Brooklyn Boro

September 11: ON THIS DAY in 1954, boro escapes brunt of coast hurricane

September 11, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle History
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ON THIS DAY IN 1901, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Buffalo — President [William] McKinley continues to show the most unmistakable evidences of improvement and recovery. The uneasiness caused by last night’s dressing of the abdominal wound has given way to more pronounced confidence than has existed at any time since the shooting. The incident of last night never had any significance to the doctors, and such as it had given rise to in the lay mind was quickly dispelled when the physicians arrived this morning. Their 9 o’clock bulletin pronounced the president in excellent condition and made known the fact that he had slept well. … No definite plan for the prosecution of Leon Czolgosz and Emma Goldman has been decided upon by the police authorities. They have not made up their minds to ask the State of Illinois for the custody of the woman and there is a chance that they may never do so.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1905, the Eagle reported, “A switchman’s mistake and a motorman’s carelessness sent a crowded car of a Manhattan elevated train hurtling off the structure into the street at 7 o’clock this morning, smashing the coach into splinters and piling the passengers into a tangled mass of crushed and mangled bodies. Eleven persons were killed and forty injured. Several of the injured are expected to die. It was the worst disaster in the history of the Manhattan elevated railroad. The smashup occurred at Ninth avenue and Fifty-third street, where the Sixth avenue elevated structure curves into and becomes a part of the Ninth. A Ninth avenue local, southbound and running at high speed, struck a misplaced switch at the Fifty-third street curve and the forward car whirled around the bend into the Sixth avenue line. The heavy motor caused the front car to hold the tracks. The second car, crowded to the doors, left the track, its forward trucks bumped over a few ties, hit the heavy guard timbers and clung to the structure. The train’s momentum caused the second and third cars to double up like a closing jackknife. The rear end of the second car was hurled from the tracks and sent like a catapult to the street.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1933, the Eagle reported, “Cromer, Norfolk, England (AP) — Anybody attempting to molest Albert Einstein in his humble refuge on the Norfolk coast may get bullets from guns of his host’s game keepers. And if Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson himself is around, any intruder may have to face the revolver which the member of Parliament reputedly is carrying while the celebrated mathematician is under his protection. Professor Einstein arrived from London yesterday, fleeing reported Nazi threats against his life, and set about at once in his quiet, tree-surrounded retreat to work on a new mathematical theory — the nature of which was not disclosed — and to prepare for lectures in America next month. Seemingly content, Dr. Einstein said: ‘All I want is peace. Where could I find a more peaceful retreat than here in England?’ … Einstein’s retreat has not been disclosed to the public, although its exact location is known to a few intimates who describe it as a ‘hut’ or ‘shooting camp.’ Einstein arrived in England from Belgium Saturday night following a report that Nazis had put a price on his head.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “Brooklyn escaped the full brunt of Hurricane Edna today as the storm raged up the Atlantic Coast. The hurricane was to pass east of the eastern tip of Long Island about midmorning, the Weather Bureau said. At 7 a.m., the bureau reported that the hurricane was 125 miles southeast of Atlantic City, moving in a north-northeasterly direction. The hurricane’s fringe, however, slapped Brooklyn hard, flooded it with torrential rains, stranded numerous automobiles, caused dozens of traffic accidents and closed a three-mile stretch of the Belt Parkway. The storm was accompanied by winds of gale force in the borough … Police on the eastern part of Long Island were placed on 24-hour call and National Guardsmen stood by. Civil defense workers manned emergency refugee centers to care for families driven from their homes.”

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