Brooklyn Today for April 29
Good morning. Today is the 119th day of the year. On this day in 1868, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle carried what is acknowledged to be the earliest known report in the United States on dwarf trees, also known as bonsai trees.
“One of the peculiar arts cultivated by the Chinese is the dwarfing of vegetation,” the Eagle reported. By some process known only to the Celestials, ordinary plants and shrubs may be dwarfed in their growth to the most lilliputian dimensions. This art the Chinese have recently introduced here, and a collection of diminative [sic] plants is now on exhibition at Wengenroth’s Saloon under the Park Theatre, which challenges the attention of the horticultural and curious.” The Park Theatre was on Fulton Avenue, now known as Fulton Street.
Well-known people who were born today include former tennis player Andre Agassi, actor Daniel Day-Lewis (‘My Left Foot,” ‘There Will Be Light,” ‘’Gangs of New York”), poet-singer Rod McKuen, conductor Zubin Mehta, Brooklyn-born comedian Jerry Seinfeld (“Seinfeld”), and actress Michele Pfeiffer (“Dangerous Liaisons”).
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.