Geneva1949Geneva
Jan 16
The television dramatic anthology ABC Television
Players, premieres, fed to New York from Chicago via coaxial
cable.
Apr 29
Giants manager Leo Durocher is suspended by the Baseball Commission for
attacking a fan during a game.
May 9
Composer-pianist William Martin (Billy) Joel is born in Hicksville,
Long Island.
Aug 27
A Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, to earn defense money for six New
Jersey blacks sentenced to the electric chair, turns into riots.
Sep 4
Another Paul Robeson concert is held in Peekskill. More riots ensue.
City
Ole Singstad's Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel is completed. ** Democrat
incumbent William O'Dwyer defeats Republican-Liberal-Fusion candidate
Newbold Morris and American Labor candidate Vito Marcantonio, to win
re-election, serving through 1950, when he resigns to become ambassador
to Mexico. ** Commissioner of Investigations John M. Murtagh
cracks down on Broadway ticket scalpers, rescinding the licenses of
many ticket brokers. ** Lawyer William Eaton is admitted to the
state bar. He becomes an associate with White & Case. ** Future
gossip columnist Mary Elizabeth (Liz) Smith arrives in the city.
State
Arch Merrill's Land of the Senecas is published. **
The wings added to Geneva's Nester House (Geneva-on-the-Lake) are
completed. ** Abner Lakey's 1832 Western Presbyterian Church in
Palmyra is restored.
Buffalo
Joseph Mruk is elected the city's first Polish-American mayor.
Rochester
A strip of film is cut to officially open the George Eastman House.
** The city annexes the County Home (Iola) increasing its own size
to 36.02 square miles. ** All subway cars are converted to
one-man operation.
1950
Jan 3
The temperature reaches 58 degrees in New York City.
Mar 14
New York City hires a rainmaker.
May
Peoples Artists, Inc. publishes the first issue of Sing
Out!, the folk singers magazine.
May 25
The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel under the East River opens.
Jul 1
Trolley service in Buffalo is ended with a parade down Broadway.
Jul 4
A young boy in Manhattan fires a pistol from a rooftop in the direction
of the Polo Grounds, killing Bernard Lawrence Doyle, while Doyle
watches a baseball game.
Jul 11
Broadway and film composer and librettist Buddy George Gard Desylva
dies at the age of 55.
Jul 18
New York City's Fort Clinton is designated a National Monument, saving
it from demolition.
Sep 7
Batavia's Holland Land Office is re-opened as the Holland Purchase
Historical Society's headquarters.
City
Mayor William O'Dwyer resigns to become ambassador to Mexico. City
council president Vincent J. Impellitteri is named actring mayor.
Heading the ticket for the Experience Party, he defeats
Democrat-Liberal Ferdinand Pecora and Republican Edward Ciorsi to win
the post on his own, serving to 1953. ** Jewelry executive Paul
de Rosiere joins Cartier. ** London's Hambro Trading Corporation
opens the Hambro House of Design on 54th Street, to sell fine European
furniture, houehold goods and food. ** Frank Loesser's musical
Guys and Dolls opens. ** The
Times begins publishing a daily crossword puzzle.
** Publisher Sid Silverman, son of Variety
founder-publisher Sime Silverman, dies at the age of 51.
State
Edwin S. Underhill joins the staff of his family's newspaper, the
Corning Leader. ** Rosebud Frantz, great
grandniece of Sitting Bull, leaves her post as director of the Indian
Village at Jones Beach State Park.
Batavia
Mary Sweetland closes her Berry Patch restaurtant.
Buffalo
Television station WBEN-TV (WVIB today) discontunes the use of footage
of Myles Hughes' Apostolic Clock to begin its Sunday broadcast day.
** Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building is demolished for a parking
lot.
Rochester
Sam Urzetta wins the national amateur golf championship. ** The
city annexes more land for an arport extension, incresing its own size
to 36.19 square miles.
Syracuse
The approximate date the Leavenworth House, at the corner of James and
McBride Streets, is demolished.
1951
Jan 6
In the longest National Basketball Association (NBA) game in history
the Indianapolis, Olympians beat the Rochester Royals 75-73, after six
overtimes, before the advent of the 24 second clock to prevent
stalling.
Jan 10
An Avro jetliner flies from Chicago, Illinois, to New York City in one
hour and 42 minutes.
Jan 31
U. S. pilot Charles Blair Jr., flying a converted Mustang fighter
plane, sets the New York-to London flight record of seven hours and
forty-eight minutes.
Feb 28
U. S. pop composer Henry W. Armstrong, 71, dies in the Bronx.
Mar 7
The Ethel and Julius Rosenberg spy trial begins, with federal judge
Irving Kauffman presiding.
Mar 8
The Fred Astaire-Jane Powell film Royal Wedding opens
in New York City.
Mar 11
Olivia de Haviland and Douglas Watson open on Broadway in Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet .
Mar 12
Estes Kefauver's Senate Crime Investigating Committee begins hearings
in New York City.
Mar 21
The Rosenberg defense opens. ** The Kefauver hearings close.
Mar 29
Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I opens on
Broadway.
Mar 30
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are found guilty of espionage.
Apr 5
The Rosenbergs are sentenced to death for espionage. Co-defendant
Martin Sobel is given 30 years.
Apr 11
The Museum of Modern Art opens a show on Modigliani.
Apr 20
General Douglas MacArthur, returning from Korea after having been
relieved of his command by President Truman, is given a ticker tape
parade in New York City.
May 2
RCA makes the first color television broadcast, from New York's Empire
State Building.
May 8
The play Stalag 17 opens on Broadway.
May 24
Baseball outfielder Willie Mays joins the Giants.
June
Harriet and Mortimer Spiller buy Batavia's P and C Market location and
open the Joyell Real Estate Office.
Jun 2
Author-musician and former president of Julliard, John Erskine, 71,
dies.
Jun 12
The Ford Foundation launches a study of television's affect on
culture.
Jun 22
A Pan Am airliner headed for New York with 40 passengers disappears
over West Africa.
Jun 25
CBS begins commercial color television transmissions, broadcasting from
New York to four other cities.
Jun 30
A DC-6 Denver to New York airliner crashes in the Rocky Mountains,
killing all fifty people aboard.
Aug 5
William Hill, Jr., attempting to go over Niagara Falls in an inner tube
capsule, is killed.
Aug 23
Ninety cadets at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point are dismissed
for cheating on exams.
Aug 28
George Stephens' film A Place in the Sun premieres.
Sep 19
Elia Kazan's film of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named
Desire premieres, in New York.
Sep 21
An underground gas explosion in a Rochester suburb, kills three people,
destroys or badly damages 44 homes and causes the evacuation of 2,00
people - the Brighton Disaster.
October
The Genesee River storage dam at Mount Morris is completed.
Oct 3
The Giants capture the National League pennant on a home run by Bobby
Thompson.
Oct 15
The British film The Lavender Hill Mob opens in New
York.
Oct 17
The film The Desert Fox opens in New York.
Nov 1
Johnny Mercer's Broadway musical Top Banana debuts at
the Winter Garden Theater, runs for 350 performances.
Nov 10
Operetta composer Sigmund Romberg, 64, dies in New York City.
Nov 12
Lerner and Loew's Paint Your Wagon opens on Broadway
at the Shubert Theater.
Dec 5
New Yorker editor Harold Ross dies.
Dec 12
Jazz pianist-vocalist Mildred Rinker (Bailey) dies in Poughkeepsie at
the age of 44.
Dec 16
A bagel makers' strike hits New York City.
City
Pace College buys the New York Times building on Park Row. **
Architect Charles W. Buckham, designer of duplex apartment houses,
dies. ** Raphael Levy is named director of public relations for
the National United Jewish Appeal. ** Laurence Olivier appears on
Broadway in Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar
and Cleopatra. ** George Abbott's adaptation of Betty
Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn opens on Broadway.
** Mystery writer Anthony Boucher becomes editor of the Criminals at
Large column for the Times.
State
The termite-ridden Mead Farm House in Rye is demolished. **
Timber companies stop operations on the upper Hudson River. **
William Henry Seward III, grandson of the sercretary of state, dies,
donating the family home in Auburn to the public. ** The Hall of
Fame of the Trotter opens in a Goshen former stable.
Batavia
Batavia Hospital changes its name to Genesee Memorial Hospital. **
Lawyer Alice Day Gardenr retires from the family firm of Day and
Gardner, at the age of 78.
Niagara Falls
A housing development is begun along the Love Canal.
Rochester
A citizens' committee explores the use of federal funds for urban
development of the Crossroads area.
Copyright 1997 David Minor / Eagles Byte
NYNY files through the year 1754 are now on the Eagles Byte WWW site:
http://home.eznet.net/~dminor
David Minor
Eagles Byte Historical Research
Rochester, New York
716 264-0423
http://home.eznet.net/~dminor