DECEMBER 27 — 1932 Radio City Music Hall opens; INVENTION/PATENTS: 1931 R.I.P. Melvil Dewey (Dewey Decimal System); 1865 James Mason patents coffee percolator; 1908 Jack Johnson TKOs Tommy Burns; 1944 FDR seizes control of Montgomery Wards
DECEMBER 27
1932 – Radio City Music Hall opens. In 1929 at the start of the crash, John Rockefeeller held o $91 million, 24-year lease on a piece of midtown Manhattan property properly known as “the speakeasy belt.” Plans to gentrify the neighborhood by building a new Metropolitan Opera House on the site were dashed by the failing economy and the business outlook was dim. Nevertheless, Rockefeller made a bold decision that would leave a lasting impact on the city’s architectural and cultural landscape. He decided to build an entire complex of buildings on the property-buildings so superior that they would attract commercial tenants even in a depressed city flooded with vacant rental space. The project would express the highest ideals of architecture and design and stand as a symbol of optimism and hope. The search for a commercial partner led to the Radio Corporation of America, a young company whose NBC radio programs were attracting huge audiences and whose RKO studios were Radio City Music Hall was to be a palace for the people. A place of beauty offering high-quality entertainment at prices ordinary people could afford. It was intended to entertain and amuse, but also to elevate and inspire. But the best part of the show would be the Rockettes. Hubba hubba.
1931 – RIP Melvil Dewey. He came up with the Dewey Decimal System we would use to find books in a library before we had the internet. 1865 – James H Mason comes to the rescue and saves all of humanity. He patented the coffee percolator. He’s like the Bill Gates of Coffee making things. There are some who dispute that he was the originator, such as sciencelens.co.nz, but on December26, 1865, myman Mason got the patent. Doesn’t matter who came first because possession is 9/10ths.
1908 Jack Johnson TKOs Tommy Burnbs in 14 rounds for heavyweight boxing title, become the first black heavyweight chamption. Beast mode!
1944 – FDR seizes control of Mongomery Wards. According to Tim Carney, In an effort to avert strikes in critical war-support industries, Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board in 1942. The board negotiated settlements between management and workers to avoid shut-downs in production that might cripple the war effort. During the war, the well-known retailer and manufacturer Montgomery Ward had supplied the Allies with everything from tractors to auto parts to workmen’s clothing–items deemed as important to the war effort as bullets and ships. However, Montgomery Ward Chairman Sewell Avery refused to comply with the terms of three different collective bargaining agreements with the United Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union hammered out between 1943 and 1944. In April 1944, after Sewell refused a second board order, Roosevelt called out the Army National Guard to seize the company’s main plant in Chicago. Sewell himself had to be carried out of his office by National Guard troops. By December of that year, Roosevelt was fed up with Sewell’s obstinacy and disrespect for the government’s authority. (The uber-capitalist Sewell’s favorite insult was to call someone a “New Dealer”–a direct reference to Roosevelt’s Depression-era policies.) On December 27, Roosevelt ordered the secretary of war to seize Montgomery Ward’s plants and facilities in New York, Michigan, California, Illinois,Colorado and Oregon.