At the end of every summer tennis royalty descend on New York for the U.S. Open, one of the four most prestigious tournaments on the professional tennis circuit. The sport has come a long way in attracting fans and players since it first became popular in the 19th century.
Tennis as we know it was invented in England in 1873 by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, a British army officer, for use at lawn parties. The game was introduced into Bermuda the
I wonder if the golfers who play at the Dyker Park golf course this weekend realize that 234 years ago when the British landed there some 20,000 troops that ended up defeating General Washington and the Continental Army in the Battle of Brooklyn, the first —
By John B. Manbeck
A Brooklyn historian
Special to The Eagle
“Sept,” as in September, means the number seven. So if September is the seventh month, how come it’s our ninth month? Because of the early Roman calendar, which has changed at least
Alan Dershowitz was born in Brooklyn on September 1, 1938. After graduation from Brooklyn College and Yale Law School he joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judges David Bazelon and Arthur Goldberg.
Dershowitz is known for defending clients such as Anatoly Scharansky, Claus Von Bulow, O.J. Simpson, Michael Milen, Mike
James John Walker started out as a songwriter in 1908. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song “Will You Love Me in December as You Do in May?” That song earned him more than $10,000 over the next 30 years. But Walker’s political-minded father had other ideas for him and he exchanged Tin Pan Alley for a political career.
Walker had playboy tendencies. He loved show business and being around show people. In fact he loved one so much,
Buddy Hackett was born Leonard Hacker in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn on Aug. 31, 1924. His father, Philip, was an upholsterer who, according to one report, developed a folding studio couch but never realized any money out of it.
Hackett’s boyhood in Brooklyn was uneventful. He graduated from P.S. 103 and attended New
Photographer Helen Levitt was born in Bensonhurst on Aug. 31, 1913. Her father was a Russian immigrant who ran a wholesale knit-goods business.
Levitt became a master of street photography, capturing stunning shots of her native New York, with some of her most lasting images being of children. Photography historian Keith Davis wrote, “Levitt responded to this protean theater of the street by creating photographs that are lyrical, uncontrived, and mysterious. Fascinated by the simplest marks and the most fleeting gestures,
Debbie Gibson was born on Aug. 31, 1970, in Brooklyn. Debbie began writing songs in her early childhood, taking piano lessons from Morton Estrin (who also taught Billy Joel) from the age of 5. At the age of 6 she wrote “Make Sure You Know Your Classroom.” By age 8 she was performing as part {read more...}
Designed for the North Atlantic passenger trade, the liner America, a major unit in the Maritime Commission’s program to rehabilitate the American merchant marine, rode down the James River at Newport News, Virginia on Aug. 31, 1939.
The sloop of war the U.S.S. Vincennes, an American warship commanded by William Bolton Finch, left New York harbor on September 3, 1828 to circumnavigate the globe. When the ship returned to New York on June 8, 1830, she became the first U.S. Navy ship to accomplish that feat.
The ship, built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1826, was used chiefly for expeditions until 1857 when she joined the antislavery patrol on the African station. Then, from June 1861
Shirley Booth was born Thelma Booth Ford on August 30, 1898, the daughter of Albert James Ford and his wife Virginia (Wright). Her childhood was spent in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn where she attended P.S. 152. It was there she read her English composition, “Autobiography of a Thanksgiving Turkey,” in the school’s auditorium. This reading helped to change a shy, lonely child into one of the great actresses of her time.
Her career in acting began in amateur plays from the age of 12. Her first professional appearance was in 1923 in The Cat and the Canary in Hartford,
Sometimes called the Battle of Long Island, the Battle of Brooklyn during the American Revolution began in the wee morning hours of August 27, 1776, as the British troops numbering about 15,000 began to move north toward the East River.
An eyewitness later remembered, as an old woman, that “before noon the Red Coats were so thick in Flatlands you could walk on their heads.”
But by noon the battle had ended. The American commanders, General Israel Putnam and subordinate,
The four major movie palaces in Downtown Brooklyn had much to offer in the way of entertainment according to ads in the Brooklyn Eagle of August 27, 1939.
The RKO Albee had a Greater New York premiere of In Name
On the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 49th Street in Manhattan once stood for too brief a period what was possibly the most glamorous theater in the world.
In competition with Flo Ziegfeld’s famous Follies, Earl Carroll created his
Eagle Reports on President Teddy Roosevelt’s Deadly Car Crash
The following story was front page news in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on September 3, 1902. President Teddy Roosevelt had been in a terrible car crash in Massachusetts that left a Secret Service agent dead. The president’s death would have been a terrible shock to the nation,
