Brooklyn Today for Jan. 23

January 23, 2013 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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Good morning. Today is the 23rd day of the year. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Jan. 23, 1902, reported on the efforts of Dr. Charles Parkhurst, the powerful president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, to wipe out sales of liquor on Sundays, which was technically illegal. In a letter to Mayor Seth Low, Parkhurst charged that liquor, while not sold in retail stores, was still being openly served on Sundays in saloons. He pointed out that Theodore Roosevelt, while New York City police commissioner in the late 1890s, had called out the entire force to enforce “three dry Sundays” in a row.

Mayor Low, in return, said that the law was not strong enough to enforce on a permanent basis, and added that when police tried to enforce it more recently, the saloons merely raised the price of liquor on Sundays.

Well-known people who were born today include Princess Caroline of Monaco, actress Mariska Hargitay (“Law & Order: SVU”), U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), actress Jeanne Moreau (“Jules and Jim,” ‘Viva Maria”) and singer-actress Chita Rivera (“The Kiss of the Spider Woman”).

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