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Today Would Have Been Stephen Baltz’s 60th Birthday

That is, had Baltz lived on beyond a miraculous 26 hours after initially surviving the 1960 United Airlines-TWA plane crash over Staten Island and Brooklyn:

On Dec. 16, 1960, 11-year-old Stephen Lambert Baltz became the sole survivor of the horrific midair crash of a United Airlines jet and a TWA plane over Staten Island near Miller Army Field.

Millions of today’s baby boomers and their parents prayed and hoped against hope that the boy from Wilmette, Ill., would survive.

But despite the best efforts of 10 doctors, he succumbed to his injuries after 26 hours.

Had he lived, Stephen Baltz would be celebrating his 60th birthday today, Jan. 9, 2009.

. . .

Surviving the crash was Stephen’s 65 cents found in his clothing or wallet; his father put the coins in a charity box at the hospital. The fire-tinged collection of four dimes and five nickels remains in a memorial plaque displayed to this day at Methodist Hospital.

A $1,000 anonymous donation from an elderly lady and $38 from a chaplain on duty at the hospital on Dec. 17 were combined with other donations to begin funding a pediatrics section at Methodist to honor Stephen’s memory.

The article catches up with some of the remaining family — his sister and brother — as well as one of the nurses on duty. (Advance, use permalinks! This is an interesting story!)

Posted: January 9th, 2009 | Filed under: Brooklyn, Historical, Staten Island

Two-Thousand Zero-Zero Party, Uh . . .

I don’t know that they’ll be missed actually and, to tell the truth, I hadn’t really considered the consequences:

The men who invented the goofy looking, double-zero glasses that have commemorated every New Year’s Eve over the past decade are retiring the specs with the 2009 version.

“It doesn’t look very good for 2010. You wind up with a ‘1’ in front of one of your eyes,” said maker Richard Sclafani.

The Brooklyn native, who lives in Seattle, said his company could create a new mold to craft glasses for next year, but it would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

“There are lots of knockoffs on the market. Business isn’t what it used to be,” Sclafani said.

Sclafani and a pal, Peter Cicero, came up with the New Year’s specs idea over beers in 1990.

“We knew it was a good one. I could picture the people in Times Square wearing them,” he said.

Business boomed, and doubled every year, said Sclafani. The peak year was 2000, when they sold more than half a million pairs of millennium glasses.

Posted: January 5th, 2009 | Filed under: Followed By A Perplexed Stroke Of The Chin, Historical

In A, Uh, Stroke, 18 Years Of New York Magazine References To Yobbery Rendered Unintelligible To Future Generations

Scores is set to shut down:

Once the highest-grossing strip club chain in the world and a hangout for Madonna, Howard Stern, Russell Crowe, Jason Giambi and countless others, Scores will shut down before the new year, company officials said.

“It’s over; it is what it is,” said Scores lawyer George Weinbaum. Co-owner Elliot Osher confirmed the closing.

A weak economy, the loss of the W. 27th St. Scores’ liquor license and the possibility the E. 60th St. joint would lose its booze ticket all helped do in the flesh factory.

. . .

Founded in 1990 with one club at 333 E. 60th St., Scores grew into a national chain of seven clubs, including Scores West on 27th St., which took in as much as $400,000 a night, according to sources.

In its heyday, the East Side club was a mecca for sports stars like Giambi and Mark Messier, actors like Crowe and of course Stern, who talked up the club on his radio show. The Knicks held parties there, and eventually Scores became a publicly traded company.

The clubs were honey traps for out-of-town businessmen, who blew expense accounts on lap dances and champagne magnums, only to have their hangovers worsened by mind-boggling tabs.

. . .

On Wednesday night, at the E. 60th St. location, a lone customer downed a half-price beer as club employees kept promising dancers would take the stage “any minute.”

Posted: December 12th, 2008 | Filed under: Follow The Money, Historical

The Thug

Interesting:

Newsday recently reported that the New York Police Department is phasing out “The Thug” and replacing it with a target that looks more like Mr. Clean, a visage apparently inspired by no one. Not so with “The Thug,” which, depending on who’s doing the talking, is any number of people, from actor Ernest Borgnine to boxing great Rocky Graziano to Fred Worell, a deceased sergeant who worked as an instructor at the range.

At least, that has been the prevailing wisdom since the scowling face made its debut. But after Newsday’s report, retired Det. Harold Schiffer stepped forward with a proclamation likely only to deepen the mystery.

“I know who that guy is,” Schiffer, 65, said. “It’s a guy named Jesse Oldshein. He’s 90 years old and living in Florida.”

When contacted, Oldshein, a retired lieutenant, didn’t make much of the mystery, probably because to him, there’s no mystery about it. “That’s me,” he said from his home in Boynton Beach. “I was up at the range one day. They asked to take my picture. They said, ‘Pose in a boxing stance.’ Next thing I know, my face is on the target.”

. . .

Officially, “The Thug” is known as Silhouette SP-83A. It portrays a bad guy — snarl on face, snub-nosed revolver in hand — out of a Cagney movie. But the NYPD says the shaded area covering the head and much of the torso makes it difficult for instructors to see from a distance the shot patterns left behind by an officer.

Mr. Clean is shaded differently, as is a second new target, a faceless silhouette that looks like a Martian. The new targets were designed by the Firearms and Tactics Section and have been in place as part of a pilot program since July.

Oldshein says he never gave much thought to the issue, but his wife, Francine, remembers other police officers for years teasing him about it.

“It was a big deal back then,” she said. “So many people came over to us: ‘Hey, Jesse, you should get residuals,’ or ‘Hey, Jesse, I shot at you today.'”

Earlier: “Cops’ Favorite Target Thug, but Just Who Was the Guy?” New York Times, February 17, 2005.

Posted: November 26th, 2008 | Filed under: Historical, Need To Know

You Mean There’s A City Seal?

Who knew? I still don’t understand why it’s not in the zoo:

For decades, the proud seal of New York City, with its depiction of a sailor and a Manhattan Indian, of beavers and flour barrels and the sails of a windmill, has celebrated 1625 as the year the city was founded.

There’s just one problem: Most historians say the year has hardly any historical significance.

The first settlers arrived in what would become part of New York City on a Dutch ship as early as 1623; some say 1624. The Dutch “purchased” Manhattan in 1626. The first charter was granted in 1653.

And the most notable event of 1625? Dutch settlers moved their cattle to Lower Manhattan from Governors Island.

“It is simply wrong,” Michael Miscione, the Manhattan borough historian, said of 1625 as the city’s birth date. “The first founding settlers of New York City landed here in 1624.”

. . .

The story of how the city arrived at 1625 as its founding year, however, seems a uniquely New York narrative. It entails machinations to glorify the Dutch, humiliate the British and, some believe, outdo Boston, thereby underscoring how in New York even something as seemingly inviolable as the city’s birthday is subject to political manipulation.

Posted: July 14th, 2008 | Filed under: Historical
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