"Brodie" (July 23, 1886)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

    Yesterday (July 23, 1999), NY1 (the local New York City news cable
television channel) did a "New York History Minute" about Steve Brodie's July
23, 1886 jump from the Brooklyn Bridge.  Some parts of it were wrong.
    Earlier this year, ADS member David Shulman was profiled in the New York
Times.  There was a picture of Steve Brodie, and part of Shulman's research
was described.
    Someone from the magazine BROOKLYN BRIDGE saw it and met David Shulman
one Saturday at the public library.  Shulman told me that he wanted to be
paid--he didn't want someone else writing the story using all of his work.
The writer said he'd speak with the BROOKLYN BRIDGE editors, who nixed the
idea of paying Shulman anything.
   Today, Shulman told me that he found the story "Leaping into Legend" in
the Summer 1999 BROOKLYN BRIDGE.  Shulman was quoted without authorization,
and his name was misspelled.  This is from page 64, col. 2:

     Hollywood had it right, argues David Schulman (sic), a Bay Ridge
lexicographer who has spent months researching Brodie's jump at the Fifth
Avenue branch of the New York Public Library in Manhattan.  (Brodie jumped
from the NY Public Library?--ed.)  He claims to have "proof positive" that
Brodie made the leap and he pledges to restore the flamboyant saloon keeper's
besmirched reputation.  Sitting in the library's newly renovated main reading
room, Schulman (sic) produces a folder stuffed with papers that he says hold
the key to Brodie's innocence.
     But the 86-year-old Schulman (sic), realizing the historic importance of
his discovery, withholds sharing the vindicating material with a reporter.
Schulman (sic) announces his intention to write his own article about the
incident or even pen a biography that clears Brodie of all fraud charges.
"Someone once asked him why he didn't do it again," says Schulman (sic).
"And you know what he said?  'Once is enough.'"

     We took a cab from the NYPL at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue to the NY1
offices at 42nd Street and 10th Avenue.  Someone there said they couldn't
replay yesterday's "New York History Minute," but they took copies of the
BROOKLYN BRIDGE article, the NY TIMES article, and the JERUSALEM REPORTER
article and gave Shulman a business card.  I'll let you know if he gets on tv.