On this date in...
1879...America's first Cardinal, John McCloskey, dedicates the just-completed St. Patrick's Cathedral. After more than 20 years of construction, the gothic revival masterpiece becomes the centerpiece for Catholics in the United States.
1950...The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel opens. At nearly two miles long, it's the United States' longest underwater motor vehicle crossing.
1969...A classic New York film, "Midnight Cowboy," opens at the Baronet Theater on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
1979...Six-year-old Etan Patz disappears as he heads to school in SoHo. Thirty-three years later, a break in the unsolved case leads to the arrest of Pedro Hernandez, a New Jersey man who had worked at a bodega near where Patz disappeared. Hernandez goes on trial in the spring of 2015, but after 17 days of deliberations, the jury is unable to reach a verdict and the judge declares a mistrial.