History As You Experienced It

Space Shuttle Challenger Explodes As Millions Watch (January 28, 1986)

2012-01-28T12:38:00-05:00

January 28, 1986 was a cold Tuesday morning in New York following a surprise 1.5" snowfall overnight (the first significant snow of the winter). I was back at work (ad agency Young & Rubicam) after having been out sick on Monday and the previous Friday. Shortly before noon my secretary, Voula, came clomping into my office to deliver the day's mail and blurted out that the space shuttle had exploded. Then she made a snide comment about the teacher, Christa McCauliffe, who was on board, let out a little cackle, and walked out.

I left my office and walked over to the office of a broadcast buyer to watch the unending replay of the shuttle's disintegration against the clear blue Florida sky. What was chilling was the crowd reaction at the launch site because at first they didn't understand what they had just witnessed but as the realization came over them their excited gasps of wonder turned to sobs of distress.

This date also sticks in mind because after coming home from work I went to electronics store Crazy Eddie near my apartment in Greenwich Village and bought my first color TV - a 14" Sharp. I paid $329 for it, at the time the largest single purchase I'd ever made. I was really looking forward to watching that evening's episode of Moonlighting in color.

(The book Truth, Lies & O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster provides a detailed account of what led to the shuttle's tragic demise.)

The Highest Rated Super Bowl of All Time (January 24, 1982)

2012-01-24T15:25:00-05:00

Perhaps helped by a weekend snowstorm and a cold wave over the Midwest and Northeast, Super Bowl XVI between the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals has the distinction of being the highest rated Super Bowl of them all. The game, which SF won 26-21, posted a 49.1 household rating/73 share. It still ranks as the 4th highest rated telecast of all time (behind the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983, the "Who Shot J.R?" episode of Dallas in 1980 and the final episode of "Roots" in 1977). There have been Super Bowls with larger audiences (due to population increase) but no game has pulled a higher rating.

I didn't see the big game. That weekend found me in Connecticut visiting my boyfriend Rick who lived in Middletown (the following year he'd move into Manhattan with me). That Sunday afternoon we drove up to the hamlet of Norfolk in snowy Litchfield County (in the northwestern corner of the state) to visit his friends Debbie and Mort (a burly forest ranger). We had a brief delay on the drive there when our car was hit by a pile of snow and ice that crashed down upon us from a snowplow working on a highway overpass. And later that evening my trip back to Manhattan would be delayed because Rick's car became stuck in the driveway, frozen in place.

(Although no books/DVDs for this particular game are available the newly published book The Ultimate Super Bowl Book offers stats & stories about all 43 match-ups while the DVD NFL Films Super Bowl Collection XI-XX recaps highlights of the games played between 1977-1986.)

First Gulf War Begins (January 16, 1991)

2012-01-17T10:00:00-05:00

The evening the war began, January 16, 1991, found me sitting at a "welcome" table in a meeting room at the Gay & Lesbian Community Center on West 13th St. where the gay professionals group NYACN (now called Out Professionals) was holding its monthly meething. I was treasurer and collecting the meeting fee when a member approached the desk at around 7:30 and excitedly tried telling me something. However, because he had a pronounced stutter it took him a while to get out what he wanted to say - that the U.S. bombardment of Baghdad had begun. (The guessing game as to when this would occur had been the week's #1 topic of conversation ever since Congress voted the previous weekend to give President Bush authority to go to war.)

The following evening, a Thursday, found me at HMV Records on the Upper West Side where I had gone after leaving a work-related function at Tavern on the Green (both establishments are now out of business). Instead of playing music over its speakers a radio broadcast was reporting the chilling news that Iraqi missles were being fired into Israel. At this very early stage of the war I was feeling a bit uneasy, wondering what Saddam Hussein might have up his sleeve for our troops or here on U.S. soil (he had promised the "mother of all battles"). This feeling of unease was in stark contrast to the party-hearty lyrics of a very popular song playing on the airwaves at the time - Everybody Dance by C&C Music Company. To this day whenever I hear the song memories of the war come to mind.

(One of George Clooney's earliest films, 1999's Three Kings, was inspired by the first Gulf War. Other war related films include Jarhead, starring Jake Gyllenhaal & Jamie Foxx, Courage Under Fire and Towelhead.)

"In the Event of a Water Landing" - Miracle on the Hudson (January 15, 2009)

2012-01-17T03:30:00-05:00

It was shortly after 3:30 on January 15, 2009, a bone chilling Thursday afternoon when I heard about the accident. I had just returned home from the gym where I had done a weight routine for backand shoulders (I was out of work at the time). Checking my e-mails I saw a New York Times News Alert reporting that a plane had "landed" in the Hudson River. I assumed it was a small private plane; however, after reading that it was a passenger jet I wondered how many had died (it brought to mind a plane that crashed into Jamaica Bay upon takeoff from LaGuardia in March 1992 that resulted in the drowning of 27 passengers).

I immediately tuned to New York's cable news channel NY1 for further details and was shocked to see an intact USAirways plane surrounded by boats and hear the remarkable news that there were no fatalities! If I hadn't had a massage scheduled for 4:30 I might have walked over to the river to see the plane float by.

In speaking with friends over the next few days I attributed the miraculous landing to the aura of positive energy created by Barack Obama's upcoming inauguration. I joked that if this accident had happened the year before while George Bush (and his eight years of bad karma) was still in office the plane would have gone directly to the bottom of the river. I thought it fitting that this "miracle on the Hudson" dominated the news cycle, pushing from the headlines Bush's televised farewell address to Congress that evening.

If you still haven't had your fill of this inspiring story you may find the first-hand accounts told in Miracle on the Hudson: The Survivors of Flight 1549 Tell Their Extraordinary Stories of interest.

Bobbitt, Menendez & Harding - Oh My! (January 1994)

2012-01-14T09:00:00-05:00

Some newsworthy events unfold over a course of weeks so they can't be pin downed to one moment in time. Such was the case of the unrelenting cold and snow of January 1994 and a number of high-profile criminal cases that received considerable attention in the same month.

For much of the nation it was one of the coldest and snowiest Januarys on record. New York was hit by a lot of sleet and freezing rain; a number of sub-zero mornings caused ice to form on the Hudson and East Rivers (which I could see from my office at ad agency NWAyer on the 34th floor of Worldwide Plaza on West 50th St.), making for slow going for river traffic. In the middle of the month I tried to escape the brutal cold by flying down to Orlando where I made my first visit to Disney World and Epcot. Unfortunately the Arctic chill followed me (the same misfortune befell me two years later when I took a vaction in Key West in February).

Before the introduction of the "reality" TV format, there was Court TV (now called truTV). During this frigid and inclement month I got into the habit of watching it because of its "gavel to gavel" coverage of a number of headline grabbing cases. First was the trial of Lorena Bobbitt who cut off her husband's penis while he slept and then tossed it out of her car window. Less salacious, but equally riveting, was the trial of the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Eric, for the murder of their wealthy parents. (Even more attention was generated due to the brothers' flamboyant attorney, Leslie Abramson.) Then feisty figure skater Tonya Harding was added to the mix when she was implicated in the pipe bashing of her rival Nancy Kerrigan a few days before the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and one month before the Winter Olympics. (Besides Court TV these cases received exhaustive coverage from CNN, Nightline and the Big 3's evening news shows.)

These cases also made celebs of legal analysts Jeffrey Toobin and Star "before The View" Jones (who knew she had a law degree?). I suppose these tawdry cases were a welcome diversion from that winter's onslaught. Of course, this was all just a prelude to the huge media circus created later in the year as the OJ Simpson murder case unfolded.

Plane Crashes Into Potomac River During Snowstorm (January 13, 1982)

2012-01-13T13:35:00-05:00

January 1982 was very cold and snowy in the Eastern half of the U.S. Today a snowstorm paralyzed the Southeast and moved into the mid-Atlantic states as the day progressed. The storm proved deadly for passengers of a Ft. Lauderdale bound Air Florida jet flying out of Washington, D.C in the middle of the afternoon.

Not de-iced properly, the plane was unable to gain sufficient altitude and crashed into the Potomac River after takeoff from National Airport when its tail wing clipped a nearby bridge - just a few miles from the White House. Dramatic TV footage showed rescuers desperately trying to reach some passengers in the icy waters. Unfortunately, unlike the "Miracle on the Hudson" 27 years later, very few passengers survived since this was a crash and not a water landing. Only five passeners survived - 78 others (and four motorists on the bridge) were killed.

Although my office (ad agency Young & Rubicam) had closed early because of the snow (which began during lunchtime in NYC) I was still in my office when I heard the radio bulletin reporting on the crash late that afternoon.

Because I briefly worked on the Eastern Airlines account at Y&R I knew the repercussions a plane crash had for media planners working on any airline account. All media outlets carrying airline advertising had to be contacted to make sure all ads were pulled (although most outlets knew to do this without being contacted, the calls still had be made). However, this time no one at Y&R had to scramble because the agency had lost the Eastern account four months earlier (after 17 years).

"All in the Family" Debuts, Changes Primetime Forever (January 12, 1971)

2012-01-12T09:00:00-05:00

I was suffering from a bad cold the night All in the Family debuted on CBS. For much of the show I was in the kitchen making hot tea with honey and preparing a somewhat flammable throat wrap coated with Vicks VapoRub which I heated over one of the burners of the stove. Because of these preparations I wasn't paying full attention to the program. However, I do remember the warning that came on before the show began about its content. Although I was 13 at the time I didn't worry about my parents changing the channel since Tuesday was my mother's bowling night and dad was dozing in his recliner.

During its first season All in the Family aired on Tuesday but in its second season the show moved to Saturday where it ran for four seasons. It was part of Saturday's legendary lineup along with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett. Some lasting memories I have include Edith going through menopause (a new concept for me) and hearing Archie refer to blacks as "jungle bunnies" (also a first). I watched the show regularly during its first four seasons but that ended once I went away to college. However, this spared me the pain of watching the episode in which Edith died.

The show ushered in a new era in TV in which controversial and political subject matter was addressed. And viewers embraced it - All in the Family became the first TV show to be #1 in the ratings for five consecutive seasons (later joined by Cosby and American Idol). It also begat Maude and The Jeffersons. Indeed, those were the days!

Blizzard of '96 Brings New York & Mid-Atlantic to a Halt (January 7-8, 1996)

2012-01-07T00:15:00-05:00

I first heard word of the impending blizzard on Saturday evening while I was out in NJ visiting my brother and his family for a late holiday get-together. I was enthralled by the blizzard warning scrolling on the screen of The Weather Channel because I'd never before experienced a full-fledged blizzard. The next day the snow started falling at around noon and it was coming down fast and furious by late afternoon. That night I walked around my Greenwich Village neighborhood in the teeth of the storm (with howling winds gusting to 40-50 mph) snapping beautiful photos that were enhanced by the visual effect the flash had on the snowflakes.

Not surprisingly, the office was closed on Monday (some co-workers from NJ were out two to three days). The snow stopped falling early in the afternoon and again I went out with my camera. The texture and deepness of the snow brought to mind walks on the beach. At one point I trudged over to the West Side Highway and found that there was no rush hour traffic whatsoever. Instead, a phalanx of garbage trucks put into service as snowplows was the only activity here and on most city streets.

The storm was especially paralyzing in Philly and NJ where 2 to 3 feet of snow fell. It was such an expansive storm that 1-foot accumulations extended all the way westward into Kentucky and Ohio. Here in NYC 20.2" fell with 3 and 4-foot drifts topping cars and taxis parked on the streets. There was no mail delivery for two days and no trash pick-up for eight. Staten Island reported 29", Newark 28" and LaGuardia Airport 24". Manhattan's normally congested sidewalks were made even more crowded by walls of plowed and shovelled snow (in addition to bags of uncollected trash & discarded Christmas trees) that confined pedestrians to narrow pathways. Persistent cold weather kept the snow around for a number of weeks.

This was the deepest snowfall of my lifetime, topping the 17.6" that fell in a big February 1983 snowstorm. (However, some of the snows of my childhood back in Pittsburgh, especially the 15" that fell in January 1966 and 14" in January 1964, seemed deeper because I was a few feet shorter than my adult height of 6'1".) This blizzard contributed mightily to the winter of 1995-96 becoming New York City's snowiest winter ever. 75.6 inches fell in Central Park, close to fifty inches more than a typical winter.

If you'd like to read about other New York City snowstorms I've written a post on my weather blog, NYC Weather Archive, that recaps the snowstorms we've experienced since the winter of 1978/79. To go to it please click here.

Catastrophic Tsunami Wipes Out Holiday Cheer (December 26, 2004)

2011-12-26T09:00:00-05:00

The morning after Christmas Day 2004 found me relaxing at my mother's house in Pittsburgh reading Sunday's Post Gazette when I came across a small item in the paper's "World News Roundup" section. It was just one paragraph, about a tidal wave that followed a very strong underwater earthquake in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia. It wasn't until that evening that the enormity of the disaster was communicated to the West. And for the next week horrifying first-person accounts and videos appeared (see below), bringing the year to a sobering end.

The tsunami struck the shores of eleven countries and caused an estimated 230,000 deaths (including 9,000 foreign tourists). It ranks as the deadliest tsunami in history and joined a 1976 earthquake in China and a 1970 cyclone in Bangladesh as the deadliest natural disasters in my lifetime. Less than a year later the U.S. would experience one of its worst natural disasters when Hurricane Katrina produced deadly flooding in New Orleans. However, Katrina was tame by comparison to this cataclysmic wave of water.

The "Immaculate Reception" of Franco Harris (December 23, 1972)

2011-12-23T12:20:00-05:00

Until this year my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers had a long history of losing. This season, however, they finished with a solid winning record (11-3) and made it to the playoffs. On this Saturday afternoon the Oakland Raiders were in Pittsburgh playing the Steelers in the AFC Divisional Playoffs. While the game was being played I was out collecting payment from customers of my morning paper route (the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Since it was Christmas, instead of the usual 25-50 cent tips, I was collecting tips in the stratospheric $2 to $5 range.

When I returned home the game was on the radio and it didn't look good as the Raiders had a 7-6 lead late in the game. Then in a flash the tables were turned as a pass by Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw bounced off the intended receiver and landed in the hands of Steelers rookie (and NFL Rookie of the Year) Franco Harris just before it reached the ground. He scooped it up and scooted 60 yards for the game winning touchdown with less than 20 seconds remaining. However, it took five minutes before Harris' catch was confirmed by officials as a legitimate reception. It was even more confusing if you weren't watching on TV as was our case since the game was blacked out in Pittsburgh.

Even today it seems unbelievable that this catch happened. And although the Steelers season ended the next week when they lost to the undefeated Miami Dolphins it was the beginning of the Steelers becoming one of the most successful and widely followed teams in the nation. (To immerse yourself fully in "Steelers Nation" lore the book The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Pittsburgh Steelers is a good starting point.)