Brooklyn Today for Aug. 21, 2012

August 21, 2012 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Good morning. Today is the 234th day of the year. The Brooklyn Eagle of Aug. 21, 1900, informed its readers that Congress and Warren streets near the waterfront had become “a hotbed for vice and crime in every form imaginable.” The area, said the Eagle, attracted “characters of the most desperate type” whose main objective was to steal from the hundreds of sailors from the nearby docks of the German-American Line. The Eagle’s reporter was almost robbed by a group of homeless men, who told him, “Der’s a keg of beer dat needs filling, and you’re just de guy who’s going to do it!”

Well-known people who were born today include singer Kenny Rogers, actress Alicia Witt, director Peter Weir (“Dead Poets Society,” “Gallipoli”) and former football player Jim McMahon.