September 6: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

September 6, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1906, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “The Yankees strengthened their hold on first place by winning another from the Bostons. Cy Young was batted freely, while [Bill] Hogg was a puzzle.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1908, Eagle columnist Frederick Boyd Stevenson said, “Through the heavy fog the big ocean liner looms up like a specter. The little cutter makes toward her, cautiously blowing her whistle in a high key. The big leviathan answers in a deep bass. Slowly the lines of the great wall of steel are more clearly defined. The cutter sidles up alongside, bobbing up and down with the motion of the dead swell of the sea. Hundreds of faces are peering over the ship’s rails and a dozen heads are poked through the portholes. A man in uniform stands on the forward deck of the cutter and, making a trumpet of his hands, cries: ‘Has the doctor seen you?’ A man on the liner, in blue and gold lace, responds: ‘Aye!’ The cutter makes fast; a ladder is thrown against the ship and two or three men in blue and one in khaki nimbly climb up on the rounds of the ladder, followed by a woman who mounts more cautiously. The big ship is sailing down the bay from the Narrows where she was just released from Quarantine. She is an Atlantic liner coming from a foreign port. The little craft is Uncle Sam’s cutter, the Immigrant, and carries the inspectors, in blue uniforms, the doctors, in khaki, and the matrons, in everyday dress, of the Boarding Division of the United States Immigration Service. The Immigrant left her pier at the Battery at 6:30 that morning and started on her mission of intercepting the incoming vessels, thus beginning the work of scrutinizing aliens as to the desirability of their admission to this country, which work is completed at Ellis Island.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1929, the Eagle reported, “LOS ANGELES — The inauguration of a flying service between the cities of the Hawaiian Islands is scheduled for Nov. 10, according to an announcement issued by Los Angeles sponsors. Planes of the Fokker type with a 12-passenger capacity will be used. The first two planes to be used in the service have been shipped to Honolulu on the steamship Navigator. Four other tri-motored planes are to follow before Christmas. Jack Frye, president of the Aero Corporation of California, and Paul E. Richter, vice president, are to be the technical directors of the island service.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1942, the Eagle reported, “LONDON, SEPT. 5 (U.P.) — Loch Ness, from whose watery depths a legendary monster rises to frighten the countryside and amuse the world, has been sold, and Scots living in the area fear the creature will be terribly angry when it hears about it. The monster, ‘seen’ by scores of persons but never identified sufficiently for scientific classification, has been quiet for a number of years. Scots who have put up with and profited from the monster’s antics expect it will angrily protest the change in ownership. When the Balmanchan Estates, comprising the fertile Glen Urguhart Valley with all but a small portion of beautiful Loch Ness, recently were offered at public auction, there wasn’t a single bidder. A London investment firm bought the property in a private deal for development as a tourist center after the war. ‘Of course we’re interested in the monster — but only as a sideline of beauty,’ a spokesman said. The Loch Ness monster received worldwide attention in 1933 and early in 1934. Newspapermen, photographers, scientists, big-game hunters and hundreds of tourists flocked to Scotland to see and, if possible, capture the creature. Dr. W. Reid Blair, then director of the Bronx, N.Y., Zoo, offered $25,000 for delivery of the monster to the zoo, specifying it had to be alive, 40 feet long and weigh at least two tons. But the monster never was captured. No two stories by persons who swore they saw the monster ever agreed in detail, but Scots around Loch Ness believe implicitly in the monster’s existence.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1949, the Eagle reported, “The toll of accidental deaths over the Labor Day weekend, with reports still coming in, today reached a total of 479. Traffic accidents over the nation accounted for 365 deaths, also a record. A survey also shows 47 drownings, 19 deaths in air crashes and 48 in miscellaneous mishaps. An official of the National Safety Council, which had predicted 280 highway traffic deaths, commented grimly: ‘This is barbaric.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “Wimbledon champion Vic Seixas and husky Lew Hoad, the blond dynamiter from Down Under, powered their way into the semi-finals of the U.S. Amateur Tennis championships before a cheering gallery of 10,000 sun-drenched spectators at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills yesterday. Seixas, the top-seeded power-hitter from Philadelphia, won a tense 6-3, 7-9, 8-6, 6-4 duel from mustachioed Kurt Nielsen, the dandy Dane he beat for the Wimbledon crown. And Hoad easily swept past veteran Gardnar Mulloy of Miami, 6-4, 6-2, 11-9. It set up a Davis Cup preview for today’s semi-finals where Seixas and Tony Trabert of Cincinnati, America’s two big guns in December’s battle for the big bowl, respectively will face Hoad and Tiny Ken Rosewall, the whiz kids on whom the Aussies are counting.” (Editor’s note: Vic Seixas celebrated his 100th birthday Aug. 30. He is the oldest living member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.)

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include cartoonist Sergio Aragones, who was born in 1937; “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” star Jo Anne Worley, who was born in 1937; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Roger Waters (Pink Floyd), who was born in 1943; “Sisters” star Swoosie Kurtz, who was born in 1944; original “Saturday Night Live” star Jane Curtin, who was born in 1947; former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who was born in 1954; actor and comedian Jeff Foxworthy, who was born in 1958; “Police Academy” star Michael Winslow, who was born in 1958; former N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, who was born in 1962; TV journalist Elizabeth Vargas, who was born in 1962; “Private School” star Betsy Russell, who was born in 1963; “The Lovely Bones” author Alice Sebold, who was born in 1963; “Do the Right Thing” star Rosie Perez, who was born in Brooklyn in 1964; “I Try” singer Macy Gray, who was born in 1967; “Pacific Rim” star Idris Elba, who was born in 1972; rapper Foxy Brown, who was born in Brooklyn in 1978; and “The Witcher” star Freya Allan, who was born in 2001.