••• “A hero FDNY medic jumped into the freezing Hudson River Saturday afternoon to save a unstable man who escaped an area hospital and jumped into the arctic waters.” —New York Daily News

••• The National Herald, a Greek-American publication, checks in with Thalassa on the occasion of its 15th anniversary.

•••”The Metropolitan Transportation Authority met its self-imposed deadline to install platform countdown clocks at each of its 471 stations by year’s end.” —New York Daily News

••• I seem to have missed this Daytonian in Manhattan post from a few weeks ago about the history of 390 Broadway. A highlight:

The new tenants were nearly all involved in clothing manufacturing. Friedman Bros. & Bisco made shirtwaists; Manheim & Schwartz manufactured shirts, for instance. But two, Frederick A. Van Dyke and Gross Brothers, were far different. The Evening World described Van Dyke as “a millionaire real estate dealer.” Gross Brothers were wholesale grocers.

The sons of those two firms brought humiliation to their families in the summer of 1903. Van Dyke’s 21-year old son, also named Frederick, and Henry A, Gross, Jr., were in Central Park on June 4 when wealthy socialite Mrs. Edward Hagaman Hall strolled in with her eight-year old daughter, Ethel, and her nurse, Rebecca Meloney. Mrs. Hall, whom The Evening World described as “a tall, fine-looking woman,” left Ethel and the nurse sitting on a park bench and headed off on a stroll.  She had gone only a short distance before Ethel ran up saying “Oh, Mamma, two men are hugging Rebecca, and she is awfully frightened.”

The newspaper reported, “Mrs. Hall said that she hurried back to the bench and found the two young men embracing Rebecca with great fervor despite her struggles and protestations.” Telling a court later that she was “justly indignant,” Mrs. Hall kept her cool and pretended to engage Van Dyke and Gross in conversation until she could flag down a passing policeman. Policeman Quin arrested the young men, whose wealthy fathers quickly posted bail. But they were brought back before Magistrate Crane that same afternoon. “They were represented by a lawyer,” said the article, “who spoke for them and denied the charges. They were both so nervous that they could not utter a syllable.”

The judge listened to the testimonies of the nurse, the little girl and Mrs. Hall. Shockingly today, while Rebecca Meloney “was positive in her identification,” Crane scoffed at their complaint.

“I take no stock in women’s identifications, and will have to discharge these young men. Many an innocent man has been sent to State prison upon rash identification of women, and I don’t propose that anything of the kind shall happen in my court.”