GenevaFile size is getting a bit unwieldy
again, so we'll drop down to three years at a time. - David
1901
Jan 7
The New York Stock Exchange trades over 2,00,000 shares in a single day
for the first time.
Jan 9
A fire at Rochester's Hubbell Park Orphan Asylum kills 28 children and
three staff members.
Feb 4
Giaccomo Puccini's Tosca makes its U. S. debut at the
Metropolitan Opera.
April
Scribner's publishes Critical Instances, Edith
Wharton's second volume of stories. ** Doubleday publishes Frank
Norris' The Octopus.
Apr 1
The Rochester & Sodus Bay interurban railroad leases the Irodequoit
Park Railroad.
Apr 14
Actors in New York City's Academy of Music are arrested for wearing
costumes on Sunday.
Apr 25
New York State begins requiring license plates on automobiles, the
first state to do so.
May
Alice Day (Gardner) graduates from the Law School of the University of
Buffalo, the only woman in the class, with the highest marks.
May 9
A Wall Street panic is caused by the battle between J. J. Hill and
Edward Henry Harriman over control of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
Railroad.
May 18
The New York State militia forces striking Albany railroad workers back
to work.
May 21
Five West Point Military Academy cadets are dismissed for hazing and
insubordination; six others are suspended.
May 30
The Hall of Fame for Great Americans is dedicated, at New York
University.
Jun 2
Benjamin Adams of the Yonkers Board of Education is arrested for
playing golf on Sunday.
Jun 10
Broadway composer Frederick Lowe is born in Vienna.
Jun 13
A Staten Island ferry collides with another ship and sinks in New York
City's harbor.
Jun 22
Golfer Genevieve Hecker successfully defends her Women's Metropolitan
Golf Championship title, in New York City.
July
After quarreling with friends at their summer cabin on Dumpling Island,
off Noank, Connecticut, Theodore Dreiser returns to New York City
earlier than planned.
Aug 7
West Point graduate Francisco Alcantara is elected president of the
Venezuelan state of Aragua.
Aug 15
The horse Cresceus wins the trotting championship at Brighton Beach.
Aug 26
Bicyclist Robert Walthour defeats John Nelson in a fifteen-mile race in
Madison Square Garden.
Sep 1
Reformer Carrie Nation is arrested in New York City when her appearance
attracts a crowd of unruly supporters.
Sep 5
President William McKinley arrives in Buffalo to open the Pan-American
Exposition.
Sep 6
McKinley is shot during a reception at the Temple of Music by anarchist
Leon Czolgosz.
Sep 7
Czolgoz confesses.
Sep 10
Activist Emma Goldman is arrested in New York City after Czolgosz
mentions her name to investigators.
Sep 14
William McKinley dies in Buffalo, mouthing the lyrics to Nearer
My God to Thee. Roosevelt takes the oath of office forty-five
minutes later. He asks McKinley's Cabinet to retain their positions.
Sep 26
Czolgosz is sentenced to death.
Oct 20
The New York Times celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Oct 24
Michigan schoolteacher Anna Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go
over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive.
Oct 29
Leon Czolgosz is executed.
Nov 16
Racing in New York City, French driver Henri Fournier sets an
automobile speed record of one mile in 52 seconds.
Nov 26
The Hope Diamond arrives in New York City.
City
Architect Henry Anderson designs the Semiramis apartment on Central
Park North. ** The city's New Law permits enforcement of housing
standards. ** William Wallace, superintendent of buildings at
the Museum of Natural History, is forced to resign when he's caught
misappropriating funds and accepting kickbacks. ** The Astor
family builds Harlem's Graham Court apartment building, designed by
Clinton & Russell. ** Educator Seth Low, running on the Fusion
ticket, defeats Democrat Edward M. Shephard to become mayor, serving
1902-1903. ** Maurice Prendergast paints Central
Park. ** Sculptor Gutzon Borglum moves from London to
New York City. ** Writer James Branch Cabell returns from New
York City and joins the staff of Virginia's Richmond
News. ** William Randolph Hearst hires advice
columnist Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (Dorothy Dix), away from the New
Orleans Daily Picayune, to write for his New
York Journal.
State
Bannerman's Island Arsenal is established on Pollopel Island in the
Hudson River. ** Ellsworth Milton Statler operates a hotel at
Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition.
Albany
The John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn branch library on North Pearl Street
is dedicated.
Batavia
E. E. Kellogg builds the Pan American Farmer's Sheds, for parking
shoppers' horses, on State Street. ** Additions are begun to the
Johnston Harvester Company building.
Rochester
The congregation of Temple B'rith Kodesh opens the Baden Street
settlement house, the city's first, to aid poor Germans and Poles.
** The Italian Democratic Club is formed in the city's 5th Ward.
** The port of Charlotte's export revenue reaches $1,279,000. **
The city annexes additional lands of the State Hospital, increasing
its own size to 18.86 square miles.
1902
Jan 8
A train collision beneath New York City's Grand Central Station,
caused by poor visibility due to steam in the tunnels, results in a ban
on steam engines on Manhattan commuter trains.
Jan 9
Metropolitan Opera director Rudolf Bing is born in Vienna.
Jan 13
Columnist Roscoe Drummond is born in Theresa.
Jan 25
The Broadway musical Floradora plays its 505th
performance, setting a record for length of run.
Jan 28
Museum of Modern Art founder-director Alfred H. Barr, Jr., is born in
Detroit.
Jan 30
Transatlantic shippers in New York City double their rates.
February
Edith Wharton's historical novel The Valley of
Decision is published by Scribner's.
Feb 9
Daughter Jeanette Norris, Jr., is born to novelist Frank Norris and his
wife, in New York City.
Feb 10
Acting teacher Stella Adler is born in New York City to Yiddish actor
Jacob Adler.
Feb 27
Golfer Eugene Saraceni (Gene Sarazen) is born in Harrison.
Mar 21
A subway tunnel under New York City's Park Avenue near 38th Street
collapses, destroying three mansions.
Mar 24
Politician Thomas Edmund Dewey is born in Owosso, Michigan.
Apr 2
The fishing boat Alice M. Jacobs brings her first
catch to New York City's Fulton Fish Market.
May 5
Author Bret Harte dies, in Albany.
Jun 9
West Point Military Academy celebrates its first 100 years.
Jun 16
Two super trains begin New York-to-Chicago service - the Pennsylvania
Railroad's Pennsylvania Special and the New York Central's Broadway
Limited.
Jun 28
Composer Richard Rodgers is born in Hammels Station, New York.
July
Frank Norris moves from New York City to San Francisco.
Jul 12
The Twentieth Century Limited sets the train speed record on a run
between New York City and Chicago.
Jul 24
The Irondequoit Park Railroad interurban merges with the Rochester and
Sodus Bay Railway company, permitting through transit from Sodus Bay to
downtown Rochester.
Jul 25
Longshoreman-social philosopher Eric Hoffer is born in New York City.
Jul 31
The Rochester and Sodus Bay Railway interurban company is leased to the
Rochester Railway Company.
Aug 6
Gangster Arthur Flegenheimer (Dutch Schulz) is born in the Bronx.
Aug 19
Poet-humorist Frederic Ogden Nash is born in Rye.
Aug 25
Harry de Windt arrives in New York City, having traversed the Arctic
across the Bering Strait, from Paris.
Sep 11
Philanthropist Alice Tully is born in Corning. ** Joseph M. Weber
and Lew M. Fields' Twirly Whirly opens at their New
York music hall.
Sep 28
Journalist-television host Ed Sullivan is born in New York City.
Oct 17
New York's Rochester & Eastern Rapid Railway interurban goes into
service, providing occasional passenger service between Canandaigua and
Victor.
Oct 26
Suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton dies in New York City.
Nov 3
Clyde Fitch's The Stubbornness of Geraldine opens at
Broadway's Garrick Theatre.
Nov 4
An explosion at Madison Square Garden kills fifteen people and injures
seventy others.
Nov 11
Roland B. Molineux is acquitted in New York City after a second trial,
for the 1889 murder of elderly widow Margaret Adams.
Nov 17
A U. S. production of The Eternal City opens at New
York's Victoria Theatre.
Nov 22
A fire destroys the span of New York City's uncompleted Williamsburg
Bridge.
Nov 29
Jazz drummer Danny Viniello (Alvin) is born in New York City.
December
Edgar Smith's The Stickiness of Gelatine, a musical
comedy spoof of The Stubbornness of Geraldine, opens
on the second half of the bill at New York City's Weber and Fields
Music Hall, with the comedy team in the cast.
Dec 3
David Belasco and John Luther Long's The Darling of the
Gods opens at New York's Belasco Theatre, with English actor
George Arliss in the cast.
Dec 10
Politician Vito Anthony Marcantonio is born in New York City.
Dec 16
Stanislaus Stange and Julian Edwards' When Johnny Comes
Marching Home opens at New York's New York Theatre.
Dec 17
Gus Hinckley captains his Great Lakes ship the
Hinckley from Cape Vincent, in the St. Lawrence River,
to Oswego, sailing blind during a snowstorm.
Dec 20
Philosopher Sidney Hook is born in New York City.
Dec 28
Professor Mortimer Jerome Adler is born in New York City.
City
Daniel Burnham's Flatiron Building is completed. ** BuilderJoseph
Oussani moves into his newly completed Semiramis apartment house.
** Gustav Lindenthal becomes Commissioner of Bridges. ** Cass
Gilbert's U. S. Customs House opens. ** Janes & Leo's Dorilton
apartment house at Broadway and 71st Street, built for Hamilton M.
Weed, is completed at a cost of $750,000. Critic Montgomery Schuyler
disparages the building in the Architectural Record. The building is
fully rented. ** An explosion on a subway construction job at
Park Avenue and Forty-first Street kills six people, injures over a
hundred. ** Andrew Carnegie's East 91st Street neo-Georgian
mansion is completed. ** Lawman Bat Masterson arrives to become a
sportswriter for the Morning Telegraph.
State
McKim, Mead and White's house for Clarence H. Mackay of Roslyn, Long
Island - Harbor Hill - is built. ** The 17th-century Mead Farm
House in Rye is refurbished. ** Ralph Whitehead founds the
Byrdcliff art colony in Woodstock. ** The Wyoming Village Hall,
donated by Lydia Avery Cooley Ward, is dedicated. Among the speakers
are the Reverend Anna Shaw and the Reverend William C. Gannett. **
Newspaper publisher Levi A. Cass arrives in Warsaw. ** The
Watervliet Arsenal begins producing 16-inch guns.
Batavia
Doctor Annie Cheyney marries Doctor Henry M. Spofford and they go into
a joint-practice. ** Novelties manufacturer K. B. Mathes builds a
factory.
Rochester
The city is struck by a smallpox epidemic lasting through the following
year. ** Floods threaten the downtown area. ** Architect
Claude Bragdon marries Charlotte Coffyn Wilkinson of Syracuse. **
Salvatore M. Vella becomes the first Italian to graduate from a city
high school. ** The Italian Mission moves to the First Methodist
Episcopal Church. An Italian Sunday school is established.
1903
Jan 18
New York City politician-businessman Abram Stevens Hewitt, 80, dies.
Jan 20
Frank L. Baum, Paul Tietjens and A. Baldwin Sloane's The Wizard
of Oz opens at New York's Majestic Theater, with a spectacular
opening cyclone on stage.
February
Having sent his wife Sara to her parents' home, Theodore Dreiser moves
to cheaper lodgings in Brooklyn.
Feb 18
The first all-black major Broadway musical, Paul Laurence Dunbar and
Will Marion Cook's In Dahomey opens at the New York
Theater.
Feb 22
The Cunard liner Etruria lands in New York City,
carrying the first newspaper printed in mid ocean, using wireless. The
system's inventor Guglielmo Marconi is aboard.
Feb 25
A New York City tenement at 32nd Street and Eleventh Avenue is torn
down - the beginning of demolition for the new Pennsylvania Station.
** Rapid-fire weapon inventor Richard J. Gatling, 84, dies in New
York City.
Mar 4
Painter Adolph Gottlieb is born in New York City.
Mar 10
The ship Karmania is quarantined in New York City,
with six aboard dead from cholera.
Mar 16
Montana senator Mike Mansfield is born in New York City.
Mar 17
Gustave Luder's The Prince of Pilsen opens at New
York's Broadway Theatre.
Mar 22
Niagara Falls run dry due to freezing in the Great Lakes.
Mar 29
Regular wireless news service begins between New York City and London.
Apr 10
Journalist-playwright Clare Booth Luce is born in New York City.
Apr 24
George B. Post's building for the New York Stock Exchange opens.
Apr 27
The Jamaica Race Track opens, on Long Island, attended by Lillian
Russell, 'Diamond Jim' Brady and John Warne 'Bet-a-million' Gates.
May
Hammondsport machine shop owner Glenn Curtiss sets a motorcycle speed
record of a mile in 56 2/5 second.
May 1
Invited to New York by S. S. McClure, Willa Cather meets with him and
is promised publication of her stories in McClure's
Magazine., as well as in book form.
May 16
George A. Wyman sets out from San Francisco in asuccessful attempt to
become the first man to cross the U. S. by motorcycle.
May 22
U. S. diplomat Philip Wilson Bonsal is born in New York City to
journalist Stephen Bonsal and Henrietta Bonsal. He will serve as
ambassador to Cuba.
June
Theodore Dreiser gets a job on the railroad at Spuyten Duyvil soon
moves to Kingsbridge.
Jun 19
New York Yankees baseball star Lou Gehrigis born.
Jul 6
Motorcyclist George Wyman achieves his goal, arriving in New York
City.
August
Sara Dreiser joins her husband at Kingsbridge.
Aug 15
Publisher Joseph Pulitzer donates $2,000,000 to establish a school of
journalism at Columbia University.
Aug 19
Trotter Dan Patch sets the one-mile record in Brighton Beach - one
minute and 59 seconds.
Aug 31
Entertainer Arthur Gidfrey is born in New York City.
Sep 23
Prince Alert beats the record of Dan Patch at Yonkers, doing the mile
in one minute and 57 seconds. ** Columbia University celebrates
its 150th anniversary.
October
Scribner's publishes Edith Wharton's novella
Sanctuary.
Oct 4
Computer pioneer John Vincent Atanasoff (the Atanasoff-Berry Computer)
is born in Hamilton, New York.
Oct 13
Victor Herbert's operetta Babes in Toyland opens at
New York's Majestic Theater.
Oct 17
Novelist Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein (Nathanael West) is born in New
York City.
Nov 15
Interurban service between Rochester and Canandaigua, on the Rochester
& Eastern Rapid Railway is inaugurated.
Nov 30
The Brooklyn Academy of Music is destroyed by a fire.
Dec 16
New York City's Majestic Theater uses the first female ushers.
Dec 24
Theodore Dreiser resigns from his job on the railroad.
City
Coney Island's Luna Park opens. ** The Williamsburg Bridge,
connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, is opened. ** Henry J.
Hardenbergh's Whitehall Building, housing governmentoffices and
corporations, is completed. ** Hill and Turner's Euclid Hall
apartment building, at the planned 86th Street exit of the Broadway
subway currently under construction, is completed. ** Russian
immigrant Jacob Starr becomes an engineer with Ben Strauss's New York
sign company. ** Democrat George B. McClellan, son of the Civil
War general, defeats incunbent Fusion Party mayor Seth Low. He serves
1904-1909. ** Race track tipster George Graham Rice founds the
New York Daily America. It will not survive for long.
** Western painter Charles M. Russell and his wife Nancy make
their first trip to the city. ** Eugene O'Neill's mother attempts
suicide and he learns she is a morphine addict. He begins chasing
around the city with his older brother Jamie. ** Public relations
pioneer Lee Ivy leaves the New York World to begin
representing political interests. ** William Sidney Porter (O.
Henry) moves to New York.
State
Lake Placid's Adirondack Lodge burns in a forest fire. Fires destroy
close to 25% of the timber in the Adirondacks. ** Paleontologist
Clifton James Sarle names a shale-dolomite mixture Pittsford Shale, for
the town where the formation was uncovered as the Erie Canal was
deepended, in 1897-8. ** The toll booth on Dutchess County's Salt
Point Turnpike is demolished. ** Warsaw celebrates its
centennial, formally dedicates its 1876 Soldiers' Monument. **
The State legislature passes a bond issue to construct a Barge Canal to
replace the old Erie Canal. ** Charles Davenport becomes director
of the Station for Experimental Evolution of the Carnegie Institute, at
Cold Harbor, for the next 32 years.
Batavia
Watts L. Richmond becomes assistant superintendent of the Johnston
Harvester Works. ** Trolley service begins.
Buffalo
Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building is built.
Rochester
The Bond Clothing Company is founded. ** Floods threaten downtown
for the second year in a row.
David Minor
Eagles Byte Historical Research
Rochester, New York
716 264-0423
http://home.eznet.net/~dminor