March 17: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

March 17, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1849, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “This is the birth-day of the patron Saint of Ireland, and accordingly the Hibernians are out in high feather. A numerous and imposing procession of highly respectable men composing the Irish benevolent societies of this city passed our office this morning, with two bands of music, on their way to the Wallabout to join a similar society from Williamsburgh. Thence they were to proceed to New York to join a demonstration befitting the day in that city.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1892, the Eagle reprinted the following item from the Providence Journal (Ind.): “There is something amusing in the obedient declaration of the Indiana Republicans that President [Benjamin] Harrison ‘has lifted the nation higher in greatness, power and dignity,’ but, then, the partisan imagination is wont to play strange tricks with respectable mediocrity.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1931, the Eagle reported, “The National Guard of Brooklyn offers this week its own private perennial sign of the end of Winter — the local guard inspection season ends Friday. The band, regimental headquarters and headquarters troop of the 101st Cavalry were inspected last night by Col. Henry E. Suavet for the State and Maj. H.T. Aplington for the Federal authorities. A and B troops will face the same officers this evening; tomorrow I troop and the machine gun troop will be put through the paces and on Friday with inspection of the medical department local inspections will be over for the year. A review of the showing of the band last night indicated that the cavalry will maintain its usual standard of efficiency this year. There is a legend in the circles of the 101st that ‘as the band goes, so goes the squadron.’ So the horsemen are happy.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1936, the Eagle reported, “That Technicolor films, such as ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,’ current at the Brooklyn Paramount, eventually will succeed to the popularity now enjoyed by black-and-white productions is the prediction of McClelland Barclay, noted artist, illustrator and sculptor whose studies of femininity have made him world famous. Barclay declares that the change is inevitable, but that it will be brought about through the women of America, not the men. ‘Women,’ he asserts, ‘make up a good two-thirds of theater patronage. They also have, in contrast to men, the sensitiveness, aestheticism and the feeling for color moods necessary to the full appreciation of the new film art medium.’ He declares that women will, as usual, selfishly lead their husbands to such shows as appeal to feminine instincts, and that this propensity will soon make color productions a habit with both sexes. Once that occurs, he concluded, black-and-white pictures will seem as cold to us as would films without sound. Barclay made his prediction following a study of Technicolor work now being done by Pioneer Pictures’ new full-color Technicolor feature, ‘Dancing Pirate.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1938, the Eagle reported, “A certain sign that the baseball season is just around the corner came from the Brooklyn Baseball Club when it announced that tickets for Brooklyn’s opening three-game series with the Giants starting April 22, and for the three-game exhibition series with the Yankees starting April 15, have been placed on sale at the offices of the club, 215 Montague Street.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1952, the Eagle reported, “WITH A U.N. DIVISION, KOREA (U.P.) — Communists on the Korean front found themselves wearing the green today — but it was not because of any desire to observe St. Patrick’s Day. Artillerymen of the U.N. division discovered they had some green smoke shells in their supply dump. So, instead of marking enemy bunkers and troop concentrations with the customary white smoke shells, the GIs laid in the green to guide air strikes and artillery bombardments.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1961, the Bay Ridge Home Reporter said, “Things were still a little foggy on the Narrows-Verrazano Bridge — but the fog was obscuring only one thing: Is the toll for passenger cars, as stated in two published newspaper accounts recently, definitely to be 50 cents, or is it still subject to change, as the words of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority’s assistant general manager Arthur S. Hodgkiss indicate? He said: ‘Fifty cents is the minimum toll for passenger cars on the bridge and that is probably what it will remain at. We can’t tell yet what charges we would make for buses and trucks.’ Mr. Hodgkiss declined, however, to state definitely that the toll would be 50 cents. Reports carried in other newspapers stated that amount as the final figure, though, and, asked if he had read them, Mr. Hodgkiss said he had not. ‘I can’t help what they print,’ the Tri-Boro exec stated. Previously published stories, one in this paper, had carried varying accounts on the toll rate. One spokesman had hinted that the toll might go over $1 per passenger car to help defray construction costs. While other accounts claimed that the only unsettled part of the toll mystery was the price for trucks, buses and motorcycles, Mr. Hodgkiss emphasized that only time, and the eventual cost of the bridge, could possibly tell the toll rate for these vehicles. And so the fog seems to be settling down to stay for a while, to haunt the bridge a-building and the public who made it possible.”

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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include journalist and activist Myrlie Evers-Williams, who was born in 1933; Apollo 16 astronaut Ken Mattingly, who was born in 1936; baseball player and manager Cito Gaston, who was born in 1944; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful), who was born in 1944; “Dallas” star Patrick Duffy, who was born in 1949; “Escape from New York” star Kurt Russell, who was born in 1951; “Forrest Gump” star Gary Sinise, who was born in 1955; “NewsRadio” star Vicki Lewis, who was born in 1960; “St. Elmo’s Fire” star Rob Lowe, who was born in 1964; Smashing Pumpkins founder Billy Corgan, who was born in 1967; Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, who was born in 1972; National Soccer Hall of Famer Mia Hamm, who was born in 1972; singer-songwriter Grimes, who was born in 1988; “Star Wars” star John Boyega, who was born in 1992; and swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky, who was born in 1997.

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

Quotable:

“May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.”

— Irish blessing