Our Strong Band

Stuyvesant's most famous grad? Energy Star Czar, Richard Karney; Basketball Fixer, Jack Molinas; Customs' Gigolo, Jerry Kuperstein; Romaniote Prince, my cousin Martin Genee; Genetics Genius, Dr. Alan Lambowitz; Dr. Paul Ringel's son, housing lawyer Peter Ringel; Lucy Liu-sorry all incorrect guesses. It was an Irishman born on the LES, Jimmy Cagney. Many sources have Jimmy being born in Yorktown, but "Cagney", a biography by James McCabe has him being born at 391 East 8th Street. "It has been reported that James Cagney, Jr., was born in an apartment over his father's saloon at the corner of East Eighth Street and Avenue D, New York. This is not so. Cagney was born--on July 17, 1899--in a small apartment on the top floor of a conventional brownstone at 391 East Eighth. His father would acquire the saloon years later, and only then for a brief time. The Cagney birth certificate gives his father's occupation as telegraphist. In this apartment the Cagneys' oldest boys were born: Harry in 1898 and Jim a year later. The bartender job took the Cagneys early in 1901 uptown to Yorkville, where they found a small flat at 429 East Seventy-ninth Street near First Avenue. Here the third Cagney boy, Edward, was born in 1902, followed in 1904 by William, and in 1905 by Gracie, who lived only ten months, dying of pneumonia." More on Jimmy later in a future semi synchronicity episode. In the meantime here's a Cagney slide show