Beware the ides of September — if you’re using a 2008 calendar from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
More than one quarter of the year is incorrectly dated on the postcard-sized calendar, sent to tens of thousands of Brooklynites, thanks to a printing error that made Sept. 15 appear twice, first on its actual day (Monday, Sept. 15) and again the next day (which is actually Tuesday, Sept. 16, not Tuesday, Sept. 15).
The error means that every day for the remainder of the year is off.
Carl Hum, the president of the 1,500-member organization, was not aware of creating Brooklyn’s own “Groundhog’s Day” scenario before being contacted by The Brooklyn Paper.
But later, he reflected that perhaps the group had overstepped its power.
“Despite the fact that we are the largest chamber in the metropolitan area and have done so much good for Brooklyn’s businesses, I’m pretty sure that adding another day to the calendar is not within our purview,” Hum said.
Calendar error notwithstanding, the dates of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting on Sept. 23 and its gala on Dec. 11 do not change. But those events will be on their actual day of the week (Tuesday, Sept. 23 and Thursday, Dec. 11).
Not many members of the Chamber had looked that far into the future yet, but they appreciated finding out from The Brooklyn Paper that they would be out of sync with the normal Gregorian calendar just after Labor Day.
Members were quick to pardon the Chamber, too.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said Henrietta Turnquest, who runs MTL Productions, an event management firm. “I think they would sent out a correction. They seem pretty conscientious.”
It was a rough year for calendars all over the borough though. After hearing about the Chamber of Commerce calendar disaster, a Brooklyn Paper editor noticed that his optometrist, Stuart Friedman, had distributed calendars that had the eagle-eyed doctor’s name spelled “Freidman.”
As any grade-school kid will tell you, it’s “i before e, except after c — and especially in Friedman.”
