The Revolt of 1910

Today - 3 October, 2023 - marked the first time in American history that the Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), was removed from his position. While McCarthy's current situation is somewhat out of the ordinary, it's not unprecedented. 

1910 was a strange time in American history - right between the Age of Imperialism and World War 1, but also in the grip of the Progressive Era and the ideological battle over the government's place to be involved in industry and the economy. It was also the 7th year of George Norris', a progressive Republican (don't forget the parties gradually traded platforms from 1860-1955) from Nebraska, career in the House of Representatives.

Norris liked the idea of the government regulating railroads, and labor unions. Progressive things as determined by the era. But the Republican party - from the top down - wasn't terribly interested in those things, so they could just, you know, ignore it. 

And this is because the Speaker of the House was occasionally referred to as the "czar," a nod to imperialist Russia, given the power that he had, specifically three:

1. The Speaker of the House had the power to appoint the chair of each congressional committee. If you wanted a long, fruitful political career, you needed to be friendly with the Speaker. 

2. The Speaker of the House chaired the Rules Committee, which scheduled the bills that would come to the floor for a vote.

3. The Speaker of the House also had the power to recognize - or not - anyone who wanted to speak, or make a motion. If you answered the question, "For what purpose does the gentleman rise?" incorrectly, or not to the Speaker's satisfaction, he wouldn't let you speak. 

Norris was a representative under the Speakership of Jospeh Gurney ("Uncle Joe") Cannon (R-IL). 

Cannon was powerful enough that his retirement in 1923 was noted by the cover of Time Magazine's debut issue, who referred to Cannon as "The supreme dictator of the Old Guard," going on to say "To Uncle Joe the Speakership was a gift from Heaven, immaculately born into the Constitution by the will of the fathers for the divine purpose of perpetuating the dictatorship of the standpatters in the Republican Party."

But soon Rep. Cannon's power would be challenged by members of his own party. 

Rep. Norris at one time asked Cannon for a seat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee. Cannon told him to come back when he "had a reputation." This was the problem with the House of Representatives, according to Norris: real progress was kept in check by the Olds in Congress. Norris wrote a resolution that he kept in his pocket for years that would strip Cannon of his immense power, which held a lot of appeal for the Progressive faction of the Republican Party as their efforts were often thwarted by Uncle Joe. Norris just needed the right time.

Cannon grew up a Quaker in North Carolina. But given that the Quakers were anti-war and anti-slavery, they moved to Indiana in 1840. Cannon's father died when Joe was 14, leaving him as the head of the household and whose work helped pay off the family house's mortgage within five years. Cannon was fascinated by the law, graduating from the University of Cincinnati and starting a law practice in Tuscola, Illinois (because he ran out of money on a train ride from Terre Haute to Chicago). The 1858  Lincoln-Douglas debates made a Lincoln believer out of Cannon. In 1872, Cannon was elected to the House of Representatives, beginning a 51-year career in the House of Representatives.

Cannon lost two elections for Speaker of the House, but was still able to advance as Chair of the incredibly powerful Appropriations Committee from 1895-1903, when Cannon finally won the Speakership he so desperately wanted. He made himself chair of the House Rules Committee. 

As Cannon ascended to Speaker of the House, Theodore Roosevelt was in his third year as president following the assassination of William McKinley. Both Republicans, they were on opposite ends of the spectrum. As progressive as Roosevelt was, Cannon was fervently not. Cannon grew to resent Roosevelt's style, once remarking that Roosevelt "had no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license."

While the power of the Speaker of the House was dramatically expanded by his predecessor Thomas Brackett Reed, Cannon used that power as a dictator. He could give - and take away - committee chairmanships, allow - or ignore - debates on the floor, and allow - or ignore - voting on bills themselves. He even influenced the outcome of votes themselves - on a voice vote, Cannon once declared "the ayes make the most noise, but the nays have it."

This was why Progressive Republicans wanted reforms to the system like direct primaries for U.S. Senators instead of the candidates being chosen by State Legislatures - to weaken the power that politicians like Cannon unwaveringly wielded. 

Cannon had his eye on the presidency in 1908 but Roosevelt was able to engineer the Republican Convention to favor his Secretary of War William Howard Taft. When Taft handily emerged victorious over William Jennings Bryan (the "Buffalo Bills of Presidential Candidates," according to...me), he and Roosevelt agreed that they couldn't just remove Cannon from the Speakership, though the first cracks in Cannon's power emerged in the Speaker elections that followed in 1909. 

Twelve "insurgent" Republicans refused to vote for Cannon's re-election as Speaker, led by the aforementioned Rep. Norris. Though Cannon did, in fact, win another term as Speaker, Democrats and the insurgents were able to force some concessions and revise some of the rules, pissing Cannon off to the point where three of the insurgents were removed from their committee chairs and others moved to less prominent roles. Telling the press, "Adam and Eve were insurgents...Judas was an insurgent and sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. I have no doubt he would have been applauded by the newspapers in Jerusalem had there been any in that day." 

Speaker Cannon's power was inversely proportional to his relationship with President Taft. Taft stayed out of the business of the House of Representatives, but he wanted Cannon out. Cannon wasn't a fan of Taft's nomination of Edward D. White, a (gasp) Catholic Democrat to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Ultimately the beginning of Cannon's downfall came from within the Republican party itself.

The powerful Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) told Roosevelt that the Republicans risked losing the House if Cannon remained as its Speaker. Having been lambasted by the press in his erstwhile presidential aspirations, Cannon's popularity with the American people took a hit. Still, he remained defiant, telling the press he wouldn't resign until his constituents forced him to. 

On March 16, 1910 the House of Representatives pulled the moderately-unprecedented step of rejecting the Speaker's ruling on a procedural matter. Chair of the Census Committee Rep. Edgar Crumpacker (careful with that spelling, vicar) brought forth a resolution on the upcoming census, despite the resolution not appearing on the order of business. Crumpacker said that the census was required by the Constitution, and Constitutional matters overrode whatever the House of Representatives had planned. Cannon agreed and ruled in favor of the resolution. Then the House of Representatives voted not to sustain Cannon's ruling.

The following day - when most politicians were out celebrating St. Patrick's Day - Rep. Norris was finally able to unleash hell. His resolution was to create a brand new Rules Committee, with all 15 members elected by the House. The Speaker of the house, who had traditionally been the head of the Rules Committee, would be barred from this new iteration, putting the new Committee above the Speaker...who just happened to be Cannon. 

Article I Section 5 Clause 2 of the Constitution says that the House has the ability to determine its own rules, providing the justification Norris needed to bring this new committee to a vote. Cannon couldn't procedure his way out of this one. He simultaneously dismissed the resolution but also tried to whip up the votes to strike it down. 

Delay tactics were used by Cannon's lieutenants to prevent the vote from taking place, but the holiday and the weekend recess meant that Cannon didn't have the votes. On March 19 Cannon ruled that Norris' resolution was out of order and came with the receipts and precedents of previous Speakers. The House vetoed Cannon's ruling on appeal 182 to 163. Immediately the House voted on Norris' resolution, which carried all 149 Democrat votes and 42 Republican votes. A new Rules Committee was formed, without Cannon on board.

Cannon deftly declared the Speakership vacant, which meant an election in the House for a new speaker. Rather than risk the Democrats winning that election Republicans voted to keep Cannon in place, but with vastly limited power thanks to the new Rules Committee, chaired by Rep. John Dalzell (R-PA). So Uncle Joe wasn't stripped of his Speakership, just his immense power. 

Ultimately Henry Cabot Lodge's prediction to Roosevelt rang true: Republicans lost the majority in that fall's midterm elections for the first time since the elections of 1894. The Republican Party split in 1912 into the Republicans and the Progressives, opening the door for a Teddy Roosevelt 3rd-Party presidential bid against his old-friend-turned-bitter-rival William Howard Taft. 

Roosevelt had promised that he would not seek re-election in 1908, despite having already been president since 1901. And he was allowed to do that, because he had only won one election, in 1904. He served out the remainder of William McKinley's term after McKinley was assassinated. Because of that, he was eligible for a second term on his own. He would seek that term in 1912. Taft had saddled up a little too closely - for Roosevelt's comfort - to the conservative faction of the Republican party. Taft went too easy on the big trusts, didn't go after enough reforms, wasn't progressive enough for Roosevelt. 

In that campaign Taft called Roosevelt "the greatest menace to our institutions that we have had in a long time." Roosevelt said Taft was an agent of "the forces of reaction and of political crookedness." Taft called Roosevelt a "honeyfugler." Roosevelt called Taft a "puzzlewit." I don't know what either of those things mean, but it was clearly going great for the Republicans. 

Roosevelt's 3rd Party bid was the most successful 3rd Party campaign in presidential history (In 1992 Ross Perot garnered 19 million votes, but 0 electoral ones), winning 88 electoral votes, but ultimately the election split the Republican vote, allowing Woodrow Wilson to win the 1912 presidential election with 42% of the popular vote.

Partus Sequitur Partum to Partus Sequitur Ventrum

There was a population problem in early Colonial America. There were a number of ways to counter this, though, in an effort to get Great Britain caught up with the likes of Spain and France in North America. 

Elizabeth Key was born in 1630 in Warwick County, Virginia. Warwick County was on the James River, between Hampton Roads and the recently-failed Jamestown Colony. By 1634, the Virginia Colony had about 5,000 people across eight counties, or shires. Anyhow, Elizabeth Key was born to an indentured servant mother whose name has been lost to history, and Thomas Key. Thomas Key was a planter and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses - the first democratically elected legislative body in the colonies. 

Key represented Warwick County, which is now Newport News. Across the James River lived Thomas Key's wife, who owned a considerable amount of property in Isle of Wight County. The Keys were considered "Pioneer Planters," meaning that they were born in England and came to North America on the Virginia Colony of London's dime. 

The Virginia Colony of London was one of the first joint-stock companies in the British Empire, and came on the heels of the disastrous Roanoke experiment, which cost a fortune in terms of both lives and money. It controlled an area of British North America on the Atlantic coast from the 34th Parallel to the 41st Parallel - or from Cape Fear, NC to Long Island Sound. It was a big grant. However, they did share an area between the 38th and 41st Parallels with the Plymouth Company, and each party promised not to build a colony within 100 miles

As it was a joint-stock company, the plan was to establish a financially successful colony and divide the profits among shareholders. Unfortunately, the early Virginia Colony wasn't terribly profitable. And by that I mean it wasn't profitable at all. Since there weren't any profits to share, anyone who stayed in the Virginia Colony for three years was given a grant of land, depending on when you arrived. This is where the Keys come in, having arrived in Virginia by 1616.

The Keys had paid their own way from England to Virginia, indicating not an inconsiderate amount of wealth. They had also managed to survive the Indian Massacre of 1622, in which Opechancanough led an attack on the encroaching English "settlers" who were expanding beyond what the indigenous tribes felt was reasonable due to the wear and tear on Virginia farmland from the cultivation of tobacco. This attack killed about 350 settlers - or about a quarter of the British population of Virginia. But the British didn't leave, and neither did the Keys. 

Things went sideways in 1636, the same year as the founding of Harvard University. At Blunt Point, Virginia (near the present-day James River Country Club) there was a civic case involving the possibility of Key illegitimately fathering a girl between the ages of 4 and 6.

Key did what men have been doing on a timeline from Thomas Jefferson to Jerry Springer: he denied it outright. And why, exactly, was this case going to court? Because there were so many bastard kids running around, court was the logical place to get sorted out who was financially responsible for who/m. An unknown "Turk" was the father, Key pleaded to the court. Witness testimony was enough to convince the court that Key was, in fact, the father of Elizabeth.

This meant that Key (and any other white man who fathered an illegitimate child - regardless of their race) was responsible for Elizabeth. Thomas Key had Elizabeth baptised into the Church of England and also supported her financially, which could be monetary or arranging for an apprenticeship so there were some marketable skills at the ready upon coming Of Age. So sweet. This was actually A Thing under English common law. 

"Of Age" at this time, for females, was 15. Key - who passed away later in 1636 - arranged for Elizabeth to be under the custody (Indentured Servitude, really) of the delightfully-named Humphrey Higginson for nine years. This would get Elizabeth to the age of 15. Once she hit 15, Elizabeth was free. Higginson promised to take care of her as though she was his own.

Indentured servitude was a good a way to start over in the Americas. If you could not afford your passage to America, you could bind yourself to someone else who paid your way, then work off your debt until you leveled up to Free. If you were already in debt (or prison), it was a way to wipe your slate clean. While "surviving your servitude" wasn't the least common thing, it wasn't out of the ordinary to totally survive and earn your freedom. There was also a sense of equality when it came to indentured servants and...everybody else, since the "indentured" part had an expiration date. 

Anyhow, Humphrey Higginson (just take a minute and say it a few times, at first in your head, and then out loud, and then over and over again with a more and more affected accent each time) had apparently agreed to take Elizabeth with him if he was to return to England. Return to England Humphrey did, but without Elizabeth Key, having sort of subletted (or sold) her out to Colonel John Mottram.

Col. Mottram is something of a famous figure - the first white settler in Northumberland County, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, up near what would become Washington, D.C. Mottram's house became a haven for Protestants fleeing the colony of Maryland, which was established in 1632 by Lord Baltimore (Cecil Calvery) as the go-to colony if you were tired of getting persecuted in England because you were Catholic. Maryland was named after the French wife of England's King Charles - Henrietta Maria - a devout Catholic herself.

Mottram was a successful merchant and the nearby Potomac River/Chesapeake Bay was perfect. He brought Elizabeth as a servant. Mottram himself was the first Burgess from Northumberland County. We don't know much about Elizabeth Key's life from her Age 10 to Age 25 seasons. Probably because Mottram was out in the middle of freakin nowhere. 

The colonies - Virginia, specifically (Massachusetts was doing just fine) - realized they need more of an incentive to populate the colonies. The previous strategy of "You might not die!" wasn't as effective as hoped, apparently. Enter the Headright System. Anyone who brought indentured servants to Virginia would be given 50 acres of land per indentured servant - a pretty incredible opportunity to amass a mess of land. 

Around 1650 Mottram paid for 20 white indentured servants to come to Coan Hall - his plantation in Northumberland County. Each indentured servant was to serve for six years to pay off the cost of the passage. Mottram would receive 120 combined years of service and get 1,000 acres of land out of the deal. 

Among the 20 indentured servants was 16-year old William Grinstead (or Greenstead! or you can get creative with how you might spell it! Because God knows they did!). No one is real sure what level of law proficiency William had. Some said it's reasonable to assume that his father was a lawyer and he was just a younger son. I say "just a younger son" because any male heir born after that first one - under the standard English practice of primogeniture - was sort of useless. Everything in the estate went to the firstborn son. My favorite professor in college, Dr. Dawn Alexander, referred to American colonists as "Seventh Sons of Seventh Sons," because there just wasn't anything left in England for the second-born sons on down to inherit. They had to go across the Atlantic to make a life. Others, though, when it came to William's "lawyer-ness" noted that he knew a little bit, though he was illiterate, but still could act in some formal capacity. 

Regardless, Mottram knew the value of young lawdog Grinstead and used him for legal matters relative to Coan Hall. By this point Grinstead and Elizabeth had established a relationship that produced a son. They couldn't get married because Grinstead was still under his indenture, and no one really knows what the 20-year old Elizabeth's status was.

When Col. Mottram died in 1655 they came to settle up his estate. Elizabeth and her son, John, were classified as Enslaved and, thus, property of the estate. Luckily, Elizabeth knew a lawyer: her partner William Grinstead. They sued, alleging that, since Elizabeth had been indentured since she was six years old, her term should have ended at 15 - ten years earlier.

In the Akron Law Review it was argued that "subjecthood" and not "citizenship" was in question. Taunya Lovell Banks argued that if Elizabeth had been born to two English subjects, she would automatically be a British subject, no matter where she was born. But because she was born to an Englishman and an African mother, the burden of citizenship was on Elizabeth. 

The court brought back a lot of the original witnesses in the paternity suit back in 1636. One guy remembered that Key said the father was a "Turk," which would have been super-convenient were it true, because Turks weren't Christians so then Elizabeth would - indeed - have been property of the Mottram Estate.

But then! an 80-year old former servant of Mottram's named Elizabeth Newman reminded everyone that Key was fined for getting one of his slaves pregnant. The Court agreed, and granted Elizabeth Key her freedom. Mottram's estate appealed the verdict to the general court who overturned it, saying that if Elizabeth Key's mother was enslaved when she was born, then she was enslaved herself. Back to the Mottrams for Elizabeth.

William Grinstead, Elizabeth Key's partner, babydaddy, and attorney, appealed that verdict to the Virginia General Assembly, who in 1656 appointed a committee to investigate the facts of the case before kicking it back to the courts for a retrial. After a retrial, Elizabeth was found to be free based on three counts:

1. (And the most important) Since Thomas Key was a free Englishman, and since the child's condition followed that of the father, Elizabeth was free. But she was also free because...

2. Again, Thomas Key was a free Englishman and

3. Elizabeth was a practicing Christian. 

The General Assembly confirmed saying, "By the Common Law the Child of a Woman slave begott by a free-man ought to (be) free.

It didn't hurt matters that the court was reminded of Thomas Key's intention for Elizabeth to become free once she reached 15, and that Grinstead was also an English subject. Elizabeth was free. She and William were still not allowed to get married until William's indenture ended in 1656. Once it ended, William and Elizabeth Key Grinstead were one of the first marriages in Virginia's history between an Englishman and a free woman of African descent. Mottram's estate was ordered to compensate Elizabeth Key with corn and clothes to make up for keeping her freedom for so many years.

Elizabeth and William would have another son before William passed away in 1661. After William passed away, Elizabeth married a widower - John Pearce. When he passed away, Elizabeth and her two sons inherited 500 acres, setting themselves up for the rest of a successful life. If you're from the South and your last name is Grinsted, Grimsted, or Greenstead...there's a good chance that this is your story. And if your name is "Johnny Depp," this is your story, as well, apparently.

But that's not the end of the story, for this story is tied to slavery, and slavery is tied to the United States. In 1662 - the year after William Grinstead's death - the Virginia House of Burgesses took another look at Elizabeth's case, specifically "whether children got by an Englishmen upon a negro woman should be slave or free." This led the House of Burgesses to lay down the principle of Partus Sequitur Ventrum, or "that which is brought forth follows the womb."

The Virginia House of Burgesses moved the goalposts from Partus Sequitur Partum and overrode English common law with Partus Sequitur Ventrum. No longer did the father of an illegitimate child have to provide for the child after its birth. Rape was legalized in Virginia, since any child born of an enslaved mother would immediately upon birth become enslaved, as well. You don't have to make a very strong leap in logic to realize that the House of Burgesses incentivized rape of enslaved women. If you had produced a child with an enslaved woman, you were certainly free to care for the child and make sure their future was secure...but you didn't have to. The 1662 law also increased penalties for mixed-race fornication. In 1667 Virginia altered the law so that converting to Christianity did not come with a "Get Out of Slavery" card.  

Other colonies followed suit. And as enslaved rebellions took hold over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, states relying on slavery as the basis of their economies made it harder and harder for enslaved people to sue for their freedom. 

For Elizabeth Key and her sons, however, the court system of Virginia repeatedly acknowledged her freedom. Two of her grandsons were apprenticed to learn a trade in 1685, something that would be done for white kids, but not African kids or descendants of Africans. In 1686 Elizabeth's son sat on a jury, something reserved only for white men. Elizabeth was one of the first - if not the first - woman of African descent to sue for her freedom and win. But the colonies, later states, made sure it was one of the last times they would suffer the loss. 

How A Slide Changed the Fortunes of Two Historic Franchises

The 1st Baseman was born in Carlisle, smack in the middle of south central Pennsylvania, 190 miles east of Pittsburgh. As a sophomore at Carlisle High School, he got trucked stretching for a double play, tearing his ACL, but doctors opted not to repair it. After a successful stint at Liberty University, the Dodgers drafted Sidney Eugene Bream in the 2nd Round of the 1981 Amateur Draft. 

Bream motored through the minors with the Dodgers, posting a .327/.395/.423 slash line in his rookie season at Single-A Vero Beach that year. The following year saw Bream make it all the way to Triple-A, albeit for just three games. Still, Bream posted an .879 OPS in 1982, his first full professional season.

1983 saw Bream back at Triple-A, where he dazzled with a .307/.415/.569 slash line, hitting 23 doubles and 32 home runs in hitter-friendly Albuquerque, leading the Pacific Coast League with 118 RBIs on a team that included future Major Leaguers Orel Hershiser and John Franco. This was enough to earn him a September call-up for the Dodgers, where he went 2x11, though both hits drove in a run. 

Despite dominating the PCL in 1983, Bream opened 1984 back in Albuquerque. The Dodgers were cool with Greg Brock and his .722 OPS, I suppose. But this season Bream got two call-ups, 13 games in July where again he struggled to a .436 OPS, and again in September for 14 more games, but could only muster a .184/.263/.245 line across those 27 games. In between he hit .343/.426/.559 for Albuquerque.

1985 was make-or-break in LA for Bream, he broke camp with the Dodgers as the Opening Day 1B and immediately rewarded Tommy Lasorda with an RBI single off of Houston's Nolan Ryan at The Astrodome. That was the only run the Dodgers could muster in a 2-1 loss to the Astros. Three games later Bream went 2x4 and hit his first MLB home run off of Mike Krukow, though again it would be the only run the Dodgers scored in the game. The next 11 games saw Bream go 2x30 (though both hits were home runs), and he returned to Albuquerque.

Bream got sporadic playing time for about six weeks in Los Angeles following a subsequent call-up, and again he struggled to a .132/.230/.302 line when he was sent away from LA for good. He continued to rake in Albuquerque, this time hitting .370/.437/.647. 

On August 31, 1985, though seven games up, the Dodgers were in the process of getting swept at home by the Phillies. Looking for an offensive boost, the Dodgers traded for Pittsburgh's Bill Madlock, a four-time NL Batting Champion, who could play 1B/3B. On September 9, the Pirates got the return in that trade - Sid Bream and Cecil Espy. Madlock would go on to hit .360/.422/.447 for the Dodgers, who would eventually lose in six games to the eventual World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals. 

Given a fresh start in Pittsbrugh, whose Major League Baseball history begins in 1882, Bream hit .284/.355/.453 in 26 games down the 1985 stretch. Considering that the Pirates' 30-year old 1B, Jason Thompson, had posted a .759 OPS in three years since his third and final All-Star selection, Bream was on deck to take over at 1B in 1986. 

Now in his Age 25 season, Bream played 154 games for the Pirates and posted a respectable .791 OPS.  The Pirates went 64-98 that season, 44 games behind the New York Mets. But a foundation was being laid in Pittsburgh. Also playing in his first full season at Pittsburgh under first-year manager Jim Leyland was a 21-year old rookie from Arizona State named Barry Bonds, who was drafted 6th overall the previous year. The Pirates acquired Doug Drabek in a trade after the 1986 season. The Pirates' farm director was Branch Rickey III. 

The 1987 Pirates improved 16 games over 1986, finishing 80-82, 4th in the NL East. On April 1 of that year, Pittsburgh traded Tony Pena to St. Louis for outfielder Andy Van Slyke, pitcher Mike Dunne and catcher Mike LaValliere. Van Slyke led the Pirates with an .821 OPS while Bonds led the team with 25 home runs. 

1988 saw even more improvement as Pittsburgh enjoyed their first winning season in four years and their fourth since winning the 1979 World Series. The 1988 Pirates went 85-75, good enough for 2nd in the NL East, though still 15 games back of the Mets.

1989 was a step back, both for Bream and the Pirates. The Pirates went 74-88-2, 5th in the NL East, and Bream's knee problems limited him to 19 games. His OPS had declined in each year in Pittsburgh, and the Pirates were running out of patience. 

Bream rebounded in 1990 with a career season, an .804 OPS in 147 games as the Pirates went 95-67 and won the first of three straight division titles. Barry Bonds led the team with 32 home runs, a .970 OPS, and 52 stolen bases on his way to his first NL MVP title. Bonds, Van Slyke, and Bobby Bonilla combined to hit 82 home runs. Doug Drabek, who along with his wife were godparents to Bream's kids as were the Breams for the Drabeks', went 22-6 and won the NL Cy Young.

Bream went 4x8 with a homer in the 1990 NLCS, but a six-game series decided by a total of ten runs spelled Pittsburgh's defeat to the eventual World Series Champion Cincinnati Reds. Bream's time in Pittsburgh had run its course. The Pirates opted not to extend him in order to make way for Orlando Merced, and Bream was granted free agency after the 1990 season. Bream:

The very next day after we got beat, the management, executives for Pittsburgh, came out in the paper and said, 'Sid Bream is our priority to sign for the 1991 season.' So my wife and I were ecstatic...and through negotiations, they didn't even get close to market price on me, let alone anything more for being their priority. At that point in time, free agency opened up and the Braves gave me a great offer. They said, 'You need to make a decision, because if you don't come here, we've got to go find somebody else.' And so my wife and I decided that evening to go to the Atlanta Braves. We were torn up. We cried most of the night that night, thinking we were leaving the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The 1990 Atlanta Braves were absolutely miserable. Not only did they go 65-97, last in the NL West, and ten games behind the 5th place Astros and Padres, they were last in the National League in attendance, unable to draw a million fans to 81 home games. But there was some hope, despite trading franchise icon Dale Murphy in August to Philadelphia. 

Rookie David Justice hit .282/.373/.535 to win the 1990 NL Rookie of the Year. Ron Gant, in his second full season with the Braves, hit 32 home runs and stole 33 bases, getting a few down-ballot MVP votes for the first time in his career. A rookie acquired from Toronto named Francisco Cabrera had a .782 OPS in 63 games. The Braves drafted Larry Wayne "Chipper" Jones with the 1st overall pick in the Draft, and manager Bobby Cox left his role as Atlanta's General Manager to return to the dugout for his second managerial stint with the Braves. 

Elsewhere for the 1990 Braves, 23-year old John Smoltz led the NL in walks (90) and wild pitches (14), but posted double-digit wins for the second straight season. Lefty SP Tom Glavine threw over 200 Innings in his fourth season with Atlanta. A 20-year old named Steve Avery made his MLB debut that season, going 3-11 with an ERA over 5.00, but he only allowed seven home runs in 99IP. 1991 could be something special.

And it was. For both the Braves, and the Pirates. The Braves signed free agent Terry Pendleton in December and two days later signed Sid Bream. 

On July 7 the Braves went into the All-Star Break 39-40, 9.5 games back of the Dodgers in the NL West, and 9.0 back of the Pirates, who were leading the NL East. On August 21 the 64-54 Braves took on the Cincinnati Reds at Riverfront Stadium and found themselves down 9-5 to open the 7th Inning. Catcher Francisco Cabrera homered in the 7th to make it 9-6, and then hit a three-run homer in the 9th off of Rob Dibble to tie the game, one they would win in 13 innings. They would win 27 of their next 40 games.

The Braves went into the final series of the 1991 season tied with the Dodgers at 92-67. The Braves had gone 53-27 since the All-Star Break. Atlanta hosted the Astros and took the first two games of the series. Los Angeles went to 5th Place San Francisco and lost the first two games of the series. With one game left to play, the Braves had a two-game lead, clinching their first division title since 1982, and their 3rd since relocating from Milwaukee after the 1965 season.

Both teams won their respective divisions, the Pirates with 98 wins - their best win total since the 1979 World Series Championship - and the Braves with 94, the Braves completing a worst-to-first division turnaround. 

Back then, the League Championship Series was the first round of the playoffs. Over the course of the 1991 season the Braves took an astonishing nine of twelve from the Pirates, Pittsburgh's lowest win total against any one opponent since going 3-9 against the 1989 Padres. 

The 1991 NLCS started out evenly. Pittsburgh won Game 1, 5-1. Sid Bream went 2x4. The Braves scored one run in Game 2, but Steve Avery threw 8.1 innings of shutout baseball before Alejandro Pena needed six pitches to get the final two outs to tie the series up at 1-1. Sid Bream didn't play. 

With the series shifting back to Atlanta for Game 3, Pittsburgh's Orlando Merced hit a leadoff homer off of John Smoltz to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead, but Atlanta answered with four runs in the bottom half of the inning to give the Braves a 4-1 lead that they would never relinquish. It was 7-3 Atlanta when Sid Bream hit a 3-run pinch-hit homer to provide the 10-3 final margin of victory.

Games 4 & 5 were nail-biters, the Pirates overcoming a 2-0 1st inning deficit to win 3-2 in 10 innings in Game 4, and then holding the Braves scoreless in Game 5, winning 1-0 on the back of Zane Smith's 7.2 scoreless innings, outdueling Tom Glavine's 8IP of 1-run ball. Pittsburgh had a 3-2 series lead, one win away from their first Pennant and World Series appearance in 12 years. 

Game 6 was back in Pittsburgh with Steve Avery on the mound again for the Braves, and Doug Drabek for the Pirates. Drabek had an extra day of rest, having started Game 1, while Avery started (and dominated) Game 2. It 0-0 heading into the 9th Inning. With one out, Ron Gant walked. Sid Bream came to the plate and flied out to deep Left Field for the 2nd out to round out an 0x4 day. Gant stole 2nd base and scored on catcher Gregg Olson's double. The Pirates were down to their final three outs. Pinch-hitter Gary Varsho singled to lead off the inning, Orlando Merced sac bunted him over to 2nd (ahhh 1991). Jay Bell lined out to Right for the 2nd out. Closer Alejandro Pena's second pitch to Andy Van Slyke was wild, and Varsho sprinted to 3rd base. Six pitches later Van Slyke struck out looking to end the game. There would be a Game 7. Steve Avery's 1991 NLCS: 16.1IP, 9H/0ER, 17K:4BB.

Game 7 went quickly and quietly. The Braves staked John Smoltz to a 1st Inning 3-0 lead and coasted to a 4-0 win behind Brian Jordan's 3RBI game and Smoltz's complete game pennant-winning shutout. Barry Bonds hit .148/.207/.185 in the series. In his first two trips to the postseason, Bonds hit .156/.283/.178 with a lone double in 13 games. 

The 1991 World Series featured two "Worst-To-First" opponents, with the Twins completing the same feat the Braves did from 1990-1991. Five games were decided by one run. Four games ended on a walkoff hit. Game 7 was a 10-inning 1-0 game as future Hall of Famers Jack Morris and John Smoltz fired scoreless outings, Morris' just happened to throw ten shutout innings. As a result, the Minnesota Twins' seven-game victory made them the first team in baseball history to win the World Series a year after finishing in last place in their division. It was - 2017 aside - maybe the greatest World Series of all-time.

1992 saw the Pirates and Braves both run it back. There were no major additions by the Braves, aside from acquiring reliever Jeff Reardon from Boston on August 30. The Pirates underwent more nuanced transformation. They let Bobby Bonilla sign a free agent deal with the Mets, and then in March 1992 traded lefty All-Star starter John Smiley, who went 20-8 in 1991 and finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting, to Minnesota for Denny Neagle and Midre Cummings. Pirates pitcher Bob Walk:

Our clubhouse was pissed when Smiles got traded. It was not a happy bunch of guys. That was like somebody put a shot over our bow. It was like, 'They think Bonilla is gone, so now we can't win?' Maybe at that point, that's when the team got a little bit closer.

The Pirates, who had just won back-to-back division titles for the first time since 1974-75, knew that time was running out, with Drabek and Bonds destined to test free agency the following offseason. Jim Leyland:

We knew that group was not going to be together much longer, if at all.

Pittsburgh sportstalk host Mark Madden:

Everybody knew it was now or never, because the reality of keeping big-money players in Pittsburgh...it was so evident it wasn't going to happen.

The Pirates started the season hot, going 15-5, but scuffled a little bit, losing 11 of 12 from May 15-27. But by the All-Star Break they were 49-39, 4.5 games up in the NL East, and would go on to comfortably win the division by nine games. Barry Bonds won his 2nd NL MVP in three seasons after hitting 34 home runs to go with 39 stolen bases and a 1.078 OPS. But again they went 5-7 against Atlanta in the regular season.

On May 27, 1992 the Braves woke up with a 20-27 record, in last place, seven games behind the San Francisco Giants. Based solely on percentage points, the Braves were the worst team in the National League. Then: madness. They went 78-37 down the stretch, including a 35-15 record in June and July. The Giants finished from that point with a 47-72 record, ending the 1992 season 26 games behind the Braves. The Braves went 98-64, their highest win total in franchise history since 1898, when they were known as the Boston Beaneaters.

So, a Pirates/Braves NLCS rematch, then. Barry Bonds told his teammates in the Pirates clubhouse prior to the NLCS:

I told them, 'I'll get you to the playoffs. Now they've got to get me through [Atlanta] and I'll see we win the World Series.

Due to their superior record, Games 1, 2, 6, and 7 would be in Atlanta. Game 1 saw the Braves give John Smoltz a 5-0 lead before Pittsburgh got on the board. Atlanta opened with a 1-0 series lead after a 5-1 win. 

Atlanta opened Game 2 with a 4-0 lead and then an 8-0 lead after Ron Gant hit a 5th Inning grand slam. The Pirates finally got to their foe Steve Avery, lighting him up for 4ER in the 7th before the Braves answered with five runs in the bottom half of the inning. The Braves won 13-5, having scored 19 runs in seven total games in the 1991 NLCS. Behind the plate was umpire Randy Marsh, whose notoriously small strike zone resulted in eight walks issued by Pirates pitchers in the game.

Back in Pittsburgh for Games 3-5, Pirates pitcher Tim Wakefield threw a complete game as the Pirates held off the Braves for a 3-2 win in Game 3 to avoid going down 3-0. His opponent, Tom Glavine, was 0-3 against Pittsburgh in the postseason between 1991-1992. 

In Game 4 the Pirates had a 3-2 lead thanks to an RBI double from Orlando Merced, Sid Bream's Pirates replacement, in the 3rd inning. David Justice chased Doug Drabek in the 5th with a game-tying RBI single, and one batter later Brian Hunter - pinch-hitting for Bream - scored Jeff Blauser on a fielder's choice, giving the Braves the lead back. Two more Braves runs came, and the 9th Inning saw Jeff Reardon (acquired by Atlanta earlier in the season) strike Cecil Espy (who the Pirates acquired with Sid Bream back in 1985) out for the first out of the 9th inning. Reardon closed it out for the save, and a 3-1 series lead. Pittsburgh's Doug Drabek started nine games in his career in the postseason and failed to get a Quality Start in just two of them: Games 1 & 4 of the 1992 NLCS. 

Facing elimination, Game 5 saw the Pirates finally light up Steve Avery. After throwing 22.1 scoreless innings in three NLCS starts against the Pirates across 1991-1992, between the 7th Inning of Game 2 and the 1st Inning of Game 5, the Pirates got him for 9H/8ER. 30 pitches into Game 5 and Avery allowed a single and four doubles, allowing Bob Walk to comfortably throw a complete game and send it to Game 6.

...which was over almost before it began. The Pirates knocked Tom Glavine all over Fulton County Stadium, scoring eight runs in a 2nd Inning that finally brought Barry Bonds his first postseason homerun. Glavine's 2nd Inning went as such: homer, single, single, double, fielder's choice, fielder's choice, double, homer. 1IP, 6H/8R (7ER), 0K:0BB. It would be the first of four postseason outings in Glavine's career in which he allowed 7ER. The Pirates, down 3-1 in the series, answered in Games 5/6 with 26 hits and 20 runs to force Game 7 the following night. 

After failing to record 15 outs in both Games 1 & 4, again the Pirates turned to Doug Drabek in Game 7. The Braves sent John Smoltz to the mound. In the 1992 regular season, Smoltz had allowed 12 home runs at Fulton County Stadium in 15 games, and just seven in 20 road starts. Smoltz walked leadoff batter Alex Cole to open the game and an Andy Van Slyke double put runners on 2nd/3rd with one out for Barry Bonds. For the first time in a career that featured 21 of them, Bonds was intentionally walked. An Orlando Merced sac fly made it 1-0 Pirates, but Smoltz got Jeff King to pop up behind home plate and end the inning. 

Drabek needed 28 pitches to retire the first six Braves in order. A Damon Berryhill leadoff double amounted to nothing as Drabek retired the next nine batters. Drabek:

I threw my curveball a lot. Pitches were working. It wasn't like it was dominating, but defense helped out, and it was basically just trying to throw strikes and try to get outs.

Pittsburgh's Jay Bell doubled to open the 6th inning and Andy Van Slyke singled him home to extend Pittsburgh's lead to 2-0. In the bottom half of the 6th Mark Lemke, Jeff Treadway, and Otis Nixon singled to load the bases with nobody out. Jeff Blauser lined into a double play, and Terry Pendleton lined out to left to end the inning and waste a chance to break the game open.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium clubhouse attendant Mike Hill was in the visitors clubhouse. The Braves had 25 cases of champagne in Pittsburgh for Game 5, just in case they won the Pennant. When the series shifted back to Atlanta, they brought the champagne with them. The Braves and Pirates had an agreement that if Pittsburgh won the series, they'd just use that champagne and send a check to Atlanta. Hill:

The game was kind of boring, but it looked like we weren't going to win. We started putting up the plastic [around the Pirates locker room]. CBS is coming in, building their stage, slowly. 

Francisco Cabrera:

In the seventh inning, eighth inning, I was thinking, 'Wow, we are going to lose this game.' We don't have a chance because Drabek was throwing very good. He was untouchable.

With runners on 2nd and 3rd and two outs in the top of the 7th, Bobby Cox turned to Steve Avery to face Andy Van Slyke and keep the game at 2-0. He did, getting Van Slyke to fly out to center. The Braves were able to get two runners on in the bottom half, but again Drabek wriggled out of it with no damage. Barry Bonds singled to open the 8th inning but an Orlando Merced fielder's choice was the first out of the inning. When Jeff King doubled down the right field line, Merced was flying home when a David Justice rocket nailed him at the plate.

Jeff Reardon navigated a walk and a wild pitch to turn it over to Atlanta's final three outs. Pittsburgh's Cecil Espy had pinch-run for Lloyd McClendon, who had apparentely pulled a hamstring running the bases, and moved to Right Field for McClendon for the bottom of the 9th. Drabek was at 120 pitches, but still took the mound for the 9th. Leyland:

Dougie's one of the fiercest competitors you'll ever see. I felt like he could get the job done. I felt like he was the best choice at that particular time.

Terry Pendleton doubled down the right field line to leadoff the 9th, and it's up for debate whether Espy who, if you remember, was traded to Pittsburgh with Bream in 1985, froze or didn't get a good read on the ball. The tying run was at the plate. David Justice grounded to second baseman Jose Lind. Lind, who would win his only career Gold Glove in 1992 thanks to committing just six errors in 745 chances in the regular season, bobbled it, sending Pendleton to third and allowing Justice to reach first. Leyland:

Chico Lind was one of the greatest second basemen in the league, defensively. It was a ball he hadn't missed all year. Just, freaky things happen, and that's what happens when stuff unravels once in a while.

Lind:

It still haunts me now. If I catch that ball, we probably go to the World Series.

McClendon:

In our pregame workouts, Chico took his ground balls like he usually did. [First base coach] Tommy [Sandt] hit him one. He bobbled it. Almost the same play. Tommy said, 'One more.' And [Lind] said, 'No, I'm good.' It's just...you think about that.

The final batter Drabek would face as a Pirate was Sid Bream, and Drabek walked him on four pitches to load the bases.

In came Stan Belinda to face Ron Gant. Belinda appeared in 59 games for the 1992 Pirates, saving 18 games with a 3.15 ERA. But through career seven postseason appearances, Belinda threw 9.2IP, 4H/1ER, 10K:3BB. Gant sent Belinda's second pitch to deep left, it was caught by Bonds against the wall, deep enough to score Pendleton. 2-1 Pirates. Belinda then walked Damon Berryhill to re-load the bases, with Justice on third and Bream on second. It would have been easy for the Pirates to be upset at the walk, because Berryhill could have easily been rung up on strikes on the inside corner, called balls by home plate umpire Randy Marsh - who started the game as the 1B umpire and moved after John McSherry left the game due to illness. 

LaValliere, who hilariously screamed profanities at Marsh for his strike zone on October 14, 1992 before a Spring Training game...in 2001:

That pitch was on the inside corner and we didn't get the call. But this doesn't land on Randy Marsh. You miss a pitch here, you miss a pitch there. Umpires are human. Those things happen. 

McClendon:

Not a lot of good things happened to us when Randy was behind the plate.

Van Slyke:

The person who choked the most in that game was the umpire behind home plate. When the lights are shining, and it means that much, it just hurts that much more when an umpire can't pull the trigger when he is supposed to.

For his part, Sid Bream couldn't believe he was still standing on second base, expecting to be replaced by Brian Hunter. After all, by that point he'd had five knee surgeries and referred to himself as "the worst possible person to have on base in a situation where you desperately needed a run to score from second." Bream:

I would have been a decent runner without my knee surgeries; but at that point in time, I was slow.

But Cox wanted Hunter to pinch-hit for Rafael Belliard. Hunter:

That's the reason Sid was still running. Unless [Cox] would have went with a pitcher.

Hunter popped up for the second out. Out in the Braves bullpen, the last guy on the bench, was Francisco Cabrera, warming up relievers. Cabrera:

I was just waiting for them to call. I was just mentally preparing, trying to have a plan when I go to the plate.

Bream:

Cabrera was an easy choice there. That guy, honest to goodness, probably had more power than anybody on our team that year. He had some trouble finding a consistent position on defense, so he only got a handful of at bats that season, but that guy could flat-out hit the baseball.

He got the call. Cabrera played in 12 games for the Braves in the 1992 regular season, but two of his three hits were home runs, and Bobby Cox added him to the postseason roster for his versatility in the field (he could play 1B and also catch) and his ability to pinch-hit. He had pinch-hit in the 9th inning of Game 6, lining out to left fielder Barry Bonds. This was his third career postseason plate appearance. Again, Cabrera:

I was in a situation where I said to myself, 'If I get a hit here, I'm going to be a hero. And if I don't get a hit, it's okay, because nobody knows me. But if I get the hit, I'll be somebody.'

Long-time Pittsburgh sports anchor Bob Pompeani:

Leyland, I guess, thought: I worked this bench down to where I got this guy up. It's a perfect situation. He hasn't batted. He's just their last-ditch effort. 

Cabrera got out to a 2-0 count before hooking a fastball just foul of the left field line. Cabrera:

I thought he wouldn't throw me that pitch again. But then I thought, 'Hey, I'm still ahead with two balls and one strike. He's going to throw me the fastball again, and I'm going to be ready this time.'

Andy Van Slyke would tell MLB Network that he motioned for Bonds to move closer to the infield:

I just told him to move in. After Cabrera hit that 2-0 foul...as an outfielder, more balls are hit in front of you than behind you, especially on the ground. So my philosophy was, I'm going to give myself the best opportunity to throw the guy out at home plate, especially with two outs because the guy is going to be running on contact...He ignored me and gave me the 'international peace sign.'

The 4th pitch was lined into left-center field, scoring Justice. Barry Bonds made a circuitous route to the ball but fired the ball home to catcher Mike LaValliere. The throw pulled LaValliere up the first base line, giving the slow-footed Bream a path to the plate. David Justice:

I thought Sid was going to be safe easily. I mean easily. But when that ball was in the air and I saw him running, I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, it's like a piano is on his back.' It was like he was never going to get there.

Bream:

If it had been one out, I'd have had to freeze to see if the ball would go through or not. I was able to run at the crack of the bat...So I had every intention when the ball was hit to keep on going. I still don't know to this day whether [Braves 3B Coach] Jimy Williams was waving me.

LaValliere grabbed the ball on one hop, and dove back to his left, to the plate. Leyland:

I thought Bonds made a great throw. People can criticize that throw all they want, but it's totally uncalled for...I thought he made a great throw.

LaValliere:

It's a tough throw. He was going away from home plate, having to change his momentum. The throw was 6-8 feet off line. It wasn't like it was in the stands. I still was able to kind of capture it and dive. I still think I got him.

Reserve Infielder John Wehner:

Barry moved towards the line [after the foul ball]. He was so close to the foul line. If he is playing him more straight up, he is coming straight in to get that ball. If he is coming straight in, he has a direct path to throw. But he was coming to his left and in. So he is coming across his body, and that's when the ball sailed to the first base line. 

Van Slyke:

Barry gets an unfortunate rap. It was only off by two feet. Barry really made a great play. He charged the ball really hard. He had to go to his left, and as a left-handed thrower...it's kind of hard to throw across your body. So he made a terrific play.

Bream had beaten the tag for a walk-off Braves Pennant win. LaValliere:

The only way I can explain it is one of the scenes in the movie 'Saving Private Ryan.' Where there's Tom Hanks and there are these explosions and suddenly you can't hear anything. And it's numbing. That's what it felt like.

Van Slyke:

It was close but he was clearly safe. I'm not particularly sold on the fact that he actually touched the plate...But I think home plate is totally different because you have nothing to slide into. I get it on the bases. But home plate? I think if you break that perpendicular plane, I think you should be safe.

Bream:

Francisco Cabrera doesn't get enough credit. He did the hard part. He got the hit..in one of the most pressure-packed situations you could ever imagine. All I did was run home without tripping over my feet and make a lousy slide that was somehow just good enough.

Clubhouse attendant Mike Hill had to sprint the 50-60 yards pushing a flatbed dolly loaded with champagne to the home clubhouse:

The champagne that the Braves sprayed and celebrated with when Sid slid was sitting in the Pirates' clubhouse at that very second.

Andy Van Slyke sat in the outfield grass and watched the celebration around Bream at home plate. Van Slyke:

It wasn't just disappointing for me or for the team. I knew Pirates fans were going to suffer for a long time. The writing was on the wall...We all knew what was coming. 

And they were right. While the Braves at the beginning of a run of 14-straight postseason appearances that culminated in the 1995 World Series, the Pirates went in the opposite direction. Following the 1992 season, Barry Bonds went to San Francisco and Doug Drabek signed a four-year deal with the Houston Astros. Chico Lind was traded to Kansas City in November 1992. Sid Bream stayed in Atlanta through 1993 before ending his career hitting .344/.429/.426, joining his buddy Drabek in Houston for the strike-shortened season before calling it a career. 

The 1993 Pirates went 75-87, starting a string 20 consecutive losing seasons, before finally breaking through and making the playoffs in 2013, where they lost to the Cardinals in the NLDS. Up 2-1 in the Best-of-Five Series, the losing pitchers in Games 4 and 5 were Pittsburgh's Charlie Morton and Gerrit Cole, respectively. Losses in the one-off Wild Card games in 2014 and 2015 (despite a 98-win season in 2015) mean that the Pirates have not won a playoff series since 1979. 

Atlanta became synonymous with regular season success and playoff failure. They lost the 1992 World Series to Toronto. Then lost in the NLCS in 1993, despite winning 104 games in the regular season. But they won 90+ games in 13 of 14 seasons between 1991-2005. 

Francisco Cabrera played in 70 games for the 1993 Braves, hitting .241/.308/.422 and even hitting a game-tying pinch-hit single in 1993 NLCS Game 5. That was the final at-bat of his Major League career. Cabrera went to play in Japan in 1994 and most recently was the hitting coach for Cleveland's affiliate in the Dominican Summer League in 2014. 

Calamity At The Empire State Building, 1945-1947

The lot at West 34th Street in New York City had been owned by the renowned Astor family since the 1820s and by the mid-1890s John Jacob Astor's grandson - William Waldorf Astor - opened the Waldorf Hotel. His cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, opened a 16-story hotel on an adjacent lot. They did not care for each other. 

Prussian-born George Boldt emigrated to the United States in 1864 at the age of 13. Beginning as a kitchen worker in New York City, Boldt worked his way up to managing the dining room of The Philadelphia Club, hired by his future father-in-law. Located at 13th & Walnut in downtown Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Club was the most exclusive club in the city, counting Owen Wister (writer of The Virginian and considered "The Father of Western Fiction"), several members of the Du Pont family as well as members of the Biddle family. Nicholas Biddle is most notable as the president of the Second Bank of the United States who picked, and lost, a fight with Andrew Jackson in his second term in office. Legend has it (which is History Code for saying "I read this somewhere") General George Meade wasn't admitted to the Philadelphia Club until after he had won at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Boldt opened his own hotel in 1881, Philadelphia's Bellevue Hotel, on the northeast corner of Broad & Walnut Streets. And in a very Robber Barony move he soon bought his main competition, the Stratford, on the southeast corner. The Gilded Age was dotted with various Robber Barons from whom he acquired this strategy, and hooboy he catered to those self-same Robber Barons, charging exorbitant prices for the best rooms, and soon he became rich himself. Boldt would go on to merge the two hotels, becoming the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel - Philadelphia's largest hotel - that would eventually evolve into the Hyatt at the Bellevue.

In short, George Boldt was the perfect man to make a triumphant return to New York. Convinced to manage the Waldorf, Boldt mediated an agreement between William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV to merge the two hotels under his management as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where he popularized Thousand Island dressing.

Boldt died of a heart attack in late 1916 and the Waldorf-Astoria's lease was bought by Thomas Coleman Du Pont in 1918. Du Pont was the President of what we now know as...Dupont, and would go on to serve two terms as a senator from Delaware, resigning in 1928 as a result of "health problems" and also being implicated in Warren G. Harding's Teapot Dome Scandal. The Teapot Dome Scandal is worthy of a separate deep dive but, tl;dr: Harding's Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall would be the first cabinet member to be indicted over bribery charges related to government-owned, oil-laden land at Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

By the time Du Pont resigned, New York's elites were already moving north of 34th Street. The Waldorf-Astoria was sold for between $14-$16 million to the Bethlehem Engineering Company in 1928 and was shuttered in early 1929 with the promise of a newer, more elegant Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue. The Bethlehem Engineering Company's president, Floyd de L. Brown paid 10% of the $1 million down payment needed to begin construction on the new office building on the site of the former Waldorf-Astoria...and then never paid the remaining $900,000. The land was resold to a consortium of wealthy investors that included Coleman du Pont and his cousin Pierre S. du Pont. 

The consortium - known as Empire State, Incorporated - also included John Jakob Raskob, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1928 to 1932 and the campaign manager of New York Governor Alfred E. Smith's 1932 presidential run against Franklin D. Roosevelt. Raskob sold his stock in GM (The Dupont corporation had been extensively invested in General Motors) after a political disagreement with the Very Republican Alfred P. Sloan (who may be familiar to listeners like you), thus providing the money to buy the land at 20 West 34th Street. Raskob had formed the American Liberty League, an organization of wealthy elites opposed to FDR's New Deal that heaped burning coals on the heads of themselves and their families after FDR won the most lop-sided presidential election in history in 1936.

Nevertheless, tasked with building a new skyscraper on the site of the Waldorf-Astoria, Raskob hired architect William F. Lamb. Lamb had studied at the Columbia University College of Architecture and in Paris at the Atelier Deglane, graduating sixth in his class despite barely knowing French from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Lamb, who had one leg after a motorcycle accident in Europe, formed the architectural firm Shreve and Lamb with Richmond Shreve, which later became Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon in 1929 after Arthur Loomis Harmon joined - mainly as a result of his connections with Raskob.

Of course it was a competition. The current or, in Raskob's case, former GM-adjacent investors were heavily interested in outdoing Chrysler, whose Chrysler Building at 42nd Street & Lexington was dedicated in September 1928 as the tallest building in the world. Raskob called Lamb and (allegedly) stood one of his favorite jumbo pencils on its end and asked Lamb, "How high can you make it so that it won't fall down?"

Lamb used the pencil as his inspiration, designing the new structure from the tower down, which gave the proposed building a pencil shape. Lamb's 16th revision to the original design became the go-to for what would become the Empire State Building. Lamb, Shreve and Harmon had 18 months to build it, facing complications such as size, funding, and New York City's zoning requirements. Because Raskob was tight with former Governor Smith, height restrictions were placed on nearby construction, so that the Empire State Building would have unobstructed views of the city, featuring an observation deck on the 86th floor...15 floors higher than the Chrysler Building. Construction was set to begin in late 1929, after Raskob had secured the funding. Oh, and then the economy collapsed.

Raskob refused to cancel the project in the wake of the worst financial disaster in American history, citing already-made progress on the building. Raskob had gotten out of the stock market in 1928, and Governor Smith had no stock investments, so both were financially secure. In December 1929, Raskob was able to get a $27.5 million loan from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (now MetLife), one of whose directors was none other than Governor Smith himself. 

Despite the Great Depression's complete lack of demand for new office space, construction sped ahead, eventually being completed 45 days ahead of schedule on May 1, 1931 and $20 million under its $60 million budget. The Chrysler Building was the tallest building in the world for precisely eleven months. E.B. White would write that the Empire State Building "reached the highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the Depression."

Thanks to said Depression, the two million square feet of office space was going severely underutilized (75% of the building was vacant), causing the public to refer to it as the "Empty State Building." Still, they kept every light on to project the image of bustling industry. Jack Brod started Empire Diamond and Gold Buying Service on the 7th floor in 1931, a business that remained in the Empire State Building until Brod's death in 2008.

World War II brought the economy back to life - the Empire State Building would be 98% occupied - World War II also almost brought the end of the Empire State Building itself. 

On Saturday, July 28, 1945 Lt. Col. William Franklin Smith, Jr of Watertown, Massachusetts was the pilot of a B-25 Mitchell bomber plane. An experienced pilot, the 1942 West Point graduate had flown over 40 missions in Europe and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. This was a ferry trip for Lt. Col. Smith, carrying a passenger from Bedford Army Field (now Hanscomb Air Force Base) outside of Boston to LaGuardia Metropolitan Airport, a flight that would ordinarily take about an hour. There were two pilots, and one passenger on board.

                                                                          Lt. Col. Smith

However, as Lt. Col Smith approached New York City, air traffic control, citing heavy fog, instructed the plane to carry on to Newark Metropolitan Airport (now Newark International Airport). This put the flight path directly over Manhattan. The fog was so thick that the Empire State Building wasn't visible and around 9:40am Lt. Col. Smith lowered his speed and altitude in an effort to navigate the poor visibility.

The Chrysler Building appeared as if from nowhere. Lt. Col. Smith swerved to avoid hitting the building, but in doing so put the plane directly in the path of the Empire State Building, less than a mile away. Lt. Col. Smith's B-25 Mitchell slammed into the north side of the Empire State Building on the 79th floor. The plane's fuel exploded, sending flames as far down as the 75th floor. Someone on the 56th floor said it felt like the building was collapsing. One of the engines shot through the Empire State Building before coming to rest in a penthouse across the street. It took two days to find Lt. Col. Smith's body, as it had fallen down an elevator shaft.

It was 20-year old elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver's last official day working at the Empire State Building. She was on the 80th floor when the plane hit, knocking her completely out of the elevator and breaking her back, pelvis, and neck to go along with the severe burns she had due to the plane's impact and explosion. However, when first responders arrived, she was going to survive. They placed her on an elevator to the ground floor so she could be transported to the hospital. 

But the elevator cables had been weakened on the 38th floor by the plane's entry into the elevator shaft . As soon as Oliver was loaded onto the elevator, the cables snapped, hurtling her 80 floors to the bottom of the Empire State Building. And yet she survived for three reasons: the emergency auto-brake had kinda sorta engaged, the 1000 feet of elevator cable had spooled at the bottom of the elevator shaft, creating a sort of spring. Add to that and the rapid compression of air cushioned her fall, earning her place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the Longest Fall Survived In An Elevator.

A surprisingly-alive Betty Lou Oliver

The same cannot be said for the two other people in the plane, who died on impact, or for the 11 people working for the War Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, who were working directly on the floor into which the plane crashed. Since the crash occurred on a Saturday morning, the death toll - 14 - was far lower than it certainly could have been had it happened 48 hours later...which is when the Empire State Building re-opened for business, working around the 18' x 20' hole in the north side of the building.

Firefighters had extinguished the blaze within 40 minutes, making it the biggest fire ever brought under control at such a height (maybe a bigger one has happened in the last 78 years...I don't know.) The crash helped spur the passage of the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946. This compensates people who "suffered personal injury, death, or property loss or damage caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of the federal government," allowing people to sue the government for the crash. The Civil Aeronautics Administration also enacted restrictions in which planes can under no circumstance fly below 2500 feet in New York City. 

The story captivated the attention of the nation...for approximately nine days, when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. After the 78th floor had been cleared of debris, Armand Hammer - yes, that Armand Hammer, "Lenin's Chosen Capitalist" and the chairman of Occidental Petroleum - bought the floor, refurbished it, and made it the headquarters of his United Distillers of America. 

The Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world for 40 years, from its opening in 1931 until 1 World Trade Center opened in 1971. While the Sears Tower in Chicago took the World Trade Center's spot in 1973, on September 11, 2001 the Empire State Building regained its former designation as the tallest building in New York City. 

There is one more side story. Empire State Building chief architect William Lamb was concerned about people's ability to commit suicide from his building, and devised safety measures to try to prevent them from happening, but it wasn't enough on one May morning. On April 30, 1947 - just shy of two years after the plane crash - a 23-year old bookkeeper named Evelyn McHale took a train from New York to Easton, Pennsylvania to visit her fiance, a World War II veteran and college student named Barry Rhodes to celebrate his 24th birthday. Evelyn's mother allegedly suffered from undiagnosed depression, which was a contributing factor in her parents' divorce. The next morning she went back to Penn Station on the 7am train. They were to be married the following month.

Evelyn McHale went to the Empire State Building's observatory. Security guards were within ten feet of her at approximately 10:40am on May 1 when she jumped, clearing all of the safety devices Lamb had installed in the blueprints, and landed 86 stories below (1,050 feet), on top of a United Nations limousine. Police found a note which she left in her pocketbook on the Empire State Building's observation deck. It read:

I don't want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family - don't have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don't think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother's tendencies.

Photography student and part-time cab driver Robert C. Wiles was across the street when he heard Evelyn hit the car. Of course at this point nobody had read her note or her wish to not be seen. Four minutes later he took one of the most iconic photographs in history, published as the "Picture of the Week" in the May 12, 1947 issue of Life Magazine.