Milestones: December 10, 2023

December 10, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Grace Church, as pictured during the 1940s, a century after its first service in the new sanctuary.
Photo: Municipal Archives, City of New York

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FIRST SERVICE IN NEW HOME — GRACE CHURCH BROOKLYN HEIGHTS ON SUNDAY, DEC. 10, 1848 held the first worship service in its new sanctuary at Grace Court and Hicks St. The Rev. Francis Vinton, a prominent and respected clergyman of the day and the parish’s first rector, gave a prognosis of how soon the church would pay for it with pew rentals, a practice now largely abolished in most churches.

Grace Church on Sunday, Dec. 10, 2023, was set to celebrate the parish’s 175th anniversary of this service, with a Morning Prayer Rite I liturgy reflecting the mode of worship practiced in the mid-19th century, with appropriate Scriptures, prayers and music.

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NEW WORLD’S FIRST PAPER MONEY — A FAILED MILITARY CAMPAIGN LED TO THE PRINTING OF THE FIRST PAPER MONEY IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was compelled to issue the paper currency to rescue soldiers who had gone without pay after Governor William Phips failed in his raid of Quebec, part of a longstanding series of skirmishes between the British and French during the 17th and 18th centuries. Phips had promised his men the looted goods and pay but returned home with no goods, only a damaged fleet. Facing a mutiny from the soldiers, Phips turned to the General Court of Massachusetts for help. The court did a limited run of government-back currency; later more was printed for the payment of taxes.

Paper currency was unpopular compared to coins and was discontinued for a while. However, before the end of the 17th century, it became common practice to print paper money, which was later tied to the gold standard until President Nixon abolished that in 1973.

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RED CROSS HONORED — THE NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE ON DEC. 10, 1917 AWARDED THE 1917 PEACE PRIZE TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS. The 1917 award was the first after a three-year hiatus with the outbreak of the First World War. Professor Louis Renault, president of the French Red Cross, nominated the ICRC for that year’s prize. Separately, the government of neutral Switzerland had also nominated the International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Geneva. Both Renault and Switzerland commended the Red Cross for its establishment of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency, which worked to provide relief to soldiers captured by enemy forces and to liaise between the prisoners and their families. They also praised its efforts to transport wounded soldiers to their home countries via Switzerland.

International Red Cross Founder Henry Dunant, from Switzerland, was awarded the first-ever peace prize in 1901. The Red Cross would be honored again: in 1944 and 1963.

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WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE — THREE YEARS LATER, PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON ON DEC. 10, 192,0 WAS AWARDED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE — BUT IN ABSENTIA. Wilson, who had just suffered a debilitating stroke and lost the Presidential election, was finishing off his term and was not able to travel to Oslo to accept his award. The Nobel Committee had selected the 28th President for his work in ending World War I and creating the League of Nations, which was an international diplomatic body established to resolve disputes between countries before they erupted into open warfare.

Responding to the Nobel Committee via telegraph, the ailing President wrote that he was grateful and “moved” by the recognition of his work for the cause of peace. However, he also emphasized the urgent need for further efforts to “rid [mankind] of the unspeakable horror of war.” Eleven years later, the United States entered World War II after Japanese forces bombed the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

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A NEW ROLE FOR RITA MORENO — A NEW GENERATION OF WEST SIDE STORY WAS INTRODUCED TO AMERICAN FILMGOERS ON DEC. 10, 2021 with the release of Steven Spielberg’s remake. However, this film, starring Rachel Zegler as Mary, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita, was an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical set against the backdrop of a neighborhood being gentrified to make room for Lincoln Center. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 movie version of “West Side Story,” played soda shop Doc’s widow in a role specially made for her. The storyline still follows the tragic feud between the white immigrant Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks. The dance sequence for “America,” was moved from a building rooftop to the streets, and the “Bonita Bandera,” the Puerto Rican flag, is displayed prominently from windows in the movie set.

Sean Naughton in a 2022 Collider article, praises Moreno’s new role, pointing out, “As screenwriter Tony Kushner gives Moreno a new purpose in the film as Valentina, her mixed-race marriage, and her relationship to Tony (Ansel Elgort) deepen the racial commentary of the film.”

See previous milestones, here.