October 24: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1937, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Stating yesterday that ample financing is immediately available for low cost dwellings to meet the needs of people with annual incomes between $1,500 and $2,000, C. Harry Minners, president of the Bankers’ Federal Savings and Loan Association, pointed out that financing alone, however, would not solve the problem. ‘Federal Savings and Loan Associations in the metropolitan area,’ said Mr. Minners, ‘are in a position to provide financing for at least 12,500 dwellings in the $5,000 class. Federals throughout the country could immediately finance $600,000,000 worth of new construction of this type. But adequate financing alone will not build houses. There is the question of the high cost of land within commuting distances of New York City as well as the heavy taxes imposed. These costs must be reduced for small homes. Realtors in the area have the opportunity to co-operate and neighboring municipalities could lessen the cost of home ownership by making tax exemptions for individually built houses in the low cost groups. Ten States have enacted ‘homestead’ tax exemption laws and four others have passed laws favoring individual home ownership so that there is ample precedent for the plan.”
***
ON THIS DAY IN 1940, the Eagle reported, “The problem of the ‘pre-delinquent,’ the boy or girl who may start out merely as a problem child and wind up in the Children’s Court, was discussed yesterday by Domestic Relations Justice Stephen S. Jackson of Manhattan at a luncheon-meeting of the courts and family services committees of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, held in the Towers Hotel. Describing some of the plans of the newly created juvenile delinquency prevention bureau of the Domestic Relations Court, which he helped to organize, Judge Jackson announced that city-wide ‘area projects’ will be undertaken by the bureau to improve the living conditions which give rise to delinquency. He pointed out that the Board of Education will be asked to help in individual case work relating to problem children and a number of the city’s department stores have been called on the co-operate with the bureau. Fifteen such stores already have approved a detailed plan to prevent shoplifting by children.”
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.