February 11: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

February 11, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1850, Brooklyn Daily Eagle guest columnist John C. Jaques said, “I have had an opportunity to form an idea of San Francisco during the rainy season. If there is another place within the states and territory of the American republican that can compare with this for muddy and filthy streets, then I shall think it time to give it up. New York has had a name heretofore, but is fairly out done now. We go from morn until night, boot legs over pants, wading and slipping, picking our way, here, and sticking fast, there, until limbs, patience and breath fairly give out in a mile’s travel: a short space of rest, then at it again until the day’s tramp is over. One good thing, however, it does not rain all the time: 3 or 4 days of rainy weather will be followed by 2 or 3 fine days, which proves quite a relief; but were it otherwise, I cannot conceive a more gloomy hole than this would be: as it is, no one here but will rejoice when the rains are over.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1931, Home Talk/The Item reported, “Unofficial but definite information that the entrance to the Bay Ridge-Staten Island vehicular tunnel will be between 88th and 89th sts., and Fourth and Fifth avs., and that the exit will be located at Fort Hamilton pkwy., at 79th St., was given exclusively to Home Talk Monday by an official of the Board of Transportation. Borings under the Narrows and on the Staten Island side of the tunnel have already been completed. Land borings in Bay Ridge will be finished either this week or next, it was said. Following their completion, further plans for the actual construction of the $78,000,000 project will continue, under the supervision of Chairman John H. Delaney, of the Board of Transportation. Borings thus far on the Bay Ridge shore have been very favorable, according to information received by this newspaper. Little or no rock has been found below the surface of local streets in the locations chosen by the city officials. Construction work will therefore be much easier and less costly, they said. The locations chosen by the Board of Transportation for the exit and entrance to the tube were not near the locations suggested in the plan offered by the Bay Ridge Chamber of Commerce. The latter organization, in a prize contest, proposed that the exit and entrance be placed between 86th and 92nd sts., and Fifth and Seventh avs. It was pointed out, however, by both city and borough engineers, that the latter location would present insuperable engineering difficulties in that the grade from the point where the tunnel will touch the Bay Ridge shore and the exit and entrance would be too great. The tunnel will land at the foot of 97th St. in Bay Ridge.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1940, the Eagle reported, “WASHINGTON, FEB. 10 (AP) — President Roosevelt, in bluntly unadorned language, labeled the present Soviet regime an absolute ‘dictatorship’ today, and declared that it was ‘axiomatic’ that America wanted to extend financial aid to the invaded Finns. The Chief Executive’s denunciatory criticism of Russia, almost unprecedented as a statement by a Chief Executive about the government of a nominally friendly nation, was made in an address to the National Youth Congress. Facing the 4,066 — by police count — young men and women who huddled in a cold rain on the south lawn of the White House, Mr. Roosevelt declared that in the early days of Communism he had hoped Russia would ‘work out its own problems and that their government would eventually become a peace-loving, popular government which would not interfere with the integrity of its neighbors.’ Then, as his shivering guests stood in silence, he added: ‘That hope is today either shattered or put away in storage against a better day. The Soviet Union, as a matter of practical fact, known to you and known to all the world, is a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world. It has allied itself with another dictatorship and it has invaded a neighbor so infinitesimally small that it could do no injury to the Soviet Union, and seeks only to live at peace as a democracy, and a liberal, forward-looking democracy at that.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1946, the Eagle reported, “The New York City public schools have been invited to enter the National Spelling Bee to be held at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., on Friday, May 24. The prizes to be awarded total $2,000 in savings bonds, ranging from $500 to the winner, to $40 to all participants in the national finals. New York schools are entitled to one representative in the national finals. Participation is limited to pupils of either sex, in grades 5A to 8B, who will not reach their 16th birthday before May 28. Such pupils must be enrolled either in elementary or in junior high schools.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1971, the Brooklyn Heights Press reported, “As part of its new six week winter term, Packer Collegiate Institute, 170 Joralemon Street, is introducing a course in computer programming. ‘We are said to be in a computerized age,’ says Mrs. Britte Immergut, the program supervisor, ‘but who will tell us what to do with the computer? Who will teach us how to use them? Does one have to be a good mathematician to learn and enjoy computer work? For which purposes are the schools themselves using them? No one has been able to answer these questions in a simple and practical way. Since we are fortunate to have a computer terminal at our disposal at Packer College, we decided to find out for ourselves.’ During this winter term, some of the college students are learning simple computer programming. At the same time, they are writing tutorial programs in mathematics for the elementary school, and applying them in the lower grades. They are ‘learning-by-doing,’ because they must think through the problems for themselves. Mrs. Immergut explains the principles of the computer language being used, and requests that the students solve the problems. There are no formal lectures. Discussions, explanations, and practical applications through direct use of the computer are the requirements of this course. Mrs. Immergut has been awarded a Science Faculty Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. She will study mathematics and computer science for one year.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include “Gilligan’s Island” star Tina Louise, who was born in 1934; “Real in Rio” singer Sergio Mendes, who was born in 1941; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was born in 1953; “Arachnophobia” screenwriter Wesley Strick, who was born in 1954; “Law & Order” star Carey Lowell, who was born in 1961; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Sheryl Crow, who was born in 1962; former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who was born in 1964; “Friends” star Jennifer Aniston, who was born in 1969; singer-songwriter D’Angelo, who was born in 1974; “Moesha” star Brandy Norwood, who was born in 1979; former Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland, who was born in 1981; Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson, who was born in 1994; and “Eastside” singer Khalid, who was born in 1998.