I’m really digging the NY Times archives.
For example, it’s fairly well known that the Foshay Tower’s founder went bankrupt after the building was built. It seems like the trivia about the John Sousa march commissioned for the dedication ceremony comes up from time to time on Almanac. (The check to Sousa bounced, so Sousa banned the march from being played after that.)
But the story takes on new life when you can scroll through the headlines from that time period:
August 25, 1929 – An announcement about the following week’s dedication runs in the NY Times:
August 31, 1929 – Story on the dedication ceremony:
November 2, 1929 – Bankruptcy
April 18, 1930 – Foshay for Sale
That was fast.
Great post! That’s an incredible turnaround. I like the way it puts the lie to the notion that things happen faster nowadays. As a sometime-historian, I hate the conventional wisdom that things were slower and/or easier “back then” (the 1950s, the 1920s, the 1860s, whenever); these clips provide a great counterexample.
Was there a hotel in the Foshay Tower in the late 50’s or early 60’s?