November 13th in New York City History
Posted: Nov 14, 2012 | 2:00 AM
"On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right, but he also knew that someday, he would return to her.
With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend, Oscar Madison.
Sometime earlier, Madison's wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return.
Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?"
No.
But today in 1934 is the Odd Couple TV show's producer and writer's birthday for Garry Marshall, who was born in the Bronx and went to DeWitt Clinton High School.
1677: Stephen Van Cortland is the first native-born Mayor of New York City.
1789: For four weeks, Washington traveled by stagecoach through New England, visiting all the northern states that had ratified the U.S. Constitution. Washington, the great Revolutionary War hero and first leader of the new republic, was greeted by enthusiastic
crowds wherever he went. Major William Jackson, who was Washington's aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War, accompanied the president, along with a private secretary and nine servants, including several slaves. The group traveled as far north as Kittery, Maine,
1833: Perhaps America's greatest actor was born. Edwin Booth 11/13/1833 - 6/7/1893
1865: P.T. Barnum's new American Museum opens to the public on Broadway in New York City, four months after the original building was destroyed by fire.
1927The Holland Tunnel linking New York City and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River opened to the public.
The Holland Tunnel, connecting lower Manhattan with Jersey City under
the Hudson River, opens to vehicular traffic with an initial toll of
$.50.
At the stroke of midnight, President Calvin Coolidge opens the Holland Tunnel by turning a golden key on his yacht connected to an electric current, which connects New York and New Jersey via the Hudson River. It now carries ten million rides yearly.
It is named for Clifford Holland the marvelous engineer who died during construction, not for the Netherlands.
1938: St. Frances Xavier "Mother" Cabrini (1850-1917) is beatified by Pope Pius XI. She is the first American citizen to become a Catholic saint.
St Francesa Xavier Cabrin was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. As a girl, she was taken by the idea of becoming a missionary. She took her vows at the age of 27. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in 1880, and in 1889 Leo XIII sent her to the U.S. to work among Italian immigrants. She traveled extensively to found 67 houses of her order, including hospitals, schools, and orphanages.
I'd be proud to open up a bookstore.
1940: Walt Disney's feature Fantasia, starring Mickey Mouse as a sorcerer and featuring classical music interpreted to animation, premieres in New York.
1954: Happy Birthday Chris Noth, Actor ("Law and Order," "Sex and the City"). I've seen him around Broadway grabbing a cab. He's a good guy. I hear.
1955: Actress-talk show host Whoopi Goldberg ("The View") born. She was brought up in the Chelsea Projects. She was not named Whoopi or Goldberg. I'll tell you about it later.
On this day in 1955, the actress, comedian and talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg is born in New York City. Goldberg earned an Oscar nomination for her Hollywood feature debut in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985) and went on become the first-ever solo female host of the Academy Awards. Born
Caryn Johnson, Goldberg dropped out of high school, battled drug
addiction, married at the age of 18, and had a daughter. In the mid-1970s, she moved to California and became involved in theater and stand-up comedy. She eventually developed a one-woman show of character monologues called The Spook Show and began touring the country. Renamed Whoopi Goldberg
and directed by Mike Nichols, the show played to sold-out audiences on
Broadway from 1984 to 1985. The director Steven Spielberg then cast
Goldberg as Celie in The Color Purple, his big-screen adaptation
of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel about an
African-American woman growing up in the South during the early- to
mid-1900s. The film received 11 Oscar nominations, including Best
Picture and a Best Actress nod for Goldberg. She went on to star in
films such as Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) and Clara’s Heart (1988). She also continued to perform stand-up comedy, including a series of Comic Relief
television benefits with her friends and fellow comics Billy Crystal
and Robin Williams to raise money for organizations that help the
homeless. Goldberg won her first Oscar, in the Best Supporting
Actress category, for her role as psychic Oda Mae Brown in the 1990
blockbuster Ghost, co-starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore.
(Goldberg was just the second African-American to collect the Best
Supporting Actress award. The first, Hattie McDaniel, won for her
performance in 1939’s Gone With the Wind.) In 1992, Goldberg scored another box-office hit with Sister Act,
in which she played a nightclub singer hiding out in a convent from the
mob. During the 1990s, Goldberg also appeared in such films as Robert
Altman’s movie-business parody The Player (1992); Made in America (1993), with her one-time paramour Ted Danson; Corrina, Corrina (1994), with Ray Liotta; Boys on the Side (1995), with Drew Barrymore and Mary-Louise Parker; and Ghosts of Mississippi
(1996), about the trial of the assassinated civil-rights leader Medgar
Evers. The dreadlocked entertainment dynamo had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1988 to 1993 and hosted her own talk show from 1992 to 1993. In
1994, Goldberg became the first-ever solo female host of the Academy
Awards, a job she repeated to largely positive reviews in 1996, 1999 and
2002. In September 2007, she signed on as a moderator of the daytime
chatfest The View, taking over for the frequently controversial
Rosie O’Donnell, who left the show. In addition to her TV and film work,
Goldberg has continued to act and produce on Broadway.
1963: Vinny Testaverde born in Brooklyn. He returned to New York Quaterbacking well for the New York Jets in the late 1990s to the early 'Naughties.
1967: Jimmy Kimmel, Comedian, talk show host ("Jimmy Kimmel Live") born in Brooklyn.
1992: Riddick Bowe of Brooklyn becomes the Heavyweight world champion of boxing, by beating Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas.
1997The Disney musical "The Lion King" opened on Broadway.
2009Attorney General Eric Holder announced plans to try professed 9/11 mastermind
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in civilian court in New York
City. (The Obama administration later backed off the plan.)