New York Almanac -> January

New York City in JANUARY

Crazed with avarice, lust and rum, New York,
thy name's delirium. - Byron Newton

Happy New Year!

This Month: ....Average monthly temperature for January in NYC: 32°.... This month, check out the New York National Boat Show at the Jacob Javits Center....and the Annual Winter Antiques Show opening at the Seventh Regiment Armory ....

January 1 - New Years Day

....In 1673, the first regular mail service in the U.S. is inaugurated between New York and Boston....in 1892, Ellis Island opens....also on this day, Manhattan and The Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens join to form the City of New York in 1898....David Dinkins is sworn in as New York City's first black mayor, January 1, 1990....

January 2

.....New York surpasses its old rival, Philadelphia, as the nation's largest city today in 1820 with a whopping population of 123,706...this day in 1965, Joe Namath signs with the New York Jets. Four years later, the team goes on to become the first AFL team to win the Super Bowl this day in 1969.

January 3

....The Daily Advertiser prints a public notice addressed to Battery Park area residents this day in 1786....Those persons who have Goats that keep about the fort garden, are desired to take notice that unless they are taken care of, and prevented from destroying the fruit trees, disagreeable consequences will attend them. ... and have a nice day.

January 4

....on this day in 1863, four-wheeled roller skates are patented by James Plimpton. It's called a "rocking" skate - the first one that really lets people skate curves and turns. Plimpton soon opens a skating club in New York where gentlemen and ladies enjoy hours of 'rocking and rolling'.

....in 1877 a messy scandal hits the papers today following the death of New York railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, who has bequeathed the bulk of his $100,000,000 estate to his eldest son, William. Three other siblings, claiming their father was insane, contest the will. At the trial, Vanderbilt is revealed to have had "supernatural" visions and kept salt under his bed to scare away evil spirits. The old man's belief in the occult does not conclusively prove insanity, however, and William goes on to win the two-year court fight.

...strap hangers are raving mad this day in 1970 as subway and bus fares jump another dime, from 20 to 30 cents....

January 5

....The year: 1863. The place: Cooper Institute. The city's black population turns out for a jubilee celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln two days ago....horse drawn trolleys begin their cross-town run on 34th street in 1895....and in 1920, the Yankees purchase pitcher Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. Ruth already holds several World Series pitching records; however, the Yankees want him to play the outfield....

January 6

....Two dead, 172 injured in a subway accident on the IRT this day in 1915... New Yorker and United States president, Teddy Roosevelt dies in Oyster Bay, Long Island this day in 1919 at age 60. He is the first president to ride in an airplane, drive a car, and ride in a submarine. He also inspires the Teddy bear....

January 7

....This day in 1924, composer George Gershwin, age 26, completes the piano score for Rhapsody in Blue.... the first transatlantic telephone service from New York to London (cost: $75 for 5 minutes) begins today in 1927.....and this night in 1955 the staid old Metropolitan Opera House makes room for its first black singer, contralto Marion Anderson, who plays the fortune teller Ulrica in Verdi's Un Ballo un Maschera (The Masked Ball)....the Blizzard of '96 drops 20 inches of snow on the region followed by another foot of the white stuff on February 6....

January 8

....The New York Fishing Company is the first corporation in America, chartered in 1675....crooked and crafty Mayor Fernando Wood calls for the city to secede from the United States this day in 1861 in pre-Civil War New York. When dissension has become a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bonds which bind her to a corrupt and venal master? says Wood, who promises a free and independent Tri-Insula, his name for the new nation. Nothing much comes of the plan for NYC to secede from the Union which is viewed as simply an election year ruse to keep voters close to home and away from the Civil War....

January 9

....His popularity having crested and ebbed, defrauded of most of his royalties, living on turnips, apples and copious amounts of cheap whiskey, songwriter Stephen Foster is ailing and alone in New York City this day 1864. Arriving in his rented room in a Bowery flophouse, he falls down in a drunken stupor and cuts his throat on a porcelain washbowl. He is later found lying in a pool of blood and rushed to Bellevue Hospital where an intern sews up the horrible gash with ordinary cotton thread.

The composer of Oh, Susanna!, I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair, My Old Kentucky Home and other popular favorites dies four days later with 38 cents in his pocket, having penned two weeks earlier his last popular hit, Beautiful Dreamer....

January 10

....Lord & Taylor department store opens its doors today in 1826....and the reviews are in for Oscar Wilde's first U.S. speaking engagement at New York's Chickering Hall this day in 1882....long black hair hanging to his shoulders, brown eyes, a huge white face like a pale moon...white waistcoat, black coat and knee breeches, black silk stockings and shoes with buckles. Until he speaks, you think him as uncanny as a vampire....

January 11

....This day in 1675 a Notice to Citizens establishes the ground rules for civilized New York behavior: The Night Watch begins patrolling at eight, the city's gates to be locked promptly at nine. In the event of an attack, every citizen will have "musket powder and ball" in constant readiness. Those who keep public houses shall "sell bere as well as wyne and other liquors" and "keep lodging for strangers." Cursing and swearing is, of course, strictly prohibited.

....and up until now it has been ladled out from milk cans, but bottled milk is available in America for the first time this day in 1878 thanks to enterprising milkman Alexander Campbell of New York City....

January 12

A grave diggers' strike begins this day in 1970 against the city's 44 cemeteries. There's a backlog of 15,000 unburied bodies before the strike finally ends three months later....

January 13

....Horatio Alger, Jr. is born today in 1832 in Revere, Massachusetts and moves to the big city to write the quintessential New York rags-to-riches story. He authors a body of work that is lampooned by Mark Twain and others as "a monument to bad taste".

Alger's opus includes the wildly popular Luck and Pluck, Tattered Tom, and Ragged Dick, or Street Life in New York (

A snippet from Ragged Dick: the snob says to the hero "I think I've seen you before." "Oh have you?" says Dick, "Then p'r'haps you'd like to see me behind"...

....today in 1877 the Times critic finds Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to be "unnecessarily sinister" and not fit reading for children.

....Enrico Caruso gets top billing tonight in 1910 in the first public radio broadcast in New York City history, starring singers from the Metropolitan Opera....

January 14

....In 1747, the city's first commendations for bravery to firemen are awarded this day to Duncan Brown and James Evetts "for their activity and exertions" in extinguishing a fire that erupts at City Hall. The duo also receive an extra £4 a piece for their efforts.

....in 1871, Thomas Nast begins lampooning a very corrupt Tammany Hall when his "nasty" cartoons first appearing in Harper's Weekly exposing the infamous Tweed Ring

....also uncovered this day in 1940 is an incredible plot that calls for the seizing of all of New York's federal gold deposits, the overthrow of the New York City police department, and a massacre of the city's entire Jewish population. The FBI breaks up the New York based pro-facist "Christian Front" and arrests 18 Nazi sympathizers...

January 15

....A certain Samuel Francis acquires the property bordering Broad and Pearl Streets today in 1762, later known as Fraunces Tavern....The Minute Book of Eagle Engine Company No. 13 at Maiden Lane is updated this day in 1807: Harris Sage's excuse is received. He says at time of the fire he was locked in someone's arms and could not hear the alarm....

January 16

....1938. Jazz band leader Benny Goodman plays Carnegie Hall and finally gives Swing music respectability. When asked how long an intermission he wants, Goodman replies, I don't know...how much does Toscanini get?....Hello Dolly, starring Carol Channing, opens tonight in 1965 with one critic hailing it "a possible hit." The musical goes on to play for 2,844 performances ...

January 17

....Miss Ettie Morgan, of the Berger Family's Ladies Orchestra, introduces at the Olympic Theatre in 1876 the musical strains of the saxophone....

....Born today in 1899, Al "Scarface" Capone grows up to become one of Brooklyn's most infamous sons - who later claims that the scars on his face are the result of his heroic service with the "Lost Battalion" in France. Actually, they are the result of fight with a knife-wielding Frank Gallucio who slashes Capone for talking dirty to his sister....

January 18

1896. The first x-ray machine in the U.S. is exhibited in New York City. Admission: 25 cents....plans are announced for building the World Trade Center in New York this day in 1964....

January 19

....The Boston Massacre notwithstanding, the very first bloodshed of the Revolutionary War occurs this day in 1770 near the fish market at Golden Hill, so named for it's carpet of yellow wildflowers (now downtown Gold Street). Local citizenry converge on the spot after a Liberty Pole is blown up by British Redcoats, driven back to their barracks by an enraged mob. After the dust settles, several New Yorkers are injured and one dies from a bayonet wound in one of the first struggles for American liberty.

The Battle of Golden Hill happens weeks before the Boston Massacre and several months prior to the Battle of Bunker Hill....

January 20

....On this day in 1884 the first American roller coaster is patented by LaMarcus Thompson and built (where else?) in Coney Island, Brooklyn. It's 5 cents a ride, and by June the inventor is grossing $600 a week from his Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway....

January 21

....This day in 1908 woman are banned from smoking in public by city ordinance. (The measure is quickly vetoed by the mayor)....The New York Daily News commences a war time campaign to save paper this day in 1943 and reduces its 1,850,000 daily and 3,900,000 Sunday circulation by urging readers "Don't Buy A News, Borrow One"....Alger Hiss is convicted for perjury by a New York federal jury, 1950....in 1971, the first U.S Representative of Puerto Rican descent is Herman Badillo of New York....

January 22

....suspected "Mad Bomber" George P. Metesky, accused of planting more than 30 explosive devices in the New York City area, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut this day in 1957. Says Mr. Metesky, One thing I can't understand is why the newspapers labeled me the Mad Bomber. That was unkind. He's declared a homicidal maniac and committed to Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane....

January 23

....An all-time record low temperature of -16° is recorded this day in 1780. The harbor freezes solid for five weeks. Later, the East River freezes over during the harsh winter of 1867 - allowing some 5,000 New Yorkers to travel between Manhattan and Brooklyn on foot. The ease with which New Yorkers and Brooklynites travel back and forth leads to demands for a bridge spanning the river, later known as the Brooklyn Bridge.

...New Yorker Humphrey Bogart ("The trouble with the world is that everybody's a few drinks behind") is born today in 1899....also on this day, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley are honored as the first inductees at the first Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony held in New York this day in 1986....

January 24

....On this day in 1794 the minute keeper of the Common Council writes that Great
George Street was ordered to take the name Broadway in its whole extent, and the continuous streets called Little Dock Street, Pearl Street, Hanover Square and Queen Street were ordered to be called Pearl Street.... And days later....King Street was named Pine, Little Queen Street called Cedar, Crown Street called Liberty...Prince Street called Rose, and Beaver and Princess Street called Beaver. The main objective: to rid the new nation of any reference to former British royalty, while driving New Yorkers up blind alleys and slowly out of their minds....

January 25

....1821. The Hudson River is frozen solid during the coldest winter in 41 years. Thousands of people crossed the ice from New York City to New Jersey, and refreshment taverns are set up in the middle of the river to warm pedestrians.

....in 1890, reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) of the New York World receives a tumultuous welcome home after she completes a round-the-world journey in 72 days, six hours and 11 minutes.

....In his journal this day in 1939, Columbia University physicist John R. Dunning writes, Believed we have observed a new phenomenon of far reaching consequences. Dunning and his assistants have managed to split the atom in their laboratory on West 120th Street....

January 26

....It's show time at the Apollo this night in 1930 as the famous venue for great black entertainers opens as a 'Negro vaudeville theatre'....

January 27

....Leontyne Price makes her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House tonight in 1961. She sings the role of Leonora in "Il Trovatore". Price is only the seventh black singer to make a debut at the Met. Marian Anderson is the first in 1955....

January 28

....For the first time on any New York stage: Romeo and Juliet opens this night in 1754 at the New Theatre on Nassau Street, ditto The Merchant of Venice which makes its New York debut at the John Street Theatre, 1768....

January 29

...Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before -
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven appears in the New York Evening Mirror, 1845.

January 30

The 1,200 ton iron-clad ship Monitor is launched from Greenpoint, Brooklyn this day in 1862. The hope of the Union Navy later founders in a storm and sinks off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

...this afternoon in 1979 an earthquake measuring 3 on the Richter scale rocks parts of Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan.

...more than a million New Yorkers line the parade route for 22 returned American hostages from Iran who are showered with ticker tape on lower Broadway today in 1991

...today in in 1995, the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rachman and eleven of his followers gets under way in New York City's Federal Court. The group of Muslim extremists stands accused of plotting a reign of terror around New York City along with the successful bombing of the World Trade Center garage in lower Manhattan....

January 30 The crew aboard the ironclad USS Monitor, the summer after it was launched in the East River at Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

January 31

....New Yorkers are lapping up the gory details of a particularly brutal murder this day in 1857 after a prominent dentist, Dr. Harvey Burdell, is found strangled and repeatedly stabbed in a boarding house on Bond Street. No suspects.

... also on this day in 1894, the Lexow Committee begins uncovering evidence that the police are on every payroll in town. Evidence uncovers shake downs of everyone from green grocers to house madams, netting the department $7,000,000 annually. Wholesale convictions follow ....

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