Brooklyn Today for June 4
Good morning. Today is the 155th day of the year. On June 4, 1896, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the “new East River bridge commission” had decided upon the foot of Bedford Avenue and South Sixth Street as the site of the Brooklyn tower for the new bridge. The bridge, of course, soon became known as the Williamsburg Bridge and opened in 1903. It became the gateway for many working-class immigrants from the Lower East Side to move to Williamsburg. As more and more tenements were built for them, the earlier German-American middle-class residents fled the area. The novel “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” descirbes the Williamsburg of that era.
Well-known people who were born today include actress Angelina Jolie (“Girl, Interrupted,” “The Tourist”), singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas, musician Eldra DeBarge and actor Scott Wolf.