to Georgia,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”) and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.