December 28, 1944: "On the Town" Premieres On Broadway

December 28, 1944: On the Town premieres at the Adelphi Theater. George Abbott directed, Leonard Bernstein composed the music, and Jerome Robbins choreographed.

The show is about 3 sailors on leave in New York during World War II, which was still going on at the time. It starred John Battles (after Kirk Douglas had to drop out, due to his son Michael having just been born), Cris Alexander and Adolph Green. The female leads were Betty Comden and Nancy Walker. Comden and Green also wrote the story, and the lyrics for the songs.

Nancy Walker would later become famous as Ida Morgenstern on Rhoda, and Rosie the waitress in commercials for paper towels: "Bounty's the quicker-picker-upper!"

The show ran until February 2, 1946. It was filmed in 1949, with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin. The Hays Code still being in effect, the show's signature song had to be changed: "New York, New York, it's a hell of a town!" became "New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!"

This led to Comden, Green and Bernstein writing another musical about New York, titled Wonderful Town. Many years after that, Comden and Green would write a film musical, titled New York, New York, whose theme would be sung by the movie's female lead, Liza Minnelli, but the more famous version would be by Sinatra.

Kelly and Sinatra, of course, were among the greatest entertainers of the 20th Century; but if you can name a Munshin role other than Ozzie in the film version of On the Town, then you're one up on me.

The Adelphi Theater was at 152 West 54th Street. It was demolished in 1970, and the New York Hilton Midtown was built on the site.

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December 28, 1944 was a Thursday. Johnny Isakson, who served 14 years in the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Georgia, was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football season was over except for the New Year's Day bowl games. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the Boston Garden. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 9-1 at the Montreal Forum. Maurice "the Rocket" Richard, on his way to a season in which he scored 50 goals in 50 games, scored 5 goals and had 3 assists. In other words, the Habs scored 9 goals, and he was involved in 8 of them. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs were not scheduled.

November 14, 1943: The Birth of the Bernstein Legend

November 14, 1943: Leonard Bernstein, substituting at the last minute for ailing principal conductor Bruno Walter, directs the New York Philharmonic in its regular Sunday afternoon broadcast concert on CBS.

The event receives front-page coverage in The New York Times the following day, and the 25-year-old Bernstein is on his way to becoming a legend.

He was born Louis Bernstein on August 25, 1918, outside Boston in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

His grandmother insisted that his first name be Louis, but his parents always called him "Leonard." He legally changed his name from Louis to Leonard when he was 16. To his friends and many others, Bernstein was simply known as "Lenny." And, as he frequently pointed out, his name was pronounced "BURN-stine," not "BURN-steen." He would say, "You've never played a STEEN-way piano, have you?"

As a composer, Bernstein wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and pieces for the piano. His works include the Broadway musicals On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, and, most familiarly, West Side Story.

Bernstein was the 1st American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra, as music director of the New York Philharmonic. He shared and explored classical music on television with a mass audience in national and international broadcasts, including Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic.

He worked in support of civil rights, protested against the Vietnam War, advocated nuclear disarmament, raised money for HIV/AIDS research and awareness, and engaged in multiple international initiatives for human rights and world peace. He conducted Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony to mark the death of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, and Hatikvah on Mt. Scopus, in Israel after the June 1967 Six-Day War.

On Christmas Day 1989, he conducted a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Berlin, to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was his last major performance, as he died on October 14, 1990, at the age of 72.

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November 14, 1943 was a Sunday. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was almost killed by his own troops on this day. I have a separate entry for that event.

These games were played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Bears, 56-7 at the Polo Grounds. This was an outlier: Although the Bears did go on to win the NFL Championship, the Giants were not a bad team that season, going 6-3-1. They reached the NFL Championship Game in 1941, 1944 and 1946, losing all 3.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the combined Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers team that was known as the "Steagles," 13-7 at Ebbets Field.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Detroit Lions, 42-20 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* And the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Cardinals, 35-14 at the Dairy Bowl in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, Wisconsin. The Dairy Bowl was a football stadium built in the infield of a speedway, now known as the Milwaukee Mile, at the Wisconsin State Fair Park.

Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 10-5 at the Chicago Stadium. Bill Gooden scored 2 goals for the Rangers. For the Hawks, Cully Dahlstrom scored 3 goals and 2 assists. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs were not scheduled.

November 9, 1989: The Berlin Wall Comes Down

November 9, 1989: After several weeks of civil unrest, the government of the German Democratic Republic (a.k.a. East Germany) announces that its citizens could visit the Federal Republic of Germany (a.k.a. West Germany) and West Berlin.

This renders the Berlin Wall, the 11-foot-9-inch high, 96-mile long concrete barrier surrounding West Berlin and symbolizing the "Iron Curtain" that had separated Communist Eastern Europe from capitalist Western Europe since its erection began on August 13, 1961, unenforceable and irrelevant. Crowds of East Germans climb over the wall, and through the various checkpoints between East and West Berlin, some taking chisels and sledgehammers to the Wall while the world watches on television.

Speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev: "Mr. Gorbachev, dear down this wall!" While Gorbachev's reforms within the Soviet Union certainly inspired people, and even governments, throughout Eastern Europe, inspiring Time magazine to name him not just Man of the Year but Man of the Decade, he didn't lift a finger to make the Wall's irrelevance possible.

On Christmas Day, December 25, 1989, in a symbolic gesture of reunification and renewal, Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Berlin, to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was his last major performance, as he died on October 14, 1990, at the age of 72.

The official demolition of the Wall began on June 13, 1990, and was officially completed in 1994. There are still pieces left in Berlin, and other pieces were bought and put on display as museum pieces. Some of America's Presidential Libraries, particularly those of Presidents who served during the Cold War, have pieces on display.

The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way from German reunification, which was formalized on October 3, 1990. The East still hasn't fully caught up with the West, but it's closer now.

Ironically, from a sports perspective, reunification hasn't helped the nation's combined sports teams all that much. While both West Germany and East Germany did very well at the Olympics, the combined team hasn't won more medals than the two separate countries' previous combined totals. Thought that may be due to the East Germans no longer having access to Communist-administered steroids.

And the German national soccer team, while still successful, hasn't been more successful. West Germany won the World Cup in 1954, 1974 and 1990. The combined nation has won it once, in 2014, and did so with a single player born and trained in East Germany: Toni Kroos. Given that a child born in East Germany on the morning of October 3, 1990 would be 32 years old when the 2022 World Cup gets underway, Kroos is likely to be the only East German who ever wins it.

There is one more postscript. One of the buildings in East Germany that was stormed by demonstrators was the Stasi headquarters in Dresden, where a 37-year-old KGB agent was stationed. He called Moscow for permission to defend it, and didn't get it, and had to flee. He felt betrayed by his country's government, and swore revenge. His name was Vladimir Putin.

Just as Hitler barely survived being killed in World War I, Putin had a narrow escape from being captured the night the Wall fell.

November 9 has become Germany's "Day of Destiny": On that date, in 1918, the Kaiser abdicated and the 1st German Republic was proclaimed; in 1923, the Beer Hall Putsch failed; in 1938, Kristallnacht was carried out by the Nazis; and in 1989, the Berlin Wall was rendered legally moot.

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November 9, 1989 was a Thursday. The baseball season had ended 12 days earlier, when the Oakland Athletics won the World Series against their fellow Bay Area team, the San Francisco Giants. Although Thursday night games are common in the NFL now, they weren't then, and so there was no NFL game on that day.

There were 4 NBA games played, including an intra-metropolitan one and an intra-State one:

* The New York Knicks beat the New Jersey Nets, 107-105 at Madison Square Garden. Charles Oakley led the Knickerbockers with 22 points, and Patrick Ewing scored 20. For the Nets, Chris Morris scored 21 and Dennis Hopson 20.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 155-154 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, in not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5 overtimes. Ricky Pierce scored 36 for the Bucks.. For the Sonics, Dale Ellis scored 53, and Xavier McDaniel 37. (There has been a 6-overtime game in NBA history: January 6, 1951, before the institution of the 24-second shot clock: Indianapolis Olympians 75, Rochester Royals 73.)

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Houston Rockets, 128-127 in overtime at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.") Hakeem Olajuwon and Otis Thorpe each scored 33 points in a losing cause, while Danny Schayes led the Nugs with just 21.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors, 106-95 at what's now named the Oracle Arena in Oakland. A.C. Green led the Lakers with 24, while Chris Mullen netted 30 for the Dubs.

There were 6 NHL games played, only 1 involving a New York Tri-State Area team: 

* The New York Islanders lost to the Quebec Nordiques, 7-5 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Edmonton Oilers, 6-2 at the Boston Garden. This turned out to be a preview of the Stanley Cup Finals, although the Oilers would win that.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Montreal Canadiens and the St. Louis Blues played to a tie, 1-1 at the St. Louis Arena.

October 18, 1961: The Film Version of "West Side Story" Premieres

Left: Jets. Right: Sharks.

October 18, 1961: The film version of the 1957 musical West Side Story premieres. It's a modern retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In some cases, I'm doing entries for the original stage versions of shows. In some, I'm doing it for the films. West Side Story is the only one truly influential enough to deserve an entry for each version.

In this corner, of various white extractions including Irish, Italian and Polish -- and one kid known by a name that would never fly today, "A-rab" -- is a gang named the Jets: Richard Beymer as Tony (replacing Larry Kert from the original Broadway production, Jimmy Bryant did his singing), Russ Tamblyn as Riff (Michael Callan), and several other guys and girls. Elaine Joyce, already a Broadway performer, made her film debut, as Hotsie, girlfriend of Tiger, one of the Jets, several years before she became a regular panelist on game shows.

And in this corner, the Puerto Ricans, calling their gang the Sharks: Natalie Wood as Maria (with her songs sung by Marni Nixon, replacing Carol Lawrence from Broadway), George Chakiris as Bernardo (replacing Ken LeRoy -- ironically, Chakiris played Riff when the musical first took the British stage in 1958), Jose DeVega as Chino, and Rita Moreno as Anita, Maria's best friend and Bernardo's girlfriend (replacing Chita Rivera). 

The Jets and the Sharks only seem to agree on 3 things: That they're all Catholic, that you gotta be tough to survive in Hell's Kitchen -- Manhattan's West Side, 8th Avenue to the Hudson River, 41st to 59th Streets -- and that they hate the police, who hate them back. William Bramley plays Sergeant Krupke, a.k.a. Officer Krupke. Bramley was the only notable actor from the original show reprising his role.

The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Oscars), winning 10 of them, including Best Picture, Best Director for Wise, Best Supporting Actor for Chakiris, and Best Supporting Actress for Moreno. Oddly, Beymer wasn't nominated for Best Actor. (Maximilian Schell won for Judgment at Nuremberg.) Natalie Wood was nominated for Best Actress, but for Splendor in the Grass rather than for West Side Story. (Sophia Loren won for Two Women, the 1st Oscar for a role in a language other than English.)

In the Spring of 2017, I was babysitting my niece Mackenzie, not yet a full year old. And West Side Story came on TV, with its creditless opening montage showing New York from above, including the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium in living color. When the camera finally panned down to the finger-snapping Jets, and they started dancing to Jerome Robbins' choreography and Leonard Bernstein's score, Mackenzie was transfixed, going, "Ooh, ooh, ooh." This baby could not take her eyes off a movie that premiered nearly 55 years before she was born.

Steven Spielberg directed a remake in 2021, this time with the characters played by actors of the appropriate ethnicities. Tony was played by Ansel Elgort. Rachel Zegler, Polish on her father's side but Colombian on her mother's, played Maria. David Alvarez, a Montreal-born Cuban, played Bernardo.

It was nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, making it the 2nd remake of a Best Picture nominee to also be so honored, after the 1935 and 1962 versions of Mutiny on the Bounty. But it only won 1: Ariana DuBose, taking over as Anita from Moreno, who cameoed in the film as the mentor character Valentina. No other actor was nominated, although Spielberg was nominated as Best Director for a record 11th time.

(He's won twice, for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. I guess he's better doing movies set in 1944 than he is with 1957. He shouldn't make a movie about Sputnik, the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers, or the assassination of Albert Anastasia. He wouldn't make those, but he might make a movie about the Little Rock Nine.)

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October 18, 1961 was a Wednesday. It was a big day in music for another reason: Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was born.

Baseball season ended 9 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. Football was in midweek. The new NBA season started the next day. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Rangers, 5-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

September 26, 1957: "West Side Story" Premieres

September 26, 1957: West Side Story premieres at the Winter Garden Theatre. It is often called the greatest musical in Broadway history. Arthur Laurents wrote the book, Stephen Sondheim the lyrics, Leonard Bernstein the music, and Jerome Robbins directed the show and ran the choreography. The show ran until June 27, 1959, before going on a U.S. tour.

In 1949, Robbins approached Bernstein and Laurents (all of them Jewish) about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The conflict was to be centered on the anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds."

Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose, and the project was shelved.

In 1955, Laurents and Bernstein met again in Los Angeles, and talked about the recent rise of youth gangs. They decided to revive East Side Story, with the Irish family replaced by a multi-ethnic white gang, and the Jewish family replaced with a Puerto Rican gang. At this point, in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, making one of the gangs black would have been too incendiary. Sondheim was brought in, and the title was changed to West Side Story.

In this corner, the Jets: Larry Kert as Tony, Michael Callan as Riff, and several other guys and girls. And in the other corner, the Sharks: Carol Lawrence as Maria, Ken LeRoy as Bernardo, Jamie Sanchez (one of the few actual Hispanics in the cast) as Chino, and Chita Rivera (ditto) as Anita. A character named Francisca is played by an actress named Elizabeth Taylor, but it's not that Elizabeth Taylor.

The only thing the Jets and the Sharks seem to agree on, besides all of them being Catholic and that you gotta be tough to survive in Hell's Kitchen on Manhattan's West Side, is hating the police. William Bramley plays Sergeant Krupke, a.k.a. Officer Krupke.

Tony has been out of the Jets for a while, and has a real job, although it doesn't pay much. He meets Maria, sister of Sharks leader Bernardo. They fall in love instantly, one thing leads to another, and, well, Spoiler Alert: Unlike in Romeo and Juliet, "Juliet" lives, but "Romeo" doesn't. Having a tragic ending was unusual for a Broadway musical. Nevertheless, it was nominated for 6 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It won 2: Robbins for Best Choreography, and Oliver Smith for Best Scenic Design.

A film version premiered on October 18, 1961, directed by Robbins and Robert Wise. Bramley, as Krupke, was the only notable actor from the original show reprising his role. Richard Beymer played Tony (with Jimmy Bryant doing his singing), Natalie Wood played Maria (with Marni Nixon doing her singing), Russ Tamblyn played Riff, George Chakiris as Bernardo (ironically, he'd played Riff in the 1st British stage version in 1958), Jose DeVega as Chino, Rita Moreno in her Oscar-winning performance as Anita, and Elaine Joyce made her film debut, several years before she became a regular on Match Game. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Oscars), winning 10 of them, including Best Picture. 

The show has been revived on Broadway several times, and a new film version was made in 2021. This one was written by Broadway icon Tony Kushner, and directed by the one and only Steven Spielberg. Tony was played by Ansel Elgort, Maria by Rachel Zegler, Anita by Ariana DeBose, Bernardo by David Alvarez, Riff by Mike Faist, Chino by Josh Andrés Rivera, and Officer Krupke by Brian d'Arcy James. Rita Moreno, age 89, was brought back, in the newly-created role of Valentina, a general store owner.

In 1969, after winning the Super Bowl with a different group of Jets, Joe Namath got his own TV talk show. The moderator was author Dick Schaap. Schaap was an Ivy Leaguer, having gone to Cornell University. Namath barely got through the University of Alabama. At one point during the run of The Joe Namath Show, Schaap mentioned that he was going to see Romeo & Juliet as part of the Shakespeare in the Park series, and invited Namath. Namath said, "What's it about?" Schaap was shocked that Namath had never heard of it. So he said, "Did you ever see West Side Story?"

In 1972, the World Hockey Association was founded. Two of its teams were the Winnipeg Jets and the Los Angeles Sharks. And the "Jets vs. Sharks" jokes were easy. In 1979, with the Sharks long since disbanded, the Jets were among the WHA teams invited to join the NHL. In 1991, the San Jose Sharks were founded, and the jokes resumed. In 1996, the Jets moved to become the team now known as the Arizona Coyotes. In 2011, the Atlanta Thrashers moved, became the new Winnipeg Jets, and the Jets vs. Sharks jokes started all over again.

In 2007, I was babysitting my niece Mackenzie, not yet a full year old. And the 1961 film of West Side Story came on TV, with its creditless opening montage showing New York from above, including the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium in living color. When the camera finally panned down to the finger-snapping Jets, and they started dancing to Bernstein's score, Mackenzie was transfixed, going, "Ooh, ooh, ooh!" This baby could not take her eyes off a movie that premiered nearly 55 years before she was born.

In 2019, another version of the story, & Juliet premiered in London. It was a "jukebox musical," produced by Swedish songwriter Max Martin, and featuring hit songs he wrote, worked into a story imagining that Juliet had survived and picked up her life.

Among the songs, which have arguably made Martin the most prolific songwriter of the 21st Century thus far: Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!...I Did It Again," Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone," Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do," Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl," "Teenage Dream" and "Roar," Jessie J's "Domino," and Ariana Grande's "Problem." It is scheduled to open on Broadway on November 17, 2022 -- appropriately enough, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.

The Winter Garden Theatre, site of the original Broadway production, still stands at 1634 Broadway, between 50th and 51st Streets. In opened in 1911, and seats 1,600. Among its other original productions: Sky High in 1925, Hellzapoppin in 1938, Wonderful Town in 1953, Peter Pan in 1954, Bus Stop in 1956, Once Upon a Mattress and The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1960, Funny Girl in 1964, Mame in 1966, Sondheim's musical Follies in 1971, Beatlemania in 1977, and Mamma Mia! in 2001. From 1982 to 2001, it hosted Cats, at the time of its closing the longest-running musical in Broadway history.

In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Romeo, and comedian Grace Helbig played Juliet, against YouTuber Hannah Hart as Bonnie Parker and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as Clyde Barrow.

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September 26, 1957 was a Thursday. There were only 2 scores on this historic day, both in baseball. The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago, despite Al Kaline going 0-for-4. And the Cleveland Indians beat the Kansas City Athletics, 2-1 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. For the Indians, rookie Roger Maris went 0-for-1 with 3 walks.