Brooklyn Boro

October 24: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

October 24, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle History
Share this:

ON THIS DAY IN 1929, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Sparks of drama, hope and tragedy in a panorama of fortunes won and lost, but mostly lost, flew off the Stock Exchange and financial district today as violent falls followed the drastic losses of yesterday. The Exchange was a bedlam, though a bit restrained as the men who play the money game took their gains and losses tight-lipped. The air was charged. At the rate of trading, more than 12,000,000 shares stood to change ownership before closing time. Two thousand brokers and agents, 1,000 phone clerks, all gesticulating, barking orders over the phones, sent up a well of noise from the floor, punctuated by the eerie squeaks of chalk against the blackboards and the staccato tat-tat-tat of the tickers. The floor was alive with a wilderness of humanity. Men clustered about the trading posts like bees on honey, jamming aisles. There was scarcely room to pass. Reporters elbowed their way through, moving swift as lightning. The floor began to get white with noise and paper. The roar increased. Here there was a huddle of brokers — some financial wizard plotting a forward pass. Then the lines were carried backward. No one was moving forward. The monetary football clash was on, with the bulls holding for downs and the bears fiercely crashing the line.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1934, the Eagle reported, “Police Commissioner [Lewis] Valentine was authorized yesterday by unanimous vote of the Board of Aldermen to fill 940 vacancies in the Police Department, thus bringing it to full strength. Prior to the board’s approval of the resolution sponsored by Alderman Patrick J. McCann, numerous complaints of the false economy of inadequate police protection were voiced. ‘In Flatbush we had eight burglaries in less than a week,’ Mr. McCann declared. ‘Six women were attacked and beaten over the head with a hammer in broad daylight in their own homes.’ His vigorous stand for full police strength brought applause from the galleries filled with men on the eligible list. Alderman John Cashmore declared that many of those eligible for appointment to the department were on home relief at present, and that they wanted the positions for which they had qualified through examination. Alderman Walter R. Hart stated that when he asked for additional police on Atlantic Ave., as a result of accidents crippling two children there, all he received was ‘a painted white line to mark a safety zone.’ The 1935 budget must make provision for the salaries of additional police, if the appointments are approved.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1954, the Eagle reported, “Averell Harriman, Democratic candidate for governor, squeaked through with a slim 51.2 percent of the 52,144 votes cast in the 1954 Brooklyn Eagle Straw Poll conducted last week. His Republican opponent, Senator Irving M. Ives, got 48.8 percent of the vote. Harriman’s margin of victory in the secret poll, conducted among Brooklyn Eagle home-delivery readers only, was surprisingly small in a traditionally Democratic community. The balloting for governor went like this: Harriman — 26,672; Ives — 25,472.”

***

ON THIS DAY IN 1962, the Eagle reported, “(UPI) — With Soviet ships streaming through the Atlantic toward a potential doomsday rendezvous with a U.S. Naval blockade of Cuba, Prime Minister Khrushchev in Moscow is believed to have issued ‘go through’ orders to his ships. Whether this means they will refuse to submit to stopping and search by U.S. Naval vessels is completely unclear. If a Russian ship refuses to stop when ordered to by the Navy and is sunk, it would presumably mean war between the United States and Russia. Officials in Moscow appear to be maintaining a flexible position, waiting to see which way developments will turn before taking any irrevocable stands. Otherwise, the official Russian reaction to President Kennedy’s Naval blockade of Cuba was the not-unexpected denouncement of the move as provocative and aggressive.” It was also reported, “Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara said Tuesday afternoon there are no immediate plans to call up reserve personnel in the current crisis over President Kennedy’s Cuba blockade, ‘though we may do so as the situation develops.’”

***

Kevin Kline
Greg Allen/Invision/AP
Drake
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bill Wyman, (the Rolling Stones), who was born in 1936; musician Santo Farina (Santo & Johnny), who was born in Brooklyn in 1937; Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, who was born in 1939; Oscar-winning actor Kevin Kline, who was born in 1947; former NAACP CEO Kweisi Mfume, who was born in 1948; “The Young and the Restless” star Doug Davidson, who was born in 1954; “Law & Order: SVU” star BD Wong, who was born in 1960; singer, rapper and actress Monica, who was born in 1980; fashion designer Zac Posen, who was born in 1980; former “Saturday Night Live” star Casey Wilson, who was born in 1980; and rapper, singer and actor Drake, who was born in 1986.

Bill Wyman
Grant Pollard/Invision/AP

***

A BARREL OF FUN: The spectacle of Niagara Falls attracted no end of daredevils through the centuries, but the first one to go over the falls and survive in any kind of contraption was the unlikely Annie Edson Taylor, a 63-year-old former dance teacher, who took the plunge in a barrel on this day in 1901. No one repeated her stunt until 1911.

***

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: Melvin Purvis was born on this day in 1903. Purvis was America’s most famous FBI agent in the 1930s and an early protege of J. Edgar Hoover, the bureau’s influential director. On July 22, 1934, Purvis and his fellow agents cornered John Dillinger outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater. The infamous bank robber was shot and killed, and the media hailed Purvis as “the Man Who Got Dillinger.” This angered the mercurial and jealous Hoover, who forced him from the FBI for good. Purvis died in 1960 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

***

Special thanks to “Chase’s Calendar of Events” and Brooklyn Public Library.

 

Quotable:

“All the mistakes I ever made were when I wanted to say ‘No’ and said ‘Yes.’”

— playwright Moss Hart, who was born on this day in 1904

Subscribe to our newsletters


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment