September 13, 1970: The 1st New York City Marathon

September 13, 1970: The 1st New York City Marathon is held, organized by the New York Road Runners Association. They ran a little over 8 laps around Central Park -- 2.6 miles north-to-south, 110th to 59th Street, and 0.6 miles east-to-west, 5th to 8th Avenue -- adding up to the standard marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards, or 26.2 miles.

There were 127 runners that started, and 55 that finished, including Gary Muhrcke, who finished in 2 hours, 31 minutes, 38 seconds. Not among the finishers was Nina Kuscsik, the only woman in the race.

In 1976, the race was expanded to include all 5 Boroughs. Starting at 10:10 AM on the 1st Sunday in November at the Staten Island end of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, with up to 45,000 runners, the race goes up 4th Avenue and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. It crosses the Pulaski Bridge into Long Island City, Queens, which is roughly the halfway point.

It goes over the Queensborough Bridge into Manhattan, and goes up the Upper East Side on 1st Avenue. It goes over the Willis Avenue Bridge in The Bronx, then quickly turns around at East 138th Street, and goes back into Manhattan over the Madison Avenue Bridge. It then goes down 5thAvenue, and into Central Park at East 90th Street. It goes through the Park until 59th Street, turns there, and reaches Columbus Circle. Then it goes back into the Park, with the finish line opposite the famed restaurant Tavern on the Green at West 66th Street and Central Park West.

The current record holders are Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya, with the fastest men’s time of 2:05:06, in 2011; and Margaret Okayo, also of Kenya, in 2003, with the fastest women’s time of 2:22:31. The race had been run every year until 2012, when it was canceled in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. It was canceled again in 2020, due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

UPDATE: In 2023, Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia set a new record, with 2:04.58.

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September 13, 1970 was a Sunday. The NFL season began the following weekend. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians, 3-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Steve Hargan allowed to hits to Mel Stottlemyre's 5. Future Yankee Graig Nettles and Buddy Bradford hit home runs for the Tribe. The Yankees got only singles from Roy White and Danny Cater. Their run came on Horace Clarke reaching on an error, White's single, and an RBI groundout from Bobby Murcer.

* The New York Mets lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-4 at Shea Stadium. Joe Torre hit a home run in the top of the 13th inning. Nolan Ryan, not yet a star, pitched the 5th inning for the Mets, allowing a run.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies, Jarry Park in Montreal.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox, 13-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Frank Robinson did not play, but Brooks Robinson went 2-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Carl Yastrzemski hit a home run.

* The Washington Senators beat the Detroit Tigers, 10-0 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Joe Coleman Jr. pitched a 3-hit shutout. Rick Reichardt went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Al Kaline went 0-for-4.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 1-for-3. Roberto Clemente did not play, but Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 8-7 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3 with 2 walks. Rod Carew did not play.

* The Kansas City Royals swept a doubleheader from the Oakland Athletics at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Both games went to extra innings, with a score of 8-7. In the 1st game, the A's scored a run in the top of the 11th, but Lou Piniella tripled home 2 runs in the bottom half.

In the 2nd game, the A's scored 7 runs in the 2nd inning, but the Royals tied the game in the 8th, and Ed Kirkpatrick singled Jackie Hernández home in the 12th. Over the 2 games, Reggie Jackson went 6-for-9 with a home run, 2 walks and 3 RBIs.

* The Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves, 10-6 at the Astrodome in Houston. Hank Aaron went 0-for-2 with a walk before being replaced.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Pete Rose with a home run. Johnny Bench went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The California Angels beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 2-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 5-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The Dodgers scored 4 runs in the top of the 10th, including a home run by former Giants catcher Tom Haller. The Giants scored 2 in the bottom of the 10th, but it wasn't enough.

July 21, 1983: The Diana Ross Concert In Central Park

July 21, 1983: Diana Ross takes a stage set up on the Great Lawn of in Central Park in New York, in front of 800,000 people. The cable network Showtime aired it live, worldwide.

Two months earlier, on May 16, Ross had reunited with her former Supremes mates Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong for the 1st time since New Year's Eve 1969, as part of the Motown 25 TV special. The friction between Miss Ross and the others was obvious, and they never reunited again.

It did, however, get Ross' name back into the headlines, as she hadn't had a hit in 3 years, and she was only 39 years old and still looked and sounded fantastic. She worked with the City of New York to build a playground, with her name on it, with proceeds from a free concert in the Park.

Midway through the beginning of the show, a torrential downpour began. Ross tried to continue performing, but the severe weather forced the show to be stopped after 45 minutes. Ross urged the large crowd to exit the venue safely, promising to perform the next day.

The next day's concert suffered no rain, but the memorabilia that was supposed to be sold to raise money for the playground had already been destroyed by the storm. When journalists discovered the exorbitant costs of the two concerts, Ross faced criticism from Mayor Ed Koch and the Parks Department commissioner. During a subsequent mayoral press conference, Ross handed Koch a check for $250,000 for the project. The Diana Ross Playground opened in 1986.

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July 21, 1983 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-1 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Charlie Puleo, who grew up a Met fan in Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey, and had started his career with them, was the winning pitcher for the Reds. Johnny Bench, in his final season, did not play.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Houston Astros, 9-4 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves, 10-6 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Mike Schmidt went 2-for-3 with a home run, a walk and an RBI. Pete Rose went 3-for-6 with 3 RBI.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago White Sox, 7-6 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Robin Yount went 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Paul Molitor went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* The San Diego Padres beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* A doubleheader was split at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The Detroit Tigers won the opener, 5-1. The California Angels won the nightcap, 3-2. Over the 2 games, Reggie Jackson went 3-for-7 with a walk and an RBI, and Rod Carew went 0-for-8, a rare bad day at the plate for him.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-7 at the Oakland Coliseum. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with 2 walks. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Cal Ripken went 1-for-5.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 14-13 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Steve Henderson made an error on a Tony Armas fly ball that gave the Red Sox the winning run in the top of the 10th inning. The Red Sox got home runs from Armas and Dave Stapleton; the Mariners got 2 from Richie Zisk and 1 from Jamie Nelson.

* The rain that drenched Central Park also hit Yankee Stadium, postponing the New York Yankees' game with the Kansas City Royals. It was made up the next day as part of a doubleheader. The Yankees won the opener, 7-6. After Goose Gossage blew the save in the top of the 9th, Don Baylor bailed him out by singling home Steve Kemp with the winning run. Dave Winfield hit a home run.

The Royals won the nightcap, 3-2. Former Oakland pitchers Vida Blue and Matt Keough, briefly teammates in 1977, had a pitcher's duel in this one. The Royals led 1-0 in the bottom of the 9th, but Don Mattingly singled Kemp home. Both teams scored in the 11th inning. But in the top of the 12th, George Frazier gave up singles to Frank White and Don Slaught, and Jay Howell gave up the game-losing single to Willie Wilson.

Three days later, George Brett would put too much pine tar on his bat, and get called out after hitting a home run, and the Yankees won -- only for American League President Lee MacPhail to overturn the call, and give the game to the Royals.

And the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins were rained out at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The game was rescheduled for the following Sunday, July 24. The Twins swept, 7-5 and 5-4.

June 18, 1962: Shakespeare In the Park

June 18, 1962: The Delacorte Theater opens in Central Park in Manhattan, at roughly the midway point between the American Museum of Natural History on the West Side, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the East Side, about where the intersection of 81st Street & 7th Avenue would be.

It was the idea of Joseph Papp, a poor Jewish kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who fell in love with the works of William Shakespeare. He thought "The Bard" should belong to everybody. He began producing and directing a series of Shakespeare workshops, then moved on to free productions on the Lower East Side. Eventually, the plays moved to a lawn in front of Turtle Pond in Central Park.

In 1959, Robert Moses, whose many City and State government positions included that of the City's Commissioner of Parks, demanded that Papp and his company charge a fee for the performances to cover the cost of "grass erosion." A court battle ensued. Papp continued to fight Moses, winning his enduring respect and the quote, "Well, let's build the bastard a theater."

Following this, Moses requested funds from the city for the construction of an amphitheater in the park. In 1961, the Delacorte was built, as an 1,800-seat amphitheatre. It was named for George T. Delacorte Jr., president of Dell Publishing, a Shakespeare fan who contributed $150,000 to the building's cost. The first performance held in the theater in 1962 was Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, starring George C. Scott and James Earl Jones.

Six months earlier, on December 1, 1961, The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs was published. She was in the process of defeating Moses over his proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway between the Holland Tunnel and the Manhattan Bridge, which would have done to Greenwich Village, Tribeca, SoHo and the Lower East Side what his Cross Bronx Expressway did to The Bronx: Destroyed them.

Papp died in 1991. Since 1962, over 5 million people have attended Delacorte productions, most of them of Shakespeare's plays.

In a 2011 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, guest performer George Watsky played Shakespeare, opposed by guest performer Mickey Meyer as Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing the Cat in the Hat, and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Thing 1 and Thing 2. This was the 1st time the series had 2 guest stars opposing each other, although Meyer as Seuss did not speak.

UPDATE: The Delacorte closed for renovations on September 4, 2023, and reopened on July 15, 2025.

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June 18, 1962 was a Monday. There were 5 baseball games played that day:

* The New York Mets lost to the Milwaukee Braves, 7-1 at the Polo Grounds. Hank Aaron went 3-for-5 with 5 RBIs, including his 267th career home run. There would be many more.

* The Cincinnati Reds swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-5 and 4-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Over the 2 games, Frank Robinson went 4-for-9 with a home run and 6 RBIs, and Roberto Clemente went 3-for-7 with a walk.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Athletics, 9-4 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 1-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Thsis was a matchup between perhaps the 2 best pitchers of their generation. For the Dodgers, Sandy Koufax pitched a 5-hit shutout, striking out 9 and walking none. For the Cards, Bob Gibson had a 2-hit shutout with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th inning, striking out 8 and walking 4, before Tommy Davis hit a home run to win it. Stan Musial went 2-for-3.

June 12, 1982: The Central Park Nuclear Disarmament Rally

June 12, 1982: A Nuclear Disarmament Rally is held in New York’s Central Park. A crowd of 750,000 turns out. Musical performances are given by Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Linda Ronstadt.

These were people desperate to avoid a nuclear confrontation between America and the Soviet Union. They were begging President Ronald Reagan to listen to them.

He didn't: He kept on building up America's nuclear arsenal, even though we already had enough bombs to destroy the Soviet Union many times over.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became Premier of the Soviet Union. He and Reagan started talking, and the process of winding the Cold War down began.

Reagan did not "win the Cold War" all by himself. He did very little to win it. But since he left office, the people who made the myths about him have written the tremendous opposition to him, including this rally, out of history. They acted as though his 49-out-of-50-States performance in the 1984 election meant that he was overwhelmingly popular.

But, according to a consensus of national polls, his approval rating dipped below 50 percent in December 1981, was 45 percent as the rally was held and the recession took hold in June 1982, bottomed out at 35 percent in January 1983, didn't get back above 50 percent until November 1983, reached 68 percent in January 1985, stayed above 60 percent until November 1986, then fell back below 50 percent again after the revelations of the Iran-Contra scandal, falling to 42 precent in March 1987, before rebounding during the 1988 Presidential campaign. He left office at 68 percent.

Ronald Reagan was not a great President, but he played one on TV.

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June 12, 1982 was a Saturday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 5-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Shane Rawley gave up an 8th-inning home run to eventual Rookie of the Year Cal Ripken Jr.

* The New York Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2 at Shea Stadium.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-5 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-4 at Fenway Park. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-4.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 8-1 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Rickey Henderson went 2-for-6 with a home run and 2 RBIs -- but no stolen bases.

* The California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ken Forsch pitched a 3-hit shutout. Rod Carew went 1-for-4, and Reggie Jackson did not play.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Robin Yount went 0-for-2 with 2 walks, and Paul Molitor went 1-for-4.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-2 at Royals Stadium in Kansas City. (It was renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1993.) George Brett went 1-for-4.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Houston Astros, 4-0 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. (It was renamed Qualcomm Stadium in 1997.) Chris Welsh pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Johnny Bench went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* And the Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 10-5 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Phil Niekro, 43-year-old knuckleballer, got the win, with a save by Al Hrabosky, "The Mad Hungarian."

April 13, 1870: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Is Founded In New York

April 13, 1870: The Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded in New York. It opens a physical location on February 20, 1872, at 681 5th Avenue, at 54th Street -- right around the corner from where its eventual rival, the Museum of Modern Art, would be built.

Its permanent location opened on March 30, 1880, at 1000 5th Avenue, just inside Central Park from 80th to 84th Streets, with its main entrance at 82nd. The Museum is directly across Central Park, 1 mile away, from the American Museum of Natural History. Both would be hallmarks of the Gilded Age.

The Great Hall at the 82nd Street entrance

The stretch of 5th Avenue alongside the Park is known as Museum Mile, and also includes the Frick Collection at 70th Street, the Ukrainian Institute of America at 79th, Neue Galerie New York at 86th, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum at 88th, the Cooper Hewitt Museum at 91st, the Jewish Museum at 92nd, and the Museum of the City of New York and the Hispanic-themed Museo del Barrio, on opposite sides of 104th.

The permanent collection of "The Met" -- not to be confused with the Metropolitan Opera, or its House at Lincoln Center, or Citi Field, home of baseball's New York Mets -- has works of art from all over the world: Ancient Egypt, Greece, Byzantine, Islamic art, Asia and the Pacific Rim. It has encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes, decorative arts, textiles, interior designs, jewelry, weapons and armor.

Among the well-known paintings are Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga (a.k.a. The Red Boy) by Francisco Goya, Portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent, Self-portrait with Straw Hat by Vincent van Gogh, The Card Players by Paul Cézanne, The Gulf Stream by Winslow Homer, and I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold by Charles Demuth.

The Museum also contains works by Michelangelo Caravaggio (usually referred to by his surname, so he's not confused with Michelangelo Buonarotti), Rembrandt van Rijn (usually referred to by his first name), Johannes Vermeer, Eugene Delacroix, Pablo Picasso, and, confusing some, Édouard Manet and Claude Monet.

There are also some noteworthy statues, including a copy of Augustus Saint-Gaudens' nude of the archer goddess Diana. But this is not the version that topped the 1891-1925 version of Madison Square Garden, 56 blocks down 5th Avenue. That one is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (You know, the one whose steps Rocky Balboa ran up.) Ironically, it was a Philadelphia art critic who wrote a savage review of the statue.

The Met established the world's first museum shop in 1908, and it's worth a visit all by itself. In 1954, it opened the Grace Rainey Rogers Concert Hall, and the classical concerts staged there proved so successful, they started an art lecture series there in 1956.

Today, The Met is the largest art museum in America, in terms of exhibition space, and the 4th-largest in the world, behind the Louvre in Paris, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the British Museum in London. It ranks 3rd, behind the British Museum and the Hermitage, in number of objects available to display. It is the 3rd-most-visited museum in the U.S., behind the National Museum of Natural History and the National Gallery of Art, both of them part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

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April 13, 1870 was a Wednesday. Baseball was the only team sport in North America at the time, and the season hadn't started yet. So there were no scores on this historic day.