History Round-Up: Email and Suicide Hall

I just got turned on to a feature on meantalfloss called The First Time News was Fit to Print. Writer Jason English searches the New York Times online archives, which go back to the 1850's, for the first time certain people, places or things appeared in print. This "greatist hits" post features early articles about Barack Obama (February 6, 1990), Times Square (March 23rd, 1904), and this article on E-mail:

June 9, 1985

"...One of its alleged advantages is the so-called store and forward message. A user may send messages at any time and, unlike a telephone connection, e-mail does not require the recipient to be on the other end of the line. Then again, the old-fashioned postal service does not require that the recipient be there at the time of delivery either.

When all is said and done, electronic mail is no more efficient, in the vast majority of cases, than the telephone or the postal service it is supposed to replace. Nor does it have the flexibility to be able to deliver packages such as spare parts, in the manner of another innovation, the overnight express service pioneered by Federal Express."

Also from mentalfloss, 5 Historical Drinking Stories That Put Yours To Shame

I also want to point you to an article published earlier this month in New York Magazine: The Glass Stampede addresses the changing face of New York. It's a kind of map of recently razed older buildings replaced by thoroughly modern glass-and-steel constructions. My favorite line:

"AvalonBay leveled McGurk’s, a rickety five-story dive that in the 1890s employed whores so desperate that the place came to be known as Suicide Hall."

Yikes.