ON THIS DAY IN 1928, Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist Martin Dickstein said, “It was the energetic Harry M. [Warner] who last week informed this listening post that the Warner company will soon resume production activities at the old Vitagraph studio in Flatbush. For the first time in more than four years, or since the Vitagraph organization was absorbed by the Warners, the old ‘lot’ will again bestir itself at the command of ‘lights’ and ‘camera.’ The former Vitagraph plant, incidentally, is one of the largest in the East. The Warners will use it exclusively for the production of Vitaphone ‘talking’ acts. About half a million dollars will be spent to renovate the various buildings on the lot and to install complete equipment for Vitaphone recording. The improvement, Mr. Warner informs us, will include two enormous Vitaphone stages with the newest type of apparatus, soundproof walls and incandescent lights. Needless to say, the resumption of activity at the local studio will greatly augment the Warners’ production capacity for sound pictures. It will also do much toward placing Brooklyn back on the motion-picture map, which it once occupied so conspicuously.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1940, the Eagle reported, “The football Giants of Tim Mara today were back in town convinced that they would have to play a better brand of football to be a contender for this year’s National Football League title. Yesterday in Pittsburgh they had to rally in the final two periods to gain a 10-10 tie with the Steelers after trailing 10-0 at the half. Earlier this season the Giants didn’t look like the 11 of previous years when they dropped a decision to the Eastern College All-Stars. In the early part of the last quarter the Giants moved the ball down to the Steelers’ 26-yard line, from where Eddie Miller gained two more yards on a charge. After this the Maramen tried two incomplete passes. From the Pittsburgh 31, Len Barnum then kicked a field goal to deadlock the score.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Eagle reported, “DETROIT, SEPT. 15 (U.P.) — With 70,000 workers already idle in the Detroit area and Ford automobile production completely halted, this motor center faced a new and serious strike threat tonight when the powerful United Automobile Workers (C.I.O.) announced it would seek strike authority in the vast General Motors and Chrysler plants. Walter P. Reuther, U.A.W. vice president, said the strike vote would affect 135 General Motors plants from coast to coast, employing some 325,000 workers. Ford stopped production Friday, laying off 50,000 workers, and the company said new cars might not reach dealers until 1946. Industry officials, meanwhile, awaited possible developments at the White House to end disputes which counted 70,000 workers idle in the Detroit area alone. President Truman hinted he would take steps to end labor disturbances when he returns to Washington from a brief trip to his home in Independence, Mo. Meanwhile, almost 200,000 workers were idle throughout the nation and more than a million others were ready to walk out in labor-management disputes growing out of the reconversion of industry from a wartime to a peacetime basis. The bombshell in the growing crisis was an ultimatum to the automobile industry from the U.A.W., which claims 1,250,000 members, threatening a system-wide strike of a single company to enforce a 30 percent wage boost.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1947, the Eagle reported, “UNITED NATIONS HALL, FLUSHING (U.P.) — The second General Assembly of the United Nations, sharply split between East and West, opens today in the midst of a raging, all-out diplomatic war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Assembly meetings for the next eight or ten weeks actually will be the forum in which the United States and the Soviet Union will fight for diplomatic leadership of the world. The U.S. will use it to try to mobilize world opinion against the Soviets. Few delegates hope that the two-year running battle between the most powerful members of the United Nations — united only in name — will be resolved here. Many fear it will be intensified and hasten formal recognition of two worlds instead of the hoped-for one. The Assembly opening scheduled speeches by New York’s Mayor William O’Dwyer and Oswaldo Aranha, president of the Special Assembly meeting. But those pleasantries and warnings against continued diplomatic conflict will be short-lived. The delegates of 55 nations will meet again this afternoon to elect their officers and touch off the first East vs. West row. Fiery Australian Foreign Minister Herbert V. Evatt, loudest and most vehement opponent of the Big Five veto power and of Russia’s diplomatic tactics, appears to have the necessary votes, including that of the U.S., for the Assembly presidency. But he won’t get a vote from the Soviet bloc, which is futilely trying to push Polish Foreign Minister Zygunt Modzelewski. The best the Russians can hope for is representation among the seven vice presidents and six main committee chairmanships.”
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NOTABLE PEOPLE BORN ON THIS DAY include actress and singer Janis Paige, who was born in 1922; Oscar-winning actor George Chakiris, who was born in 1932; Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Betty Kelly (Martha and the Vandellas), who was born in 1944; “St. Elsewhere” star Ed Begley Jr., who was born in 1949; “The Wrestler” star Mickey Rourke, who was born in 1952; Baseball Hall of Famer Robin Yount, who was born in 1955; magician and actor David Copperfield, who was born in 1956; Baseball Hall of Famer and former N.Y. Yankees outfielder Tim Raines, who was born in 1959; former “Saturday Night Live” star Molly Shannon, who was born in 1964; singer-songwriter Marc Anthony, who was born in 1968; “Parks and Recreation” star Amy Poehler, who was born in 1971; rapper and singer-songwriter Flo Rida, who was born in 1979; “Gilmore Girls” star Alexis Bledel, who was born in 1981; and singer-songwriter Nick Jonas, who was born in 1992.
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Special thanks to “Chase’s Calendar of Events” and Brooklyn Public Library.
“The wealth of the country, its capital, its credit, must be saved from the predatory poor as well as the predatory rich, but above all from the predatory politician.”
— Railroad executive James J. Hill, who was born on this day in 1838
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