Tuesday, April 01, 2008

74 years and 2 days

Yet another gem from inside the walls. This one was taken out of the empty apartment downstairs that they gutted yesterday. It was shoved inside the clogged up furnace hole that must have been used for the stove. This jackpot is a large section of the New York Evening Journal from April 3, 1934, the day that "Former Sheriff Farley Dies After Opera." Or after operation. Not sure which. But the guy was a thief and kept his stash in a tin box. He was 44 when he died, which is my age.

Teaspoons were on sale at Lord & Taylor 6 for $1.80. The ads are mostly for fabric, not for clothes, A GE vaccuum cleaner was $49.50 with the headline "A household aid unknown 100 years ago!" (and you can still get a vacuum for that price today at Best Buy).

Laguardia was mayor and there was much consternation over his visiting Brooklyn, and whether it was proper and whether it would become a regular thing. Weirdly, he was visiting for five days and stayed at the Towers Hotel (which is in Brooklyn Heights and is now the Jehovah's Witness building). From the article you would think he was considering visiting the moon.

The hunt for Dillinger, who escaped from jail, was a month old and on Apr 3 they thought they might have found his car. Johnny Depp is going to play Dillinger in the movie.

The weather that day was predicted as a high of 75.
But the real reason I am so interested in this stuff is that our building is listed on the HPD website as having been built in the 1930's but we were so certain that it was closer to the 1900's. I think this proves it. They wouldn't have stuffed up the furnace hole immediately after building it.

And finally, upon further wall work today, Marc pulled out a piece of the NY Times from April 20, 1987, which he must have put in there himself. It is only one page, but it is funny, as it is an editorial by Franklin Zimring (a criminologist!) about becoming a "frequent flier" (and on the website they now corrected it to flyer) which must have been just when those programs were getting off the ground. He complains in the article that the airline computer knows more about his schedule than his family.

And so it goes... tune in in another 70 years and blogs will seem quaint. They already seem quaint. I digress...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

So maybe you need to print out your blog and shove it in the wall! It is dissapointing to find your own stuff though...

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Glad I found your blog! I write a lot about Brooklyn and NYC too.

When we renovated our basement we found a whiskey bottle with a 1932 date on it in the ceiling rafters. No wonder our floors are a little crooked ;)