August 21, 1901: "What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City" Is Filmed

August 21, 1901: What Happened on Twenty-third Street, New York City is filmed. Technically, it's a documentary, although it lasts only 1 minute and 17 seconds. But it is one of the earliest truly memorable films.

The camera was operated, and thus the film was directed, by Edwin S. Porter, the main film man at the Edison Manufacturing Company, run by Thomas Edison. He would direct The Great Train Robbery in 1903, and lived until 1941.

It is the dawn of not only motion pictures, which are still black & white, and silent, but of the automobile. The film shows horse-drawn carriages and electric trolleys, and 2 cars.

From the start of the film, a boy stares at the camera, as if he was trying to figure out just what sort of contraption he was looking at.

As the one-minute mark approaches, a couple starts walking toward the camera, and passes over a grating. The air from the grating blows up into the woman's long skirt, billowing it, creating a scene which has been retroactively compared to Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch, filmed uptown, in sound and in color, 53 years later. In this case, the woman laughs, perhaps mildly embarrassed. Unlike Marilyn, she is fully dressed (by the standards of any time, certainly demanded by the standards of that time) under the skirt. The man she is with also laughs.

No harm, no foul.

It has been suggested that the scene was set up and scripted, or else why would she laugh like that, rather than be embarrassed into fainting, as women back then stereotypically did? when embarrassed? It's also been suggested that, as in some other Edison pioneer films, the woman is actually a man in drag. The Internet Media Database (IMDb) lists her as Florence Georgie, but no information about such a person is available. Indeed, no one in the film has ever been definitively identified.

Just 16 days after this film was made on 23rd Street, President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo. Eight days after that, he died, and Theodore Roosevelt, born on 20th Street, became President.

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August 21, 1901 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played:

* A game scheduled between the Detroit Tigers and the Baltimore Orioles, for Oriole Park in Baltimore, was canceled, for reasons that Baseball-Reference.com does not have. Those Orioles folded at the end of the 1902 season, and were replaced by the New York Highlanders, who became the Yankees in 1913. The original AL Orioles and the Yankees are separate franchises.

* The Boston Americans beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 8-5 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. The Brewers moved the next season, becoming the St. Louis Browns, and they became the new Baltimore Orioles in 1954. The Americans became the Boston Red Sox in 1908.

* The Boston Beaneaters beat the New York Giants, 5-2 at the South End Grounds in Boston.

* The Chicago Orphans beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-1 at League Park in Cincinnati. For 22 seasons, Adrian Anson was the 1st baseman for the team originally known as the Chicago White Stockings. He became their Captain and manager, and was nicknamed Cap. As he got older, he was nicknamed Pop. The team was renamed the Chicago Colts in 1890, because they were so young. Anson retired after the 1897 season, and the team was renamed the Orphans, because "they missed their Pop." In 1903, they again embraced youth, and became the Chicago Cubs.

* A doubleheader was split at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Athletics won the 1st game, 8-7. The Cleveland Bluebirds won the 2nd game, 7-3. The Bluebirds became the Bronchos the next season, then acquired Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, and renamed themselves the Cleveland Naps in 1903. He left after 1914, and they became the Cleveland Indians, becoming the Cleveland Guardians in 2022.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Brooklyn Superbas, 6-2 at National League Park (later Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911. From 1914 to 1931, they were managed by Wilbert Robinson, and were the Brooklyn Robins. After that, they went back to being the Brooklyn Dodgers.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-0 at American League Park in Washington.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 in 12 innings at Robison Field in St. Louis.