gwmain

September 26: On this date in 1957, “West Side Story,” brilliant music by Leonard Bernstein, opened on Broadway.

September 25: George Steers, designer of the yacht America, who piloted it to victory against England’s best in 1851, thereby making the competition to this day for yachting supremacy “the America’s Cup,” died on this date in 1856.

September 24: On this date in 1957, Ebbets Field, named for Charles Ebbets, early owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, closed.

September 23: On this date in 1839, Green-Wood’s books were opened for the purchase of lots; no burials would occur until 1840.

September 22: Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., the father of President Theodore Roosevelt, was born on this date in 1831; he died in 1878, long before there was any hint that his son would someday rise to the presidency.

September 21: On his date in 1933, Mabel Smith Douglass, founder of the New Jersey College for Women, later Douglass College at Rutgers, disappeared while rowing on Lake Placid; her petrified body was not found until 30 years later.

September 20: On this date in 2006, Green-Wood Cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark.

September 19: Thomas Dartmouth Rice, the father of minstrelsy, died on this date in 1860.

September 18: On this date in 2008, Henry Z. Steinway, the last of the family involved in its famous piano business, died.