Jan 14
The first Alan Freed's Rock and Roll Party is broadcast,
in New York City.
Jan 27
Millionaire playboy Serge Rubinstein is found strangled to death
in his New York City mansion. The crime is never solved.
Feb 3
Temperatures in New York City fall to 0 degrees F, lowest here
for this date.
Feb 18
Murder suspect August Robles shoots it out with New York City
police and escapes.
Feb 20
Robles is tracked down by police to his 112th Street apartment
and besieged. After a shootout lasting several hours police break
into the apartment and find him dead with five bullets in him.
Mar 30
The Order of Barnabite Fathers purchase land on Swann Road in
Lewiston for the burial of priests, at Our Lady of Fatima Shrine.
Apr 11
Temperatures in New York City climb to 84 degrees F, highest here
for this date.
May 12
Demolition begins on New York City's Third Avenue El.
May 16
Author-scriptwriter-critic James Agee dies in New York City.
Jun 7
Dwight Eisenhower becomes the first U. S. President to appear
on color television, giving an address at West Point.
Jul 18
Atom-powered electricity debuts in Schenectady.
Sep 26
The stock market suffers its worst one-day loss ever, showing
a $14,000,000,000 loss, as a result from the news of the President's
heart attack.
Oct 4
The Brooklyn Dodgers, aided by outfielder Sandy Amoros' double
play, wins the World Series (for the first time) against the New
York Yankees during the seventh game.
Nov 1
Author Dale Carnegie dies in Forest Hills, Queens.
Dec 15
The Tappan Zee Bridge, over the Hudson River, opens.
City
The city begins using water piped in from the Delaware River.
** The Hicksite and the Orthodox factions of the Quakers
reunite to increase their influence. ** Brooklyn 's Rabbinical
Seminary of America moves to larger quarters, in Forest Hills.
** Dan Wolf, Edwin Fancher and novelist Norman Mailer found
The Village Voice as an alternative newspaper. Jules Feiffer
is hired as editorial cartoonist. The paper sells for 5 cents
a copy. ** Poet James Merrill's play The Immortal Husband
is done off Broadway. ** George Abbott's production of Damn
Yankees opens. ** New York's Group for Film Study publishes
the "Monograph on The Birth of a Nation" ** New
York Herald Tribune reporter Homer Bigart goes to work
for the New York Times. ** Mount Sinai Hospital develops
and installs an automatic device for use in brain angiography.
** Contralto Marian Anderson appears at the Metropolitan
Opera, singing Ulrica in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera.
** Edwin Steichen mounts the Family of Man exhibit for the
Museum of Modern Art. He chooses Life magazine photographer
W. Eugene Smith's "The Walk to Paradise Garden" as the
theme photograph. ** The Port Authority takes over the waterfront
property of Brooklyn's New York Dock Company. ** Metropolitan
Opera chairman Charles M. Spofford informs John D. Rockefeller
III that builder Robert Moses has offered to site a new home for
the institution at Broadway and Columbus Circle in a slum clearance
area. He tells the industrialist that the Philharmonic is also
looking for a new home. In November Rockefeller is named head
of an exploratory committee, for a new center at Lincoln Square.
** A city law prohibits the construction of new flophouses
(cheap lodging houses for men). ** The office building at
1025 Fifth Avenue is completed. ** Herman Badillo is admitted
to the New York State Bar and begins practicing. ** The
Broadway musical The Pajama Game wins first-time Tonys
for producer Hal Prince and choreographer Bob Fosse. Dancer Carol
Haney tears a ligament during the show's run, is replaced by understudy
Shirley MacLaine.
State
Batavia's Wiard Plow Company closes. ** The Cave of the
Winds tourist attraction at Niagara Falls becomes hazardous and
has to be dynamited. ** The Polish Collection archive is
founded at Buffalo's Lockwood Library at the University of Buffalo's
northern campus.
Rochester
Lawyer Frank Horton is elected to fill an unexpired term on the
City Council. ** Yale University's Dr. Ira Hiscock completes
his report for the Council of Social Agencies, "A Study of
Public Health in Rochester and Monroe County, New York",
recommending a single centralized community rehabilitation center.
It will be realized as the Al Sigl Center. ** The Monroe
County Savings Bank building at Franklin and East Main opens.
Feb 16
The film version of the musical Carousel opens in New York.
Feb 21
Goldman Band founder Edwin Franko Goldman dies.
Mar 6
New York councilwoman Genvieve Beavers Earle dies in Bellport,
Long Island, in her early seventies.
Mar 17
Radio comedian John Florence Sullivan (Fred Allen) dies in New
York City.
May 3
Frank Loesser's musical Most Happy Fella opens at New York's
Imperial Theater.
June
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, having received $50,000
from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is incorporated.
Jun 7
Rock slides at Niagara Mohawk's Schoelkopf Power station destroy
stations 3, 3-B, and 3-C. 3-A is badly damaged. Three separate
slides bring down 120,000 tons of rock in fifteen minutes. Workmen
at the site narrowly escape death.
Jun 30
The last trains are run on the Rochester subway system. The end
of the system results in bus rerouting.
Aug 11
Painter Jackson Pollock is killed in an automobile accident in
East Hampton, Long Island.
October
Batavia's Charter Revision Committee begins meeting.
City
The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey begins construction
of new piers at the former New York Dock Company property in Brooklyn.
** Bedloes Island, site of the Statue of Liberty, is renamed
Liberty Island. ** The Whitehall Street ferry terminal building
is renovated. ** Baltimore-based poet Ogden Nash takes up
residence at 333 East 57th Street. ** London's Hambro Trading
Corporation closes the failing Hambro House of Design on 54th
Street. ** New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams divorces
Barbara Addams. ** Lawyer Howard Cossell gives up his practice
to become a sportscaster. ** The Coliseum opens. **
The Village Voice alternative newspaper presents its
first annual Obie (Off-Broadway) theatrical awards. ** The
name of Tony nominees is made public for the first time. The ceremonies
are televised, in the New York area only. ** Herman Badillo
becomes a certified public accountant (CPA). ** My
Fair Lady sweeps most of the Tony awards. Julie Andrews loses
to Judy Holliday in Bells Are Ringing.
State
Mario M. Cuomo graduates from St. John's Law School. **
Baseball authority Harold Seymour receives his doctorate from
Cornell University, writing a dissertation that later is reworked
as Baseball: The Early Years. ** Walt Benham is elected
mayor of Canandaigua.
Batavia
Howard Eaton buys Don's Dinette from owner Donald Naegely.
** The Genesee Trust Company merges with Buffalo's Manufacturers
and Traders Trust Company, becoming a branch of the M&T.
Rochester
The Health Department closes a downtown tenement when the owner
refuses to bring the building up to code, evicting thirty black
migrants. 246 vagrants are rounded up later in the year. **
High winds loosen a 500-pound panel on the "wings of progress"
structure atop the Times Square Building. ** Actress Louise
Brooks moves here at the invitation of the curator of the Eastman
Museum of Photography.
January
New York City's Mad Bomber is identified as George Metesky and
arrested.
Jan 15
Temperatures in New York City drop to 0 degrees F, setting a record
here for the date.
Jan 16
Italian-born U. S. symphony conductor Arturo Toscanini, 89, dies
in Riverdale.
Feb 4
The first electric portable typewriter is sold in Syracuse.
April
Batavia's Charter Revision Committee files the final draft of
a new charter with the city clerk.
Apr 8
Batavia's new railroad station opens. The Empire State Express
is the first official eastbound train to use the new tracks.
Apr 11
Westbound rail traffic begins on the new track outside Batavia.
May 3
Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten opens in New
York City.
May 9
Italian-born operatic and Broadway bass Ezio Pinza dies at the
age of 64.
May 15
Evangelist Billy Graham begins a crusade at Madison Square Garden.
May 25
The Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, opens for traffic.
May 28
Two New York City baseball teams receive permission to move to
California, the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles and the New York
Giants to San Francisco.
Jul 6
New York City's Althea Gibson defeats Arlene Hard, becomes the
first black to win the Wimbledon womens' singles tennis crown.
Lew Hoad defeats Ashley Cooper.
Jul 7
A U. S. Army Redstone missile goes on display in Grand Central
Terminal.
Jul 11
Althea Gibson is given a New York City ticker tape parade.
Jul 20
100,000 people see Billy Graham at Yankee Stadium - the arena's
largest attendance.
Aug 7
Rudolph Abel is indicted as a Soviet spy, in New York City.
Aug 16
The first black family moves into the all-white suburb of Levittown,
under a police guard.
Aug 21
President Eisenhower signs a bill authorizing the Niagara Power
Authority.
Aug 31
The last freight is carried over Rochester's defunct subway system.
Sep 1
100,000 people gather on Broadway for Billy Graham's farewell
rally.
Sep 9
George Metesky's last, unexploded bomb is found inside a Manhattan
theater.
Sep 23
Canadian prime minister John George Diefenbaker addresses the
United Nations General Assembly.
Sep 29
Former New Giants fans chase the team back to their clubhouse
after the last New York game, steal souvenirs.
Oct 10
The Milwaukee Braves defeat the Yankees in the World Series.
Oct 25
Gambino godfather Albert Anastasia is gunned down in a New York
City barber shop by Gambino family members.
Oct 26
Rudolph Abel is found guilty of espionage.
November
Police raid a Mafia convention in Apalachin. The mobsters will
be convicted, but the ruling will later be overturned.
Nov 19
Leonard Bernstein is named musical director of the New York Philharmonic.
December
C. Richard Foote is appointed city manager of Batavia.
Dec 3
Newspaper publisher Frank E. Gannett dies.
Dec 5
Officials of New York State's Westchester County warn that swimming
in the Croton and Hudson Rivers may have to be banned for two
years because of pollution.
Dec 9
New York City subway motormen go on strike.
Dec 16
The subway motormen end their strike. ** Macy's department
store does a record $2,000,000 business in one day.
City
Mayor Robert F. Wagner, running on the Democrat-Liberal-Fusion
ticket, defeats Republican Robert K. Christenberry to win re-election,
serving through 1965. ** Hulan E Jack is re-elected borough
president of Manhattan. ** The Queensboro Bridge railway
system, the last trolley line in the state, discontinues service.
** Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York opens. **
Meredith Willson's The Music Man and Leonard Bernstein,
Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins' West Side Story open.
** 51 buildings at Brooklyn's New York Dock Company have
been demolished by the Port Authority. ** Pope Pius XII
decrees a new Nassau and Suffolk counties diocese, to be created
out of the Brooklyn diocese. Rockville Center's St. Agnes Church
becomes a cathedral.
State
The Louis Comfort Tiffany estate on Long Island's Oyster Bay is
destroyed by fire. ** Utica's Munson-Williams Memorial is
demolished for a gas station. ** The Adirondack Museum,
in Blue Mountain Lake, is established. ** Additions are
made to the East Penfield Baptist Church. A baptismal pool is
added. ** Excavations made in the Irondequoit Valley near
Penfield Road over the next two years will reveal deposits of
sand, formed by retreating glaciers, at the core of some hills.
** While digging a pond with a backhoe Byron landowner Charles
Hiscock uncovers a mastodon tusk.
Batavia
A group of businessmen open the bargain store Mill Outlet on Russell
Place.
Rochester
Lawyer Frank Horton is re-elected to a full term on the City Council.
** The Landmark Society purchases the Jonathan Child house
to save it from the wrecking ball, leases it to the Bureau of
Municipal Research.] ** The city begins its Sister Cities
program.] ** Democrat Frank T. Lamb is elected to the Republican-dominated
City Council.
© 2002 David Minor / Eagles Byte