August 3: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1860, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “An unusual number of sharks have been seen in the lower bay the past fortnight, and this morning two were caught from Fulton market pier, East River, measuring five and three feet in length. Persons who are in the habit of bathing in the river will please take notice — that sharks are never troublesome in this latitude. Unless they are troubled, they are not likely to attack a swimmer. A boy in Williamsburg had his big toe bitten off the other evening while bathing. It must have been a shark with a delicate appetite, as sharks usually require a man’s leg for a meal, and swallow small boys whole.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1913, Eagle columnist Frederick Boyd Stevenson wrote, “If you want to see what the subways may do to Brooklyn, take a trip to Washington Heights, in upper Manhattan. Ten years ago old Broadway, Fort Washington road, Audubon avenue and other streets in that locality were lined with miniature forests and country estates. Today these thoroughfares are built up almost solidly with apartment and tenement houses and store buildings, six, seven, eight and ten stories high. Is that sort of thing going to change the building map of Brooklyn? The change may be desirable. And then again, it may not be desirable. It all depends upon the view you take. According to the belief of some men who have given this subject careful study, Brooklyn as a residential borough will, in a comparatively few years, become a thing of the past. They say you need not think for a moment that you are secure because you live in a restricted residential district, for most of the building restrictions here expire on or before 1925, and the high rate of increase in land values will result in your neighbors selling to builders who will erect congested structures.”