Broadway Composer Harry Tierney and Broadway Lyricist Joseph McCarthy, Both of Pelham

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Rodgers and Hammerstein! Kander and Ebb! Rodgers and Hart!  These are a few of the most successful musical theater partnerships of composers and lyricists of all time.  Add to that list Tierney and McCarthy of Pelham.  

Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy of Pelham, New York, collaborated for a string of successful Broadway musicals during the 1920s.  The most famous and most successful one was "Rio Rita" produced by Florenz Ziegfeld.  It premiered on Broadway on February 2, 1927 and ran for 494 performances, a surprisingly long run for those days.

Harry Tierney wrote the music.  Joseph McCarthy authored the lyrics.  The show subsequently hit the road and ran in Sydney, Australia and on London's West End.  According to one source:  

"Rio Rita may be said to be one of the last, great, "light musical comedies" or "Follies-based" type of musical. With the introduction of Show Boat, later in 1927—as well as the subsequent introduction of George Gershwin's musicals that year and thought the early 30's -- the American musical became much more a dramatically cohesive "musical play". This form reached its maturity in the Rodgers and Hammerstein productions, beginning with Oklahoma! and culminating with South Pacific."

Source:  "Rio Rita (Musical)" in Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia (visited Sep. 23, 2017).

With the tremendous success of "Rio Rita" on stage, the musical was taken to the silver screen in 1929 where it likewise became a tremendous hit.  Produced by William LeBaron and Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, the film was 141 minutes long.  It cost $678,000 to make and earned $2,400,000 at the box office.  It became known as RKO Radio Pictures' "Picture of the Century."  As a consequence, the careers of Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy as movie songwriters took off.  Indeed, the pair repeatedly traveled cross-country to Hollywood to work on the musical scores of a number of hit Hollywood movies.  

Lobby Card for the 1929 Movie "Rio Rita."

Tierney and McCarthy had a number of notable Broadway successes as composer and lyricist, respectively.  One such success was "Kid Boots" which opened at the Earl Carroll Theatre on December 31, 1923.  It had a run of 489 performances.  It starred Eddie Cantor and Mary Eaton, and featured George Olsen and his orchestra.  

Produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, the show was advertised as "A Musical Comedy of Palm Beach and Golf."  The show was such a success that, like its later cousin "Rio Rita," it was turned into a successful Hollywood movie released in 1926.  

Poster Advertising 1923 Broadway Musical

"Kid Boots."  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

Harry Tierney was a successful and famous composer when he bought a home on Boulevard at Monterey Avenue during the summer of 1923.  He was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey on May 21, 1890 and died March 22, 1965.  His first major success was the Broadway musical "Irene" that was the longest-running show of its era with 620 performances.  The most active part of his career was between about 1910 and 1930.  During the 1920s, he often collaborated a composer with lyricist Joseph McCarthy.

Joseph McCarthy lived in Pelham during the 1920s.  Due to his fame, he was a friend and acquaintance of many stars of the day including John J. McGraw, Manager of the New York Giants baseball team (who lived in Pelham), Florenz Ziegfeld, and many stars of the stage and screen.  He was known as a local philanthropist and liked to tell the story of how he and his Pelham pal, Harry Tierney, once helped Florenz Ziegfeld.

It seems that Ziegfeld was producing a show in Philadelphia and needed a song for the show opening on a Monday night.  Ziegfeld contacted the pair and set them to work.  On Sunday morning, the day before the show opened, Tierney and McCarthy wrote the music and lyrics for the song and telephoned the music and words to the orchestra conductor in Philadelphia later that day.  The pair then traveled the next day to Philadelphia, attended the show, and enjoyed their own creation that later was described as follows:  "It's daintiness and musical beauty was a reflection of [McCarthy's] own courtly engaging personality."

Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy wrote a memorable song that virtually became a Pelham anthem mentioned in countless local newspaper articles for a decade or longer as a tune known by every Pelhamite and beloved by all.  It was entitled "Alice Blue Gown."  Indeed, in 1943, The Pelham Sun wrote that the song would "survive the centuries."  The newspaper may have been right.  To hear a recording of Joni James singing the beautiful song, click on the YouTube video below.

Joseph McCarthy died on Saturday, December 18, 1943. 

"HARRY TIERNEY AND SON HARRY JR.  Mr. Tierney who

makes his home on the Boulevard, Pelham Heights, is a well

known composer of popular music.  Mr. Tierney wrote the 

musical scores of 'Rio Rita,' 'Irene,' and many other musical

comedies and motion pictures."  Source:  HARRY TIERNEY

AND SON HARRY JR., The Pelham Sun, Apr. 24, 1936,

Vol. 27, No. 3, Second Section, p. 9, cols. 3-4.  NOTE:

Click on Image to Enlarge.

*          *          *         *          *

"Famous Song Writer Comes to Pelham
-----

Harry Tierney, composer of the music of 'Irene,' 'Up She Goes,' and 'The Follies,' has purchased from David S. Crater a new house at Monterey Avenue and the Boulevard.  The property was held at $75,000 and the sale was negotiated by the local office of Fish & Marvin."

Source:  Famous Song Writer Comes to Pelham, The Pelham Sun, Jul. 6, 1923, p. 3, col. 7.  

"HARRY TIERNEY BUYS ANOTHER PLOT IN PELHAM

Fish & Marvin, through their Pelham office, have sold for the Witherbee Real Estate & Improvement Company an acre plot in the Mt. Tom section of Pelham Manor to John Smith.  The property was held at $20,000.00.

Fish & Marvin, through their Pelham office, have sold for Dr. A. C. Bechtold a plot of land on Elderwood avenue, Pelham Heights, to Mr. Harry Tierney, well known composer of Pelham.  The property was held at $14,000.00."

Source:  HARRY TIERNEY BUYS ANOTHER PLOT IN PELHAM, The Pelham Sun, Nov. 6, 1925, Vol. 16, No. 36, p. 11, col. 1.  

"McCarthy and Tierney At Work on Ziegfeld Show
-----

Melody continues to flow in Pelham Heights where the pennant winning song writing team of Joseph McCarthy and Harry Tierney are busily engaged preparing the music and lyrics for Florenz Ziegfeld's [sic] new production 'Rio Rita,' which will be the curtain raising vehicle in t he new Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, November 1.  Tierney and McCarthy were responsible for the tuneful melodies of many New York successes including several editions of the Follies and Kid Boots."

Source:  McCarthy and Tierney At Work on Ziegfeld Show, The Pelham Sun, Aug. 27, 1926, p. 10, col. 4.  

"PELHAM SONGWRITERS SCORE WITH NEW PRODUCTION
-----

Joseph McCarthy and Harry Tierney scored again with 'Rio Rita' which opened the new Ziegfield Theatre in New York city Wednesday night.  The tuneful melodies prepared by the two Pelhamites are credited by metropolitan critics as the season's best and Rio Rita assured a long run in New York.  Ada May heads the cast."

Source:  PELHAM SONGWRITERS SCORE WITH NEW PRODUCTION, The Pelham Sun, Feb. 4, 1927, Vol. 17, No. 49, p. 1, col. 3.  

"Tierney and McCarthy To Join Pelhamites In Motion Pictures
-----
Songwriters Preparing To Leave For Hollywood To Write For Talking Pictures
-----

With a large delegation of Pelham's theatrical folk already in Hollywood doing motion picture work, two more of this famous group are preparing to embark for the coast.  They are Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy, songwriters extraordinary.  The success of 'Rio Rita' on the screen has assured Tierney and McCarthy a prominent position among motion picture songsters.  We can expect a new crop of theme songs from these twain in an early series of motion pictures.  

Tierney and McCarthy will be remembered for the songs and lyrics of Ziegfeld productions of 'Rio Rita' and 'Kid Boots.'

Edgar J. MacGregor, stage director, John Hunter Booth, author and Harry Ruby and Bert Kalmar, songwriters, all of Pelham, are now on the coast doing motion picture work."

Source:  Tierney and McCarthy To Join Pelhamites In Motion Pictures -- Songwriters Preparing To Leave For Hollywood To Write For Talking Pictures, The Pelham Sun, Oct. 11, 1929, p. 20, col. 4.  

"'DIXIANA' MUSIC WAS WRITTEN BY HARRY TIERNEY
-----
Pelham Composer Responsible For Tunes in Motion Picture at Proctor's.
-----

Bebe Daniels and Everett Marshall.  Music by Harry Tierney.

Never has there been a greater singing combination than this youthful, romantic pair, featured in 'Dixiana', coming to Proctor's New Rochelle Theatre tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday.

Miss Daniels surpasses even her phenomenal success in 'Rio Rita.'  Marshall certainly proves his right to the title, the 'Metropolitan Opera's most popular baritone.'

Together they sing a half dozen songs, lilting catchy love lyrics.  They sign solos.  And the songs fit perfectly into the continuity of the vitally interesting romance of that romantic place and time -- New Orleans in 1840.  Due credit for this must be given to Luther Reed, the director and adaptor [sic].

In Radio Pictures' first original music drama, William Le Baron has outdone any previous effort in point of magnificence, story, cast, setting and musical appeal.

Again the inimitable pair of comics, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, score heavily in the art of funmaking.  Others in the cast who give excellent performances are Joseph Cawthorn, Jobyna Howland, Dorothy Lee, Ralf Harolde, Edward Chandler, George Herman, and Bill Robinson.

Hall's Negro Chorus furnishes choral music throughout the film -- Negro spirituals and songs of the old South.  They score particularly in 'Mr. and Mrs. Ippi.'

To say that Harry Tierney's music and Anne Caldwell's book and lyrics are above criticism, is really superfluous.  The songs are intoxicating.  'Dixiana,' the principal song, is the kind one whistles on the way out of the theater."

Source:  "DIXIANA" MUSIC WAS WRITTEN BY HARRY TIERNEY -- Pelham Composer Responsible For Tunes in Motion Picture at Proctor's, The Pelham Sun, Sep. 26, 1930, Vol. 21, No. 26, p. 3, col. 1.  

"JOS. McCARTHY COMPOSES SONG FOR LIONS CLUB
-----
Pelham Lions Are Singing New Song Written for Them by Noted Composer; Resident of Pelham Heights.
-----

'Roar, Lions Roar,
For More, More, More'

If you hear any prominent local merchant humming those words to a catchy tune you can thank Joseph McCarthy, noted songwriter, for that's what the members of the Lions Club of the Pelhams are doing these days.  The catchy little tune was composed by Mr. McCarthy especially for the Lions Club, and the members of the club are losing no time in putting the number across.

The entire song is as follows:

'Roar, Lions roar
For More, More, More
If you've got a little business,
     you should advertise
Boost that business 'fore the darn 
     thing dies.
Roar, Lions roar
For you shop, your place, your
     store,
Show P-E-L we're up to 'L' H-A-M
And we mean all of them; 
We want More, 
So Roar, Lions Roar.

The club received a surprise on Monday when Mr. McCarthy arrived as the guest of William McNulty toward the close of the program.  The song was quickly distributed and it was but a few minutes before the melody was learned by every member.

Mr. McCarthy, who lives on the Boulevard, is well know as a songwriter, having been responsible for the songs in many Broadway successes and motion pictures.  With Harry Tierney he wrote the music for 'Rio Rita,' 'Up She Goes' and several others.  He is at the present time engaged in preparing the words and music for a new Ziegfeld production.  In this enterprise he is associated with Walter Donaldson."

Source:  JOS. McCARTHY COMPOSES SONG FOR LIONS CLUB -- Pelham Lions Are Singing New Song Written for Them by Noted Composer; Resident of Pelham Heights, The Pelham Sun, Oct. 30, 1931, p. 13, col. 3.

"ASCAP Oddities.

Note to Joseph McCarthy who is back in Pelham for a short stay:  Haven't heard 'Alice Blue Gown' for nearly a week.  That song will live as long as harmony endures.  It was, we think, the greatest hit ever written by the Pelham composer Harry Tierney and lyricist, Joseph McCarthy.  We did hear 'Where Did You Get That Hat,' which is known to all over 80.  A vague idea for a cartoon:  The verger of a church tiptoeing to the organist with an awed warning:  'We're on the air and that's ASCAP you're playing.'"

Source:  ASCAP Oddities, The Pelham Sun. Jan. 10, 1941, p. 2, col. 3.  

"They Pass Into the Night

More than twenty years ago Tom Sheehan a Pelham Heights policeman was found badly injured in New Rochelle.  He died a few days later leaving destitute a widow and a large family.  There was no police protection fund in Pelham at that time.  A letter was sent to a random list of residents of the town.  Among those who came to a meeting was one who quietly gave a check for $50 to start the fund.  Later to stage a baseball game, he used his acquaintanceship with John J. McGraw, of the New York Giants and aided in bringing about a game between the New York Giants and the New York Athletic Club.  A fine handsome man, few knew that the resident of the Boulevard was one of America's great songwriters -- Joseph McCarthy, who died on Saturday.  He was one of the most ardent supporters of his friend, Joseph McCormick when the latter won the election as Supervisor in 1931.  One weekend for Flo Zeigfeld [sic], he and his collaborator Harry Tierney wrote a song in Pelham telephoned the words and music to the orchestra conductor in Philadelphia Sunday morning and then went to the Quaker City to see the song in production on Monday night, an unusual feat.  His 'Alice Blue Gown' will survive the centuries.  It's daintiness and musical beauty was a reflection of his own courtly engaging personality."

Source:  They Pass Into the Night,  The Pelham Sun, Dec. 22, 1943, p. 2, cols. 3-4.

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Only Known Motion Picture Footage of 1924 World Series Championship Game Found!

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The only known motion picture footage of game seven of the 1924 baseball World Series has been discovered hidden in the rafters of a "non-climate controlled" garage in a suburb of Worcester, Massachusetts.  The film was on nitrate stock, one of the least likely film stocks to survive (and one of the film stocks most likely to burst into flames spontaneously, given its chemical composition).  The amazing footage is embedded, and may be viewed, at the end of today's posting to the Historic Pelham Blog.

What, pray tell, might such an amazing discovery regarding baseball history have to do with the history of Pelham, New York?  Therein, as I like to say, lies a lovely story.

In the 1924 baseball World Series, the New York Giants lost in seven games to the Washington Senators.  The Giants were, at the time, the first team to play in four consecutive World Series.  They were led by their long-time manager, John McGraw, of Pelham Manor, New York.  

I have written before about Baseball Hall of Famer and Pelham Manor Resident John McGraw.  See  John McGraw of Pelham Manor: Baseball Hall of Famer, The Pelham Weekly, Vol. XIII, No. 28, July 16, 2004, p. 10, col. 1.

1911 T205 Tobacco Card Depicting

John McGraw When He Managed the

New York Giants.  Source:  Library of Congress.

John Joseph McGraw managed baseball’s New York Giants for 31 years.  He is described as “perhaps the single most significant figure in baseball’s history before Babe Ruth”.  He led his players to 10 pennants and 11 second-place finishes.  His teams won the World Series three times. He is one of the most winning baseball managers of all time with 2,840 victories. 

McGraw, lived in Pelham Manor during the 1920s and early 1930s.  McGraw played as a scrappy and fiery third baseman for the Orioles throughout the 1890's.  By 1899, however, he had found his calling.  He became Baltimore’s player-manager. McGraw's ultimate success as a manager stemmed from his burning competitiveness and his insatiable desire to win at any cost.  An apocryphal story is told of his first year managing Baltimore.  While coaching third base he tricked the opposing pitcher with an old ruse.  Baltimore had a base runner on first.  Between pitches, while the game was underway and the ball was live, McGraw shouted to the opposing pitcher saying he wanted to see the ball.  Oblivious to the scheme, the pitcher tossed the ball to McGraw “who smilingly stepped aside and watched the ball roll to the grandstand fence.”  The runner on first took off for second and scored on a subsequent single.

On January 8, 1902, McGraw married Blanche Sindall, a young woman from Baltimore. She was his second wife.  His first died of a burst appendix.  He married Blanche Sindall amid difficult professional circumstances.  The American League seemed set to expand into New York City.  McGraw feared that the Baltimore franchise would be shut down at the end of the season in favor of a new franchise in New York.  Consequently, McGraw quietly arranged his release from Baltimore and signed a four-year contract to manage the New York Giants for a salary of $11,000 per year. 

McGraw’s move was a good one.  He ultimately became part owner of the Giants and the most celebrated manager of his time.  In 1904 the Giants won the pennant.  The next season, the team won the World Series.  During the next 15 seasons he led his team to first or second place finishes 11 times. 

In 1921, forty-nine year old John McGraw – known to millions as “Little Napoleon” – was in his thirty-second year of professional baseball and at the peak of his career.  In the midst of a season that would bring him the seventh of his ten National League Pennants and the first “all New York World Series” against the Yankees, McGraw decided to move with his wife, Blanche, to Pelham Manor – only a few miles from the Polo Grounds where the Giants played.  

McGraw’s biographer says that the McGraws purchased “a ten-room brick house on Edgewood Avenue” in late 1920.  The Pelham Sun reported that the couple moved into the home at 915 Edgewood in August 1921.  According to Charles Alexander’s biography: 

“It was the first residence McGraw had owned since he and his first wife lived in [a rowhouse] in Baltimore more than twenty years earlier.  Never having learned to operate an automobile, McGraw depended on Edward James, a young black man whom he’d befriended and brought from San Antonio, to chauffeur him the nine or ten miles from Pelham to the Polo Grounds. Also living at the house in Pelham was Mildred Jefferson, a hefty black woman who became the McGraws’ cook and maid shortly after they moved in.”

915 Edgewood Avenue Where Blanche and John McGraw

Lived While He Managed the New York Giants.  Source:

Photo by the Author Taken on July 4, 2004.

The McGraw home on Edgewood Avenue saw many illustrious guests.  Dave Bancroft, future Hall of Famer, and his wife Edna were frequent guests.  The illustrious Casey Stengel, another future Hall of Famer, spent much of his time at the McGraw house.  Indeed: “Often in the early morning hours, Blanche McGraw would awaken to the sounds and smells of Stengel and her husband in the kitchen, frying bacon and eggs and still talking baseball.  Those long nighttime sessions were part of the education under McGraw that Stengel would cite when, many years later, people asked how he’d become one of the winningest managers in the game’s history.” 

In addition, future Hall of Famer Frank Frisch spent what he later described as the two most enjoyable hours “in my life” sipping wine and “talking about everything but baseball” with McGraw in the home on Edgewood Avenue.  

The McGraws also entertained guests at the New York Athletic Club on Travers Island and attended Mass at St. Catharine’s in the Village of North Pelham. 

John McGraw entertained so frequently that, according to one report, his wife urged him to move to a somewhat smaller home in Pelham Manor hoping it would “discourage her husband from bringing home so many overnight guests”.  According to McGraw’s biographer: “In October [1930] they sold the place [at 915 Edgewood] and moved into ‘a Colonial-type brick dwelling’ at 620 Ely Avenue [also in] Pelham Manor.  Formerly occupied by an investment trust executive and his family, the house had nine rooms and three baths and sold for $65,000.  Although McGraw gasped at the size of the mortgage, the sale of the bigger house . . . according to Blanche McGraw, covered most of it.”

620 Ely Avenue Where Blanche and John McGraw

Lived While He Managed the New York Giants.  Source:

Photo by the Author Taken on July 4, 2004.

John McGraw’s tenure in the lovely home at 620 Ely Avenue was short-lived.  By the fall of 1933, he was dying of prostate cancer.  By early 1934, according to his biographer, “he was suffering more and more . . . and [was] unable to spend much time away from the comfort and privacy of 620 Ely Avenue.”  In February he reportedly felt so badly while visiting Manhattan he asked his driver, Edward James, to take him home quickly.  That night, February 16, 1934, his physician, Dr. Louis B. Chapman, admitted him to New Rochelle Hospital.  

John McGraw deteriorated quickly. As he lay dying on February 24, it began to snow heavily.  His biographer says: “Father Vincent de Paul Mulry, pastor at [St. Catharine’s] Church in [North] Pelham, the McGraws’ parish, led [a] group in prayer in the corridor outside the dying man’s room.  Then, they, together with the three attending physicians, waited by his bedside until 11:50 a.m., when Chapman shook his head and told the others that it was all over.  McGraw had died on Sunday, February 25, 1934”. 

After embalming, John McGraw’s body was taken to the McGraw home at 620 Ely Avenue.  Tributes arrived from around the nation and Pelham Manor’s snow-clogged streets were overrun with mourners.  According to one report: “Vehicles could barely navigate streets clogged with snow that by late afternoon measured nine inches.  Nonetheless, people began coming as soon as they heard, as many as could make it, given the weather.  On Ely Avenue workmen with shovels and cinders, dispatched by town authorities, tried to keep the street passable.  Many more people came on Monday and Tuesday to view McGraw’s remains, which lay in a plain mahogany casket, his hands holding a crucifix.  [Future Hall of Famers] Frank Frisch and Bill Terry (who’d left the Giants in spring training at Miami Beach as soon as he got the news) stood together for a long time beside the casket.”  

Blanche McGraw had her husband’s body entombed in Baltimore.  One can say, however, that the true epitaph of Pelham Manor’s most famous professional ballplayer was written for the plaque dedicated to his memory in 1937 when he was inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It reads: 

"JOHN J. McGRAW 

Star Third-Baseman of the Great Baltimore Orioles, National League Champions in the ‘90’s. For 30 Years Manager of the New York Giants Starting in 1902. Under His Leadership the Giants Won 10 Pennants and 5 World Championships."

John McGraw in 1924.

Source:  Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection.

Extracted from Larger Image for Wikipedia.

The newly-discovered motion picture footage of the 1924 World Series championship game seems to show then Pelham Manor resident and Giants manager John McGraw appears fleetingly in instances during which the camera pans the visiting team's dugout.  For example, for a fleeting moment at 1:52 into the film. an individual believed to be McGraw is standing on the top step of the dugout just below field level toward third base watching as one of his players scores from third base during the sixth inning.  

The footage is important for a host of reasons.  It shows future Hall of Famer Walter Johnson making his first World Series appearance at the age of 36, pitching for the Washington Senators.  He pitched the last four innings of game seven.  It shows Muddy Ruel scoring the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning.  It shows the only time a Washington, D.C. team has ever won the World Series.

The footage is embedded immediately below.  Click on the arrow in the film frame to watch.  Use the pause button at exactly 1:52 to see the man believed to be Little Napoleon.

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To read about the discovery of this unique footage, see:

Mashon, Mike, Film of the Washington Senators Winning the 1924 World Series Found! (October 2, 2014) (visited Oct. 3, 2014).  

To read more about John McGraw and the 1924 World Series, see:

John McGraw, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (visited Oct. 3, 2014).

1924 World Series, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (visited Oct. 3, 2014).

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The Earliest Days of Radio in the Town of Pelham

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With the rise of the Internet and the Web, few seem to give the medium of open-air broadcast radio a second thought today.  The broadcasts of radio stations located around the world are available via live streams with the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger via computers and mobile devices.  Digital satellite radio streams devoted to hundreds of niche music genres and subject matter interests are directed to digital receivers in vehicles, businesses, and residences.  

There was a time, however, when broadcast radio was the latest technology fad -- an expensive entertainment alternative that graced few homes in Pelham. I have written before of the rise of the medium of radio in the Town of Pelham.  See Wed., Jan. 22, 2014:  Pelham Becomes Enthralled with the New-Fangled Entertainment Medium of Radio.

Today's Historic Pelham Blog posting hearkens back to a simpler time when broadcast radio was still an unproved medium.  In 1922 and 1923, virtually no one in Pelham owned a radio.  Few commercial broadcast radio stations existed.  Those that existed broadcast signals that were so weak that they were hard to receive in many areas, including Pelham.  That did not stop the local newspaper, The Pelham Sun, from jumping onto the radio bandwagon quite early.  

In 1922, The Pelham Sun installed a radio receiver in its office on Wolfs Lane and connected it to a loudspeaker to broadcast the announcement of the baseball World Series.  In that series, the New York Giants (whose manager, John McGraw, lived on Edgewood Avenue in Pelham Manor) beat the New York Yankees in five games:  four games to none with one tie.  The following year, The Pelham Sun worked with a local electrical supply company and installed a radio receiver again on September 14, 1923.  Pelhamites gathered at the newspaper's office to listen to the announcement of an historic heavyweight title boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Latin American fighter Luis Ángel Firpo.  

Eighty thousand boxing fans paid to see the fight live at the Polo Grounds in New York City only a short distance away from Pelham.  A large crowd also gathered inside and outside the offices of The Pelham Sun on Wolfs Lane.  The crowd was so large that it spilled into the street.  The fight was not broadcast live.  Its results were announced via broadcast radio.  Yet, the crowd greeted the broadcast announcements "with wild acclaim."

The fight is considered one of Jack Dempsey's "defining fights."  He had held the heavyweight title since 1919, but was fighting the man known as "El Toro de las Pampas" ("The Bull of the Pampas").  At the beginning of the first round, Firpo dropped Dempsey with a right.  Dempsey dropped to one knee but stood immediately to return to the battle.  Firpo knocked Dempsey out of the ring late in the first round and Dempsey suffered a severe cut on the back of his head.  Some believe the count was a slow count that allowed Dempsey to return to the ring with assistance that some claimed was illegal and should have led to a declaration of a knockout by Firpo.  There is a famous photograph as well as a well-known painting of the moment Firpo knocked Dempsey out of the ring (see below).  

 "Dempsey and Firpo," Oil on Canvas 

Painted June 1924 by George Bellows.

Source:  Wikimedia Commons.

"Argentinian Boxer Luis Ángel Firpo throwing 

Jack Dempsey out the ring. September 14, 1923"

Source:  Wikimedia Commons.

Transcribed immediately below is a brief article that appeared on the front page of The Pelham Sun a week later on September 21, 1923, describing the radio event hosted at the newspaper's offices the previous Friday.  

"Fight Returns By Radio Brought Big Crowd to Sun Office
-----
Loud Cheering Followed Announcement of Dempsey's Victory -- Much Excitement
-----

Pelham boxing fans came out in swarms last Friday night to listen to the radio service installed at the Sun office.  They filled the office and overflowed into the street.  The radio set installed by the courtesy of Mandel Osserman of the O.K. Auto and Electrical Supply Co. gave the result of the big bout clearly and distinctly and the news of Dempsey's vicotry was greeted with wild acclaim.

A special loud speaker will be installed in the Sun office for the announcement of the World Series, the same as was done last year.  The Sun came in for many compliments for its enterprise in relaying the news of the championship battle last Friday night."

Source:  Fight Returns By Radio Brought Big Crowd to Sun Office, The Pelham Sun, Sep. 21, 1923, p. 1, col. 6.  

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