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Then and now: The Bay News through the ages

Then and now: The Bay News through the ages

The print parent of the Bay News was an eight-page newsletter that appeared twice a month and predated Bugs Bunny, the first James Bond movie, and the man on the moon.

Sheepshead Bay minister Charlie Peterson published the first issue of the Sheepshead Bay Service News in June 1945 to keep his community briefed about Brooklynites battling the enemy overseas in World War II. An all-female staff tracked them down around the world to report on a borough son released from a concentration camp or a local daughter doing swell work in the Women’s Army Corps.

Readers fell in love with the cozy, chatty gazette, and Peterson continued its publication after the war ended, changing its name to the Sheepshead Bay Town News and then to the Bay News.

He sold it in 1956 for $1,000 to Dan Greenberg, Bob Lesserson, and Norman Fallick, co-owners of the Kings Courier on Utica Avenue and Kings Highway. The young self-starters snapped up several area circulars and rival Herman Furtzaig’s Flatbush Life newspaper, and brought in Lesserson’s ambitious fraternity pal Ed Luster, who spoke like Jimmy Cagney and dressed like Cary Grant.

Former Community Board 13 district manager Chuck Reichenthal, an editor at the Bay News in its original office at 1159 Flatbush Ave., near Clarendon Road, recalls the pandemonium of those early publishing days.

“We had problems every week, but I never had so much fun in my life!” he says. “Twenty-four-seven, it became a question of ‘I quit,’ ‘you’re fired,’ and that went on for 10 years!”

Luster eventually bought out the others, and in 1977 he and his wife Rhoda moved their operation to 1733 Sheepshead Bay Rd., between Voorhies Avenue and Shore Parkway, adding Canarsie Digest, Bay Ridge Courier, Brooklyn Graphic, Harbor Watch, several downtown weeklies, and six Staten Island papers to their media dynasty, whose sales and advertising was managed by son Clifford, who is now the publisher.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp bought the Courier chain in 2006, combining it with local papers in Queens and the Bronx to form Community Newspaper Group, and then sold the company to Les and Jennifer Goodstein in 2014, who added a slate of Manhattan titles.

The Bay News has survived a world war, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, making its long life a rare and impressive feat in an age of short-lived enterprises. Our retrospective follows the paper’s journey through the ages and explores its pages from the past.

1940s

• The Sheepshead Bay Service News focuses mostly on military issues and the exploits of our fighting men and women.

• A full-page reproduction of a training poster about the Japanese soldier — entitled “Tricks of the Nips” — explains: “We’re giving over this page to those training pictures so our readers may see for themselves what the fighting men must face. These are new pictures; they just came out. That means the Jap still has an army — a dangerous one and a damn big one!”

• Covers scream with pictures of bay natives battling around the globe — uniformed men with names like William Gerard, Kenneth Howell, and John O’Brien are saluted as “typical Sheepshead Bay fighting men.”

• A July 1945 cover story reports on the Sheepshead Bay Training Station of the U.S. Maritime Service being honored when the vessel Sheepshead Bay Victory sails into Chesapeake Bay.

• The editorial page pushes for joining the United Nations to safeguard world peace as the war draws to a close, opining, “We in Sheepshead Bay have a big stake in the ratification — without reservations or amendments — of the charter. Our boys and girls fighting all over the globe expect us at home to insist on just such an organization to prevent future aggression.”

• Long-vanished Sheepshead Bay Road businesses, such as Sanders Drug Store, Clark’s Cafe and Louis’ Restaurant, are Bay News advertisers.

• The letters’ page — graced with smiling pin-up gals named Anne Zelli, Mary Gagliardo, and Peggy Binckes — features correspondence about men named Edward Rizzo, Frank Brincat, Bernard Simon, and other prisoners of war.

• Sergeant Arnold Karlin proves home is never far from his thoughts when he writes in a letter dated 1945, “Everything here in Burma is swell. I’m at base now living like a decent human being. Though many of us have seen all of the so-called “wonders” of our world, believe me, there’s no place like home, and home is Sheepshead Bay!”

• Staff Sgt. Frank “Manky” Powell shared an image of the unspeakable: “I am enclosing a picture that I took of Buchenwald, the Nazi prison camp. It will give you a little idea of some of the things that went on over there. Inside the building in this picture are the ovens that they burnt the bodies in. When I got here, there were still some half-burnt bodies in the furnaces. This is only a small pile of bodies. There were box-cars full.”

• In April 1945 Pvt. Nicholas Van Vakas writes about receiving the Bay News: “When your paper arrived, it was like hearing from the old gang. I simply can’t put into words the elation I felt when I saw that the folks I knew personally had not forgotten about us boys after all! You see, the greatest fear of a soldier overseas is that the folks back home will forget him. Sometimes the boys over here get a bit cynical about things ‘back home,’ but receiving a paper like yours tends to alleviate such a feeling.”

1950s

• The Bay News introduces a centerfold television guide, highlighting Jack Parr, Jackie Gleason, Jack Klugman, and other popular celebrities of the day, as the new-fangled entertainment takes off in Brooklyn.

• The newspaper co-sponsors the Miss Brooklyn contest with Tappans Restaurant, an Ocean Avenue hotspot, announcing it in front page “wood,” an old tabloid term for the biggest headline typeface.

• Columnists reflect the paper’s lighter side: Sam Silvers’s “Seeing Sport” profiles local high-school action. Al Weisbrot’s “Brighton Beat” greets readers with “Hiya all! Nice winter we’re having this summer!” Miriam Sobel’s “Social Notes and Shopping Views” highlights local businesses, including Nancy’s on Avenue X, Warren’s Career and Campus Wear on Nostrand Avenue, and Schiff’s Furniture on Sheepshead Bay Road.

• The annual round-up — still going strong today! — features juicy tidbits from months past, including the doozy: “Baron DeKalb Knights of Columbus raises $800 for Sheepshead Bay Boys Club at dinner dance.”

1960s:

• Mayor John V. Lindsay turns the switch on the air pollution control system at the city’s South West Brooklyn refuse incinerator at Bay 41st Street and Gravesend Bay — the first equipment of its kind in the nation to be installed at a municipal incinerator. The Bay News reports, “The furnace will discharge an estimated 1,800 tons per year of soot and dirt particles into the air.”

• The paper covers the October 1963 grand opening of Crawford’s at 1325 Kings Highway, and the September 1967 ground-breaking of the $2-million Coney Island convention hall and indoor-outdoor skating arena that became the Abe Stark Rink.

• A Feb. 1963 announcement, “Bus Ride — Where?” invites readers to a “mystery” trek hosted by the Flatbush Park Jewish Center’s sisterhood and men’s club — “destination unknown!”

• New York Community Hospital in Midwood offers tours because “its administrators realized that many people are curious as to the role of a hospital.”

• Our Nov. 9, 1963 issue reports that four Jewish moms from Sheepshead Bay opposed integration, and filed a complaint with the Board of Education because they felt white parents had not been “previously prepared” for the arrival of “negro children” at JHS 273 on the border of Brownsville and Canarsie.

• In Sept. 16, 1967 we write about Brooklyn Assemblyman Leonard M. Simon’s proposal to outlaw city and state cops from joining “extremist organizations that preach hatred and violence.”

• On Aug. 6, 1969 we inform readers about the “Psychology of Prejudice, Oppression and Racism,” one of 10 new courses at New York City Community College — now City Tech — on Jay Street near Adams Street in Downtown.

• On Aug. 2, 1969 the Bay News reports that Crown Heights’ contractor David L. Blaine — owner of Electorque Associates at 185 Rogers Ave. between St. John’s and Lincoln places — inks a deal for $1,070,000 with the New York Port Authority to wire the new World Trade Center.

1970s

• Evocative photo essays depict the era of decay, including graffiti, pot-holed streets, and the crumbling Coney Island Boardwalk. Sound familiar?

• “We’re talking about millions to fix some of the Boardwalk that goes back 45, 50 years,” says borough chief of operations David Singer in our July 3, 1978 issue. “Missing slats here and there are replaced regularly, but it’s a losing battle. It’s a miracle how they manage to get by.”

• Businesses look to revive People’s Playground with casinos, but the deal is dashed.

• The famous Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest is nixed in 1971 to protest hippies and the era of free love. Why? We’re still figuring that one out!

• Frederick W.I. Lundy, founder and owner of Lundy’s on Emmons Avenue, dies in 1977 at the age of 82. The legendary seafood restaurant closes for nearly two decades before reopening in 1997, only to bolt its doors again 10 years later. Today its exterior is landmarked.

• We make national headlines in 1979 when Bay News crime reporter Pamela O’Shaughnessy becomes the focus of a drug trial after refusing to identify her under-cover source. O’Shaughnessy is held in contempt of court and faces a $250 fine. She files an appeal based on her constitutional rights and the case is dismissed.

1980s

• A copy of the Bay News costs 30 cents. Today it’s free!

• In the summer of 1983 nearly two dozen cops from the 61st Precinct patrol Manhattan Beach around the clock to stem a rash of burglaries.

• Our classifieds track the changing times: A two-bedroom apartment in Sheepshead Bay costs $300 in 1981, $40,000 buys a three-family brick house in Bensonhurst, and an advertiser looks to unload a 1969 Corvette for $7,000.

• That same year the Old Dutch Dairy grocery shop on Gerritsen and Cyrus avenues is our February “Merchant of the Month,” honored for “cleanliness both inside and outside the store.”

• Kingsborough Community College’s WKRB radio station plays the “Jewish-Hebrew Sound” show every morning, except Saturdays.

• Kings Boro Auto School on Avenue U and E. 16th Street charges $84 for a drivers ed package of five lessons, a three-hour certification class, and a car for the road test.

• Pagano Beer on Stillwell Avenue peddles a two-liter of Coke for $1.09.

• Whirlaway TV & Video on Kings Highway and Dahill Road repairs Zenith video tape recorders and rabbit-ear TV antennas for $49.99.

• The Berlin Wall collapses on Aug. 19, 1989, and the Bay News features interviews with an East German refugee from Marine Park and a photographer who brings us a chunk of the wall.

1990s

• New police policies include daily tabulations of crime trends and implementation of the “broken windows” policy.

• Auto theft is rampant in Bath Beach and Bensonhurt, with 3,495 car thefts reported in 1990.

• The 61st Precinct reports 1,078 burglaries and 4,206 stolen cars that year.

• Murder in the precinct spikes from 21 in 1990 to 24 in 1995.

• In Feb. 1996 a gunman in Sheepshead Bay kills two cabbies in 24 hours. The same year a 40-year-old woman is attacked in broad daylight by a man who attempts to rape her on the F train between Avenue U and Avenue X stations in Gravesend, but she manages to escape.

• The Bay News covers the controversy over whether harbor boats should be used for fishing excursions or booze cruises. “Sheepshead Bay is supposed to be a fishing village — we need the fishing fleet!” says Eunice Rofsky, president of the Plumb Beach Civic Association in 1990, to no avail.

• In 1996 Bay Improvement Group founder Steve Barrison leads a protest to stop construction of the Loehmann’s Seaport Plaza mini-mall on Emmons Avenue and E. 21st Street. A placard at the rally reads, “Ship to Shore, No Mega Store,” but construction continues.

• The city installs water meters in Bensonhurst and Bath Beach, charging homeowners four cents for every 11 gallons of water used.

• Dick Zigun’s financially strapped Coney Island Sideshow by the Seashore re-opens in 1996 after closing the year before. He rallies despondent freaks, sells off odds and ends, and scrapes together enough loot to lease a two-story building on the beach side of W. 12th Street near Surf Avenue. On the bill? Kieva the fire eater, Michael Wilson the illustrated man, and Ishavoodi, the anatomical wonder who can pass his body through a coat hanger.

2000s

• Two hijacked jumbo jets slam into the World Trade Center on Tues. Sept. 11, 2001, killing thousands and blanketing Brooklyn in dust from Ground Zero’s cauldron of ashes, twisted steel, and human remains. The Bay News documents every inch of the wrenching despair, including the march of survivors over the Brooklyn Bridge, the local police and firefighter funerals, and the stories of tragedy and triumph.

• The Brooklyn Cyclones becomes the first baseball team to stake a claim in the borough since the Dodgers left, holding its first home opener at KeySpan Park on Surf Avenue in Coney Island — now MCU Park.

• Jackhammers buzz in Sheepshead Bay as a development boom gets underway, and luxury condos and hotels rise on abandoned lots.

• Coney Island is poised to undergo a $2.5 billion revitalization, but Astroland amusement park closes permanently in 2008.

• Luna Park and Scream Zone are the first fruits of the city’s ambitious plan to make the People’s Playground into a 27-acre, year-round amusement and entertainment district.

• Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp buys Courier Life Publications in 2006, and two years later, its flagship paper moves to a posh, new home at MetroTech in Downtown, but still holds tight to its humble roots.

2010s

• Hurricane Sandy batters Brooklyn in 2012, becoming the second-costliest hurricane in national history and causing an estimated $68 billion worth of damage. Seven Brooklynites lose their lives, entire families are displaced, large swaths of land vanish, and long-standing businesses shutter for good.

• The new Thunderbolt — the first new roller coaster to open in Coney Island in 44 years — starts rolling in 2014

• Publishers Jennifer and Les Goodstein buy Courier Life Publications in 2014, and add several Manhattan community newspapers to their Community News Group.

• The Bay News turns 70 years old and we celebrate by doing what we do best: informing readers about news in the neighborhood, including locals pushing back against condos on Emmons Avenue — once again!