The Times they aren't a changing

Dropping the ball bomb in Times Square

Times Square's history is generally full of more bombast than bomb blasts, but Thursday's explosion was not the first. It also was not the first time investigators dismissed a note which appeared to take responsibility for the explosion.

Christine Hauser writes in today's Times: "The attack took just a few minutes. Times Square was aglow in the morning darkness but nearly deserted as a shadowy figure on a bicycle pedaled in and planted a small bomb that shattered the glass facade of the military recruiting station on Broadway just north of 43rd Street.

In 1960, according to the Associated Press, "A bomb planted in shrubbery behind the George M. Cohan statue shook the busy Times Square area today and injured seven persons. The injured were struck by flying debris."

Today authorities denied that the bomb outside the military recruiting center was the work of whomever sent letters and photographs of the building to a slew of Congressmen. It went much the same in the 1960 attack.

October 4, 1960
NOTE THREATENS TIMES SQ. BOMBING
Police Study Warning for Clue to Blast on Sunday, but doubt connection

A crudely handwritten note found in a midtown movie theatre provided the police with their main clue yesterday in the bomb explision that injured six persons near Times Square on Sunday.

Scribbled in pencil on a piece of white paper were the words:

"Mr. Kennedy [presumably Police Commissioner Stephen P. Kennedy}, please forgive me for the bomb but I have to kill 100 people in one week. I am sick like before. The next bomb will be Oct. , 1960, at a Times Square show."

The note was signed, "The Sick."

Detectives said that the note, inside an unmarked white envelope, had been found by a patron of the Victory Theater, at 209 West Forty-Second Street, about four blocks from the scene of Sunday's bombing.

One police official said yesterday that there was "no apparent connection" between the note and the explosion on Sunday. However it was pointed out that the presence of so many world leaders in the city for the United Nations made it necessary to treat the note as "potentially the real thing."

Crowded Schoolhouses

Despite what those who relish the "good old days" say, the public schools have always had problems -- and it turns out they have often had too many students.

In his "On Education" column in today's Times, Samuel Freedman described the 22 red classroom trailers that have been installed in the schoolyard at Richmond Hill High School, which is operating at twice its capacity.

A Queens High School With 3,600 Students, and Room for Just 1,800

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

From its brass entry doors to its rooftop observatory to the intricate oak paneling of the principal’s office, Richmond Hill High School in Queens was built to inspire something like awe for public education. The only discordant response during the structure’s dedication in 1923 was whether, with a capacity for 1,800 students, it was too large.

But it turns out there was similar outrage at what seems to be the very same school -- just two years after it opened. At the time, the administration was struggling to handle its 3,479 students.

March 17, 1925
BACKS SCHOOL PLEA OF RICHMOND HILL

Board of Estimate Asks That building be enlarged or a new one erected.

Parents Call Conditions Disgraceful – Mayor stops yells of students

When a delegation of parents, school children and representatives of civic association of Richmond Hill, L.I. appeared before the Committee of the Whole of the Board of Estimate yesterday and depicted what they termed the “disgraceful and unjust” condition of the overcrowded high school of that community Mayor Hylan and his associates recommended that the Board of Education take immediate steps to relieve the situation, either by enlarging the existing school building or by erecting a new one.

The article goes on to say:

John Munro, President of the Parents’ Associations of Richmond Hill, led the delegation. Some of the parents declared their children were obliged to get up as early as 6:30 A.M. for the first of the divided sessions of the high school, which has only 1,700 seats for 3,479 students. They also declared that some of the children who attend the last session daily do not get home until 7:30 P.M.

Free Parking

Since the earliest days of the automobile -- and maybe even before -- having a place to park was a commodity hot enough to inspire abuse and corruption.

Mayor Bloomberg recently fired the latest salvo in the war on parking abuses. In today's Times, under the headline "Paring Down Parking Permits, and Raising a Fuss," Anthony Ramirez reports:

All around the city, where fevered drivers try in vain to find parking on the street and angry pedestrians try to squeeze past illegally parked cars, New Yorkers on Friday were talking or blogging or posting to message boards about Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to reduce by 20 percent the number of parking permits issued to police officers, firefighters, teachers and employees of an array of city agencies.

Mayor Ed Koch promised much the same 22 years ago:

July 25, 1986
CITY PLANS TO CURTAIL AND CONTROL PERMITS FOR OFFICIAL PARKING

In a move to cut traffic congestion in the City Hall area, all parking permits for city employees -- estimated to number 15,000 -- will be eliminated next Feb. 1, Mayor Koch announced yesterday.

New permits for the free, on-street spots will be issued solely by the Police Department and a new central review committee, the Mayor said.

And Mayor Abe Beame 11 years before that.

July 24, 1975
MAYOR ENDS POLITICAL PARKING PERMITS

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

The Taxi and Limousine Commission, under orders from Mayor Beame, yesterday rescinded the permits it had issued to political leaders and other non commission personnel giving them parking privileges at hundreds of taxi stands around the city.

Beware of dogs babysitting

Thankfully some news doesn't repeat itself too often. But over the years, every so often a dog kills a baby. From today's Times:

Brooklyn Infant Is Killed by Family’s Dog

By THOMAS J. LUECK

An 8-month-old Brooklyn boy was mauled to death by his family’s Doberman pinscher on Thursday as the boy played on the floor of his apartment, the police said.

A similar tragedy occurred 130 years before.

February 12, 1877
AN INFANT KILLED BY A DOG

A short time after midnight yesterday Mrs. Kate Hartman, wife pf Augustus Hartman, of No. 131 Pitt Street, was delivered of a female child, which, at 6 A.M. was intrusted (sic) to an aunt of the mother to nurse. The aunt fell asleep while holding the newly-born infant in her arms, and on awaking discovered that it was in a dying condition. On the neck of the child was a large scratch, which bore the appearance of having been inflicted by a pet Spitz dog belonging to the family. The aunt hurriedly summoned a midwife to attend Mrs. Hartman, but when she arrived at the house the babe was dead. Deputy Coroner Cushman made an autopsy of the body, and ascertained that death was due to shock.

It's unclear if Spitz was put down.

But this is undoubtedly the most disturbing of the three stories. Joanne Bashold comes to New York from Ohio at the age of 23. She gets raped, and in the process gets pregnant. She decides to keep the baby, and then this happens:

September 7, 1976
DOG KILLS AN INFANT LEFT IN APARTMENT; MOTHER IS ARRESTED

By CHARLES KAISER

A 4-day-old baby girl, left alone on the floor of an East Harlem apartment, was killed yesterday morning by the family's German Shepherd, which had not been fed for days.

The baby's mother, 24-year-old Joanne Bashold, was arrested and charged with negligent homicide.

I tried to track Ms. Bashold down, but she seems to have either changed her name of disappeared without a trace. I'm sure it came as only small consolation to her at the time, but all the charges were dropped.

The elusive shortuct to losing weight

Fortunes have long been made in the weeks between the making and breaking of New Year's resolutions. But with all the get-thin-quick schemes on the market, experts have always found it almost impossible to get the real, tough-love message across.

In today's Science Times, under the headline, "No Gimmicks: Eat Less and Exercise More," Jane Brody explains:

And really, it doesn’t matter whether you choose a diet based on your genotype or the phases of the moon, or whether you cut down on sugars and starches or fats. If you consume fewer calories than you need to maintain your current weight, you will lose.

In 1931, the city's Health Commissioner offered identical advice: "The only safe and sure way to reduce is to eat less and to exercise more."

July 21, 1931
WARNS OF QUACKERY IN WEIGHT REDUCING

Dr. Wynne says all pills and other preparations that decrease fat are poisonous

Hold diet only method -- Must be combined with exercise and not overdone, he declares on radio

"Fakers, quacks and charlatans" of offer for sale "weight reducing pills, soaps, medicines, gadgets and the like" were denounced as menaces to health yesterday by Health Commissioner Wynne in the weekly Health Department television broadcast over station WGBS on "Reducing Weight Safely."

Every week, he said, letters were received at the Health Department from person who had fallen into the hands of some quack asking how they could regain the good health they lost, together with their fat, by innocent-looking soaps or pills.

"Every once in a while," Dr. Wynne continued, "we read in the newspapers of the death--frequently by suicide--of actresses or other prominent persons who ruined their health trying to keep think by so-called 'easy' methods. How many others there may be in this city who have destroyed their happiness by the same method I have no means of knowing. But I do know this, that there are many of them, perhaps thousands.

"Be warned before taking any pills for weight reduction that are called harmless by the salesman or the advertising. Pills that really reduce your weight cannot be harmless, for they are poisonous. They produce their effect by breaking down the body. They reduce your weight by the same route as a destructive disease might reduce you, and leave you at the end in such a condition that you may never recover. If the pills you hear about are not poisonous, then they cannot produce reduction and are only frauds."

A Mayor for President?

The possibility of two New York City mayors running for president in 2008 has led many longtime dwellers of the five boroughs wondering if they have gotten off the subway in Bizarro World.

Mayor Bloomberg has not committed to run, but he appears to be inching in that direction. From today's Times:

Bloomberg Moves Closer to Running for President

By SAM ROBERTS

Buoyed by the still unsettled field, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is growing increasingly enchanted with the idea of an independent presidential bid, and his aides are aggressively laying the groundwork for him to run.

While it may seem that the city is the last place on earth to look for someone electable to leader of the free world. the idea has been broached before.

In 1904, political bosses at Tammany Hall were so frightened of the consequences of Teddy Roosevelt being re-elected to the White House that they tried to convince the mayor to join the race.

January 15, 1904
TAMMANY HOPES TO NOMINATE M'CLELLAN
PLAN TO RUN HIM AGAINST ROOSEVELT FOR PRESIDENT

ALBANY, Jan. 14--From an authority high in the confidence of those who control Tammany Hall at present it is learned that if Theodore Roosevelt should be the Republican nominee for President the choice of the New York Democrats at the St. Louis Convention, if Tammany has its way, will be Mayor George B. McClellan of New York City.

What may be even more surprising is that four years later Roosevelt was floated as a possible candidate for mayor.

December 22, 1908
ROOSEVELT AND MAYORALTY

Dr. Lyman Abbott was told yesterday that a minister in Brooklyn intended to preach a sermon suggesting that a movement be started in this city to have President Roosevelt run for Mayor next year, and asked whether he thought Mr. Roosevelt would accept.

"Mr. Roosevelt, in my opinion, would not accept such a nomination," said Dr. Abbott. "It is unreasonable to assume that he would even think of it, in view of his announced plans. He is to sail for Africa soon after March 4, and will be gone fifteen months. Therefore he will not be here at the all during the Mayoralty campaign."

Woe is money

They say money can't buy love or happiness or health or success. And the rest of of roll our eyes. But given that this lament has been voiced for a century, perhaps there is something to it.

First, from today's Times:

Instant Fortunes, and Sudden Headaches

By CAITLIN KELLY

So what would you do if you got your wish and suddenly came into a lot of money — by winning the lottery, perhaps, or getting a six-figure insurance settlement or a long-awaited inheritance? Financial freedom, right?

Ken Jennings, a 33-year-old former software engineer who earned more than $2.5 million by winning 74 consecutive games on “Jeopardy” in 2004, says it is not that simple.

But coming into a lot of money has always brought its share of headaches:

July 16, 1877
THE ANNOYANCES OF WEALTH
TROUBLES OF JOHN H. LICK AFTER INHERITING A PORTION OF HIS FATHER'S FORTUNE

The San Francisco Call, having learned that a new suit has been instituted against the estate of John H. Lick for information.. The account proceeds: "Mr. Lick passed into an inner room and returned shortly with a formidable bundle of letters. They were divided into two packages. Handling the smaller parcel to the reporter, he said: 'Two years ago I thought I knew all of my father's relatives by name at least, but here is a batch of 30 or so who have suddenly discovered that they are his next of kin..."

Even the wealthiest men and women alive seem to be miserable:

July 31, 1911
RICHES IRK ROCKEFELLER
HE TELLS PREACHER WHO TALKS OF WEALTH'S BURDENS HE'S RIGHT

CLEVELAND, Ohio, July 30.--His great wealth was often a burden that drove peace from his heart, John D. Rockefeller admitted to-day after listening to a sermon by a visiting preacher at his favorite church, the Euclid Avenue Baptist. The Rev. Carter Helm Jones of Oklahoma was acting for the pastor, who is on his vacation, and he referred to the "crown of wealth and its incident anxieties and tortures which banish peace from the heart."

Deli Cat, Deli Cat, it's not your fault

The health department has long fought to upset the ecosystem of NYC restaurants, which depend on unpaid feline employees to handle the invading rodent population.

From today's Times:

To Dismay of Inspectors, Prowling Cats Keep Rodents on the Run at City Delis
By KATE HAMMER

Across the city, delis and bodegas are a familiar and vital part of the streetscape, modest places where customers can pick up necessities, a container of milk, a can of soup, a loaf of bread.

Amid the goods found in the stores, there is one thing that many owners and employees say they cannot do without: their cats. And it goes beyond cuddly companionship. These cats are workers, tireless and enthusiastic hunters of unwanted vermin, and they typically do a far better job than exterminators and poisons.

Cats have long had to straddle this balance between food industry savior and pariah.

September 11, 1946
44 RESTAURANT OWNERS FINED $4,955 HERE; ONE HAD 20 CATS ROAMING ABOUT IN KITCHEN

Magistrate Edgar Bromberger and Edward Thompson imposed fines totaling $4,955 yesterday on forty-four restaurant proprietors summoned to Municipal Term Court in the Health Department’s campaign to improve sanitation in New York’s food industry.

The number of fines imposed since the restaurant drive began on June 12 now stands at 863. Adding the day’s penalties to the previous levies brought the total to $83,105 to date. Health Department inspectors have made 5,321 examinations among the city’s 22,000 eating places in the last three months, serving 938 court summonses. Only six defendants have won suspended sentences, and none have been acquitted.

Fines yesterday ranged from $25 to $50. One of the best known restaurants penalized was Poliacoff’s Kosher Restaurant at 121 West Forty-fifth Street, which had 21 allegations against it.

The most unusual of these was that the kitchen was overrun with twenty cats. Hanan Poliacoff, the proprietor, pleaded he kept the cats to prevent rats, but Magistrate Bromberger ruled one cat was enough.

Even some of the city's most famous eateries have sworn by the contribution cats play.

May 28, 1974
ELAINE’S AND 19 OTHER FOOD OUTLETS FLUNK 2D SANITARY INSPECTION

By ROBERT McG. THOMAS Jr.

Elaine's, the popular East Side Restaurant that serves as a club for many of the city’s best-known writers and a showcase for many of its most famous celebrities has been cited by the Department of Health for uncorrected vilations and given until Friday to comply with the department regulations or be closed...

As for the cat citations:

Cat Odor  Explained

As for charges of “cats in the cellar” and “odor of cats throughout cellar,” Mr. Spagnolo, citing the recommendation of the restaurant’s exterminator, insisted it was the cats, particularly the odor of cats, that kept away the rats that had descended on Second Avenue when the old Rupper Brewery was torn down.

Searching for those who can't do

Educators have long had this sense that the quality of teaching has been on the decline along with student performance. Much like the people of the Middle Ages, who comparing themselves to the civilizations of classical antiquity, concluded man must be getting dumber, many believe schools must strive to return to their glory days.

Of course, finding "better teachers" is not easy, given the low salary and various indignities of the job. Today's Times tells of the latest effort to recruit better educators.

Foundation Hopes to Lure Top Students to Teaching

By KAREN W. ARENSON

Taking the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships as a model, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton is creating a fellowship program that it hopes will lure top students into teaching and transform teacher education in the United States.

“Research shows that providing excellent teachers is the single most important way to improve student achievement,” said Arthur E. Levine, president of the foundation, which coordinates a variety of academic fellowship programs. “But the quality of our teaching force today is not as strong as it needs to be, and our teacher preparation programs are too weak. We hope this program will produce significant improvement in both and provide models that the rest of the country will follow.”

But the quality of teachers is not a new concern:

July 18, 1931
ASKS FOR BETTER TEACHERS
Dr. Newlon Blames Administrators for Lack of Scholarship

American school teachers lack scholarship and are “little more than automatons, little better than employees in the factory sense of the word,” Dr. Jesse H. Newlon, director of the Lincoln School, told educators at the Columbia Summer Session in the Horace Mann auditorium.

Many factors have “conspired to produce this condition,” he explained pointing to low salaries, insecurity of tenure, large turnover, and lack of recognition by the public of the fundamental importance of education. The real fault, however, rests with the administrators, he declared

Read two more examples after the jump:

Hath not a juvenile eyes?

Ever since the angst-ridden psychology of the teenager was deemed distinct from that of adults -- sometime after World War II -- parents and scientists have puzzled over what makes these maniacs tick.

Based on an article in today's Times by Jane Brody, under the headline Teenage Risks, and How to Avoid Them, we are no closer to  solving this mystery.

It is an all too familiar tale, prompting parents and school officials alike to wonder why risky behavior is so common among teenagers and what might be done to curtail it. Is it that teenagers think that they are immortal or invulnerable, immune to the hazards adults see so clearly? Or do they not appreciate the risks involved and need repeated reminders of the dangers inherent in activities like driving too fast, driving drunk, having unprotected sex, experimenting with drugs, binge drinking, jumping into unknown waters, you name it?

It was clear as early as the 1940s that the teenage brain's version of rational behavior was entirely unlike that of their parents and teachers. Perhaps they should all be quarantined.

October 3, 1949
‘TEEN-AGE’ DRIVERS STUDIED AS A PERIL

By BERT PIERCE

JACKSON’S MILL, W. Va, Oct 2—Reckless and careless complexes of youthful drivers were emphasized today as the chief factor for the increasing highway accident rate attributed to the teen-age bracket.

The ego and thoughtlessness of youngsters came under close scrutiny and their mental trends and twists were weighed at the opening session of the National Conference on High School Driver Education here.

An innovation in death dealing “pranks” was presented with a description of the “bumper-bump-bumper” tag game on the road. Participants gamble with their lives by chasing another vehicle and crashing into it.

Already this so-called pastime has caused many fatalities and injuries to teen-age drivers and others on the highways of the Mid-West.