Brooklyn Today for June 17
Good morning. Today is the 168th day of the year. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of June 17, 1901, ran an article headlined “A Remarkable Tea Party Run by a Pair of Thieves.” According to the story, $10,000 worth of tea was stolen from a warehouse on North Second Street in Williamsburg. Police reported that two young men, dressed in aprons, hired a wagon with horses, then went into the building and started unloading the boxes of tea in full view of everyone. When the elevator operator asked what they were doing, they told him that the company had a large order for tea, and they were hired to move it out quickly.
After the theft was discovered, police found that one witness remembered the name of the trucking company. They went to the company’s storage facility and recovered the tea. An employee of the Williamsburg tea-importing firm was later arrested for his part in the scheme.
Well-known people who were born today include Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Barry Manilow (“Mandy,” “Copacabana”), comedian Joe Piscopo, tennis player Venus Williams, politician Newt Gingrich and actor Greg Kinnear (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “As Good as It Gets”).