Postcard Thursday: Apollo XI

On July 20, 1969, the Apollo XI capsule landed on the moon and humans walked on a celestial body for the first time.

A few days later, the Apollo astronauts--back on terra firma--were feted in New York with a major ticker tape parade.  At the time, many claimed it was the largest ticker tape parade New York had ever seen, but as we were researching Inside the Apple, we found that same claim was made for many parades and it’s almost impossible to verify. (Four million people were said to have attended the Apollo parade—an impressive number, even if it’s not the largest.)

Certainly, it was the longest parade. The city’s traditional parade route runs from Bowling Green Park at the foot of Broadway to City Hall. The Apollo astronauts, however, after receiving the key to the city, continued up Broadway to Herald Square and then on to Times Square. As the New York Times noted, the confetti in Midtown was “made up more of paper towels and pages from telephone directories than tickertape” and that it grew “so dense that the astronauts could hardly see.”

As we write in Inside the Apple:

It was also one of the fastest ticker tape parades. The astronauts started at Bowling Green at 10:17 a.m. (about half an hour ahead of schedule) and arrived on the steps of City Hall just fourteen minutes later! Many people who showed up for the parade were disappointed to discover that the astronauts had already passed them by…. By 1:15 p.m. the astronauts were back at Kennedy airport to go to Chicago. They ended the day with festivities in Los Angeles. Having just been to the moon and back, a quick one-day jaunt across North America must not have seemed like such a big deal.

 

The astronauts had to go through customs upon their return--follow this link to see the astronauts declaration form ("Departure from: MOON. Arrival at: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA").

Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Apollo 11

Today marks the 46th anniversary of the massive ticker tape parade held for the Apollo 11 astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins. At the time, many claimed it was the largest ticker tape parade New York had ever seen, but as we were researching Inside the Apple, we found that same claim was made for many parades and it’s almost impossible to verify. (Four million people were said to have attended the Apollo parade—an impressive number, even if it’s not the largest.)

Certainly, it was the longest parade. The city’s traditional parade route runs from Bowling Green Park at the foot of Broadway to City Hall. The Apollo astronauts, however, after receiving the key to the city, continued up Broadway to Herald Square and then on to Times Square. As the New York Times noted, the confetti in Midtown was “made up more of paper towels and pages from telephone directories than tickertape” and that it grew “so dense that the astronauts could hardly see.”

As we write in Inside the Apple:

It was also one of the fastest ticker tape parades. The astronauts started at Bowling Green at 10:17 a.m. (about half an hour ahead of schedule) and arrived on the steps of City Hall just fourteen minutes later! Many people who showed up for the parade were disappointed to discover that the astronauts had already passed them by…. By 1:15 p.m. the astronauts were back at Kennedy airport to go to Chicago. They ended the day with festivities in Los Angeles. Having just been to the moon and back, a quick one-day jaunt across North America must not have seemed like such a big deal.

 

As Buzz Aldrin has been tweeting recently, the astronauts had to go through customs upon their return--follow this link to see the astronauts declaration form ("Departure from: MOON. Arrival at: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA").

* * * *

Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,

you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

Postcard Thursday: The Beginning of the Canyon of Heroes

Since tomorrow the U.S. women's soccer team is being feted with a ticker tape parade, we searched our archives high and low for a postcard of a parade up Broadway, but came up short. (An internet search revealed that few, if any, commemorative postcards of parades have been issued.)

Here, instead, is the image of the building that marks the beginning of the so-called "Canyon of Heroes": the Alexander Hamilton United States Custom House on Bowling Green, which sits at the foot of Broadway in the Financial District. Designed by Cass Gilbert and built between 1899 and 1907, the building is a remarkable expression of Beaux-Arts design, and we'll write more about it in a future blog post.

For now, here's our previous write-up of the history of the ticker tape parade:

[In 1886], the official grand opening [of the Statue of Liberty] in the harbor was followed by a parade up Broadway from Battery Park. It was during that parade that some enterprising office worker in one of the brokerage houses on Broadway decided to turn his company’s used ticker tape into confetti. Thus was born the ticker tape parade, an enduring New York tradition.

The parades took a while to catch on. The next one was for Admiral Dewey, hero of the Spanish-American War, following his return from Manila. Then ten years went by before the next parade, for Jack Binns, the radio operator of the RMS Republic. (The Republic had struck the SS Florida in January; because the ship was equipped with wireless radio, Binns was able to send a Mayday signal and the passengers and crew were rescued.) 

In the 1920s ticker tape parades really started to take off. The parades, under the purview of the mayor’s office, were mostly given to arriving dignitaries, sports heroes, or pioneers in flight. The two busiest years were 1951 and 1962, which each had 9 parades. In 1962, honorees were as diverse as John Glenn, the New York Yankees, and Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus.
The Yankees hold the record for most parades at eight. While a handful of individuals have been feted twice (including Glenn), only one person has been honored three times—Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the polar aviator and explorer. 

If you find yourself in Lower Manhattan, take a stroll up Broadway from Battery Park. All the recipients of ticker tape parades are commemorated in plaques in the sidewalk.

* * * *

Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,

you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.

Charles Lindbergh's Ticker Tape Parade

On June 13, 1927, New York honored aviator Charles Lindbergh with a tremendous ticker tape parade on Lower Broadway.

As we've written in an earlier post, the Orteig Prize was sponsored by hotelier Raymond Orteig who owned the Lafayette and Brevoort Hotels in Manhattan. Orteig, hoping to boost Franco-American relations, first offered the prize to complete a transatlantic flight in 1919. When no one had made an attempt in five years, Orteig extended the competition and by 1926 it had begun drawing serious competitors. However, the hazards of aviation meant that by the time Lindbergh began his historic flight, six of his fellow competitors had died.

Lindbergh's flight in the Spirit of St. Louis began on May 20 at 7:52 a.m. with his ground crew pushing the heavy plane down the muddy runway. The plane carried 450 gallons of fuel but Lindbergh had removed as much as possible from the plane, including his sextant--meaning that Lindbergh would have to fly by the stars (if they were visible) or dead reckoning. Lindbergh dodged bad weather across the Atlantic (sometimes flying as low as twelve feet above the waves) and reached Le Bourget at 10:22 p.m. on May 21st where he was mobbed by a crowd of eager well-wishers.

On June 11, Lindbergh was presented with the Distinguished Flying Cross (the first ever); on June 13, New York honored him with the parade and a key to the city; on June 16, Orville Wright presented the aviator with the Orteig Prize at the Brevoort Hotel.

Above, the newsreel cameras captured Lindbergh's flight and the hero's welcome upon his return. The ticker tape parade starts at about the three-minute mark.

(And speaking of ticker tape -- if you're in the financial services industry and want to impress your colleagues, you can connect your computer into a perfect replica of a universal stock ticker. And it will only set you back $29,995. Then you'll have ticker tape for the next parade!)

* * * *

Read more about ticker tape parades in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Is it too early to talk about a ticker tape parade?

Now that the Giants have edged the Patriots in the Super Bowl 21-17, it's time to start planning the ticker tape parade on lower Broadway (no matter what Chris Christie says).

Some of our previous thoughts about ticker tape parades:

• A history of the ticker tape parade:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2008/10/ticker-tape-parade.html
• For the Yankees:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/11/history-of-yankee-ticker-tape-parades.html
• For the Apollo 11 astronauts:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/08/apollo-11-ticker-tape-parade.html

More information to follow -- and, you can read about the history of the ticker tape in depth in Inside the Apple.

UPDATE: It's not too early. The parade will be on Tuesday, February 7, at 11:00 a.m. Read the city's official press release at http://on.nyc.gov/w5s6mv.

The History of Yankee Ticker Tape Parades

photo of the 1996 ticker tape parade for the Yankees by Ruby Washington / New York Times

Anyone who’s read our book or this blog knows we have a thing for ticker tape parades. So, of course we are excited for tomorrow’s parade honoring the New York Yankees 27th world championship. It will be a record-setting ninth parade for the Bronx Bombers. However, while many people associate ticker tape parades with winning sports franchises, honoring the local teams is a relatively modern development; the Yankees didn’t get their first parade until 1961.

The first ticker tape parade was held in 1886 in honor of the opening of the Statue of Liberty, but the parades did not become a regular occurrence until the beginning of the 20th century. The first sports-related parade was August 6, 1924, honoring the U.S. Olympic team (featuring three-time gold medal winner Johnny Weismuller) returning from the Paris games. Two years later, golfer Bobby Jones got a parade (the first of two) as did the first woman (Gertrude Ederle) and the first mother (Amelia Gade Corson) to swim the English Channel.

Baseball did not get its first parade until Connie Mack was honored in 1949 for his remarkable 50-year career as the manager of the Philadelphia A’s.* When the Giants won the National League Pennant in 1954, they were the first local team to be given a parade; but why the Dodgers or Yankees did not get one the next year (or the year after that) when they faced off in the World Series remains a mystery. Indeed, the Yankees were in the World Series every year from 1955 to 1958 with no recognition. In 1960, the Yankees won the pennant -- but lost the series to the Pirates, but at the beginning of the next season they were honored with a parade up Broadway. (Perhaps the only time a team has been thrown a parade for not winning the World Series.) That parade was perhaps as good omen, as the 1961 season featured the Roger Maris-Mickey Mantle home run contest and a victorious trip to the World Series. The team was honored again at the start of the 1962 season for having won the World Series. (There is some question as to whether this was a true parade; the Yankees were certainly honored at City Hall. Did they also ride up Broadway in a motorcade as they'd done the year before? We're still searching....)

The Yankees weren’t honored again until 1977, when they won the first of two back-to-back World Series. Parades were held in 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000 to celebrate those victories – and now, of course, we’ll add one more tomorrow.

If you go to the parade, which begins at 11:00 a.m. check out the plaques embedded in the sidewalk. They list everyone who has ever been honored with a parade and stretch from Bowling Green Park to the foot of City Hall Park.

* Correction: An astute reader points out 1949 would have been Mack's 49th anniversary as the A's manager. The official sidewalk plaque states that the parade was to honor Mack's 50th anniversary, but looking back now at the press coverage, that was not the intent at the time. In truth, the parade honored Mack's lifetime contributions to baseball (he'd been a player and manager for 65 years). The next day, August 20, 1949, was "Connie Mack Day" at Yankee Stadium and Mack was honored again at the stadium.

* * *

Read more about ticker tape parades in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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The Apollo 11 Ticker Tape Parade

photo from the LIFE magazine archives on Google.com

Earlier this summer, the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969. Today marks another Apollo anniversary—the massive ticker tape parade for Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins. At the time, many claimed it was the largest ticker tape parade New York had ever seen, but as we researching Inside the Apple, we found that claim was made for many parades and it’s almost impossible to verify. (Four million people were said to have attended the Apollo parade—an impressive number, even if it’s not the largest.)

Certainly, it was the longest parade. The city’s traditional parade route runs from Bowling Green Park at the foot of Broadway to City Hall. The Apollo astronauts, however, after receiving the key to the city, continued up Broadway to Herald Square and then on to Times Square. As the New York Times noted, the confetti in Midtown was “made up more of paper towels and pages from telephone directories than tickertape” and that it grew “so dense that the astronauts could hardly see.”

As we write in Inside the Apple:

It was also one of the fastest ticker tape parades. The astronauts started at Bowling Green at 10:17 a.m. (about half an hour ahead of schedule) and arrived on the steps of City Hall just fourteen minutes later! Many people who showed up for the parade were disappointed to discover that the astronauts had already passed them by…. By 1:15 p.m. the astronauts were back at Kennedy airport to go to Chicago. They ended the day with festivities in Los Angeles. Having just been to the moon and back, a quick one-day jaunt across North America must not have seemed like such a big deal.

* * *

For more on the origin of the ticker tape parade and a walking tour of the “Canyon of Heroes,” check out Inside the Apple. Or join us this Sunday for our free tour of that neighborhood, during which we’ll focus on the American Revolution.

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Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.

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Charles Lindbergh and the Orteig Prize

Eighty-two years ago today, in the early morning hours of May 20, 1927, aviator Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Garden City, Long Island, and headed east. Thirty-three and a half hours later, he touched down at Le Bourget airport in Paris, making Lindbergh the first aviator to successfully fly nonstop from New York to Paris and the winner of the $25,000 Orteig Prize.

The Orteig Prize was sponsored by hotelier Raymond Orteig who owned the Lafayette and Brevoort Hotels in Manhattan. Orteig, hoping to boost Franco-American relations, first offered the prize to complete a transatlantic flight in 1919. When no one had made an attempt in five years, Orteig extended the competition and by 1926 it had begun drawing serious competitors. However, the hazards of aviation meant that by the time Lindbergh began his historic flight, six of his fellow competitors had died.

Lindbergh's flight in the Spirit of St. Louis began on May 20 at 7:52 a.m. with his ground crew pushing the heavy plane down the muddy runway. The plane carried 450 gallons of fuel but Lindbergh had removed as much as possible from the plane, including his sextant--meaning that Lindbergh would have to fly by the stars (if they were visible) or dead reckoning. Lindbergh dodged bad weather across the Atlantic (sometimes flying as low as twelve feet above the waves) and reached Le Bourget at 10:22 p.m. on May 21st where he was mobbed by a crowd of eager well-wishers.

Upon his return (by steamship) to America, Lindbergh was feted in Washington, D.C., before heading to New York. On June 13th, the aviator was honored with a tickertape parade on Lower Broadway. Three days later, he collected the Orteig Prize at a breakfast at the Breevort Hotel with Orville Wright in attendance. (The Breevort Hotel was demolished in 1953 to be replaced by the Brevoort apartments.)

The successful flight spurred tremendous interest in aviation and Lindbergh became America's most visible spokesman for commerical flight.

* * *

Much more about New York in the Roaring Twenties can be found in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City, available now.

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York Avenue and Sgt. Alvin York

Most New Yorkers probably haven’t given a second thought to York Avenue, the thoroughfare that runs from 59th Street to 91st Street just east of First Avenue. And if they have thought much about its name, they probably ascribed it to the Duke of York, for whom the city was named back in 1664.

However, York Avenue is actually a much more recent appellation: it was named in 1928 to honor Sergeant Alvin C. York, America’s most renowned World War I hero. And since Tuesday is Veteran’s Day—originally Armistice Day*, a World War I holiday—we thought we’d devote a couple of paragraphs to Sgt. York and his eponymous street.

Alvin York (1887-1964) was drafted in 1917. Though a conscientious objector (his application for CO status was denied), York became a hero during the Battle of the Argonne Forest. In an improbable feat of courage, York found himself in charge of his unit after many of his compatriots were killed and he managed to almost single-handedly kill over 20 Germans soldiers and capture 132 more. York was awarded the Medal of Honor and upon his return to the United States was feted in New York with a ticker tape parade. York regularly stayed in the news over the next decade, both for his efforts to help the rural poor of Tennessee (his home state) by building a school as well as for his aversion to accepting charity. When offered a free honeymoon, he turned it down stating it would just be a “vainglorious call of the world and the devil.”

In April 1928, York had the honor of having Avenue A from 59th Street northward named for him. The move was sponsored by the First Avenue Association in an effort to revive the fortunes of the east side, which was better known for its German enclave (later dubbed “Yorkville”) and Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert’s brewery. Back in 1807, when the city deployed surveyor John Randal, Jr., to map out the new Cartesian grid plan, he and his team chose to create twelve wide avenues that ran the length of the island from Houston Street north. However, this left the problem of the area of the Lower East Side and Upper East Side where there was enough room east of the grid plan for more streets. Randal solved this problem by naming these eastern avenues “A,” “B,” etc. and on the original 1811 map of Manhattan, there is both an Avenue A in today’s East Village and one on the Upper East Side. (East End Avenue was originally designated Avenue B.)

This idea of renaming a street after a war hero to bolster its real estate values was not new. Anthony and Orange streets—two of the worst streets leading into the old Five Points neighborhood—were renamed Worth and Baxter in the early 1850s after two of New York’s two great heroes from the Mexican-American War, General William Jenkins Worth (who we’ll revisit in a later blog posting) and Colonel Charles Baxter.

And perhaps the most remarkable change in an avenue’s real estate fortunes came when Fourth Avenue—aka “Death Avenue”—was renamed Park Avenue.

More about street names can be found, as always, in Inside the Apple, which is available for pre-order now.

* Armistice Day was created in 1919 to mark the signing of the armistice with the Germans on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. In 1954, the holiday was renamed Veterans Day to honor those who had served in all wars.

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The Ticker Tape Parade

With so many anniversaries this week (the opening of the first subway; the Great Crash of 1929), it was easy to overlook that the city’s most famous statue—Frederic August Bartholdi’s Liberty Enlightening the World, aka the Statue of Liberty—turned 122 years old on October 28.

The official grand opening in the harbor was followed by a parade up Broadway from Battery Park. It was during that parade that some enterprising office worker in one of the brokerage houses on Broadway decided to turn his company’s used ticker tape into confetti. Thus was born the ticker tape parade, an enduring New York tradition.

The parades took a while to catch on. The next one was for Admiral Dewey, hero of the Spanish-American War, following his return from Manila. Then ten years went by before the next parade, for Jack Binns, the radio operator of the RMS Republic. (The Republic had struck the SS Florida in January; because the ship was equipped with wireless radio, Binns was able to send a Mayday signal and the passengers and crew were rescued.)

In the 1920s ticker tape parades really started to take off. The parades, under the purview of the mayor’s office, were mostly given to arriving dignitaries, sports heroes, or pioneers in flight. The two busiest years were 1951 and 1962, which each had 9 parades. In 1962, honorees were as diverse as John Glenn, the New York Yankees, and Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus.

The Yankees hold the record for most parades at eight. While a handful of individuals have been feted twice (including Glenn), only one person has been honored three times—Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the polar aviator and explorer.

If you find yourself in Lower Manhattan, take a stroll up Broadway from Battery Park. All the recipients of ticker tape parades are commemorated in plaques in the sidewalk.

More about ticker tape parades—including what was at the time the biggest ever held for the Apollo astronauts in 1969—can be found in Inside the Apple, which is available for pre-order now.

[Photo by StormyDog on flickr.]

* * *

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