New York Trivia & Tidbits - Page 10

Looking for New York trivia? Try our list New York little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Central Park, the nation’s first landscaped public park, was created from more than 700 acres of swamps and mud.

first appeared: 11/2/2003

The popular board game Scrabble was invented by unemployed New York architect Alfred Butts in 1931. At first rejected by board game companies, Scrabble ultimately was marketed by Selchow and Righter in 1953.

first appeared: 10/26/2003

The Manhattan Bridge, one of the world’s three great suspension bridges, was completed on New Year’s Eve in 1909. If laid end to end, its cables would stretch 23 miles.

first appeared: 10/19/2003

The state’s commercial and recreational fishing industries generate $11 billion in economic activity annually.

first appeared: 10/12/2003

The Nassau, the first steam ferry between Brooklyn and Manhattan, was introduced in 1814 by Robert Fulton. Previously, crossings of the East River were made in rowboats.

first appeared: 10/5/2003

The Brooklyn Bridge, the first suspension bridge to use steel cables, opened May 24, 1883, after 14 years of construction. Some 15,300 people crossed on opening day.

first appeared: 9/28/2003

Actor Tom Cruise, born in 1962 in Syracuse, once considered the priesthood before turning to acting. Among his film credits are Top Gun and Born on the Fourth of July.

first appeared: 9/21/2003

The Westminster Kennel Club held its first dog show in 1876 in New York City. Except for the Kentucky Derby, the show is the nation’s oldest continuous sporting event.

first appeared: 9/14/2003

Described as the quintessential American realist painter, Edward Hopper was known for his stark depictions of motels, trains, and highways. He was born in the Hudson River town of Nyack (pop. 6,737).

first appeared: 9/7/2003

Kareem Abdul Jabbar, born Lewis Alcindor, was one of basketball’s most recognizable figures before his retirement in 1989. The man who popularized the “skyhook” was born in 1947 in New York City.

first appeared: 8/31/2003

The first women’s rights convention was held July 19, 1848, in Seneca Falls (pop. 9,347), and was documented by Elizabeth Cady Stanton with a scrapbook of newspaper clippings.

first appeared: 8/24/2003

Maria Anna Sophie Cecilia Kalogeropoulos, better known as the soprano Maria Callas, was born in 1923 in New York City, four months after her parents emigrated to the United States from Greece.

first appeared: 8/17/2003

When Grey Lag won the Belmont Stakes in 1921, it marked the first time America’s oldest Triple Crown event was run counter-clockwise. Before that, the race was run clockwise in the English tradition.

first appeared: 8/10/2003

Composer Aaron Copland, born in Brooklyn in 1900, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his ballet, Appalachian Spring.

first appeared: 8/3/2003

The stately Patchogue Theater opened in 1923 in Patchogue (pop. 11,919) and drew theatrical luminaries such as Douglas Fairbanks and Bette Davis. Later transformed into a movie house, the theater closed in 1987 only to be restored to its former elegance in 1996.

first appeared: 7/27/2003

Eclipse, a New York-bred horse, outdistanced North Carolina’s Henry in a North vs. South match in 1823 at Union Course on Long Island.

first appeared: 7/20/2003

The Ninety-Nines, an organization of female aviators, was formed in 1929 at Valley Stream (pop. 36,368) with 117 women. The group’s first president was Amelia Earhart.

first appeared: 7/13/2003

Railroad heir William K. Vanderbilt Jr. founded the Vanderbilt Cup auto races on Long Island in 1904. Following public roads, the course existed in what is now Levittown.

first appeared: 7/6/2003

Long Island is nicknamed the “Cradle of Aviation” because Hempstead Plains provided a flat, treeless area for testing early airplanes. By 1910, three airfields were operating there, including Roosevelt Field, the take-off point for Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 transatlantic flight.

first appeared: 6/29/2003

The research of Frank Buckwalter, H. Leo Dickison, and Amel Menotti of Bristol Laboratories in Syracuse supported development of the first synthetic penicillin, hailed as safer and more effective than previous forms of the drug.

first appeared: 6/22/2003

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