Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It's membership drive quiz time. Today, New York City History Part 2. We had part 1 last week. This week, New York team names, coffee cup designs, names of mayors, and more. If you think you know stuff about the city and its past, call up now to play. We're doing a membership drive quiz at this time every day. They'll be one final one tomorrow. We're not going to reveal the topic just yet. Today, it's New York City history with this low-stakes pop quiz part 2.

We don't give grades, but, yes, we do give prizes. Call up and get in line if you want to try your hand. 212-433-WNYC. Again, get two in a row right, and you'll win the recently popular trending on the Thank You Gifts page on Brian Lehrer Show, Sean Bray blue baseball cap. Who wants to give it a shot? 212-433-WNYC. Elliot in Manhattanville, ready to play?

Elliot: As ready as I will ever be. Thank you.

Brian: All right. We're going to actually start today on sports. For those of you who were or weren't watching the New York Jets beat the New York Giants 13 to 10 yesterday in one of the worst football games you will ever see. True or false, the Jets were originally named the New York Titans, but their name was changed to rhyme with the New York Mets?

Elliot: That is correct, although I felt there was another reason that they were changed to the Jets. That's correct, yes. I'd say true.

Brian: That is true, yes. According to Bleacher Report, a five-man syndicate headed by Sonny Werblin, who's Jets owner or executive at the time, saved the team from certain bankruptcy purchasing the lowly Titans for $1.3 million in 1963. Werblin renamed the team the Jets because it rhymed with the Mets, and they would both be playing at Shea Stadium. Off sports. In 1827, before Central Park was created, the land around what is now the park's perimeter from West 82nd to West 89th Street was the site of a thriving community of predominantly African-Americans. Do you know the name of that community at that time?

Elliot: I could do a multiple choice because I've heard about it but--

Brian: We don't have this one set. This is a harder one.

Elliot: I've seen drawings of it. I know that it was destroyed to create the park.

Brian: All right. I'll give you one little hand. I don't know if it's going to be a good enough hand.

Elliot: Okay. Thank you.

Brian: Think of a known native American nation name.

Elliot: Okay. Give me a sec, please. Sorry, I won't take up a lot of your time.

Brian: In three, in two, in one.

Elliot: Agua Caliente.

Brian: Nice try. Now it is a good club, but it's Seneca Village. Elliot, thanks for playing. Christopher in Astoria, ready to play?

Christopher: Yes. Can you hear me?

Brian: Yes. Lucky the draw you're calling from Astoria, where there's a lot of Greek culture, and our question happens to pertain to a bit of that, the iconic Anthora cup is the name of that cardboard cup that everybody sees of Grecian design that has held New Yorker's coffee for decades. It seems like it's been around forever. The question is in what decade was the Anthora cup created?

Christopher: Anothora cup, what decade? The '60s maybe.

Brian: It was the '60s. It was designed by Holocaust survivor, Leslie Buck, in the 1960s in order to appeal to Greek and Greek American restaurants. How about that? All right, back to sports, and back to sports team names. Before they were renamed the Yankees in 1913, what was the original name of that baseball team?

Christopher: I've heard this before. The Highlanders maybe.

Brian: It was the Highlanders. That is right. Cue the trumpets. Christopher, you win a Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat, hang on, appropriately a baseball hat after that question. We're going to take your address off the air. Why the Highlanders? Because they originally played in Washington Heights up on a hill, and then they moved to the Bronx or the Polo Grounds and then the Bronx, and then it didn't make sense to call them the Highlanders anymore. All right. Alex in Brooklyn, you're ready to play?

Alex: I sure am.

Brian: In 1942, we're still in the game speed here but not sports, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia made prohibition-style search and seizures of this game a top priority for his police department. This game was banned in part all the way until 1976 according to this history that we read. What is it?

Alex: I guess pinball.

Brian: Pinball is right. Very good. According to the new biopic called Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game, Mayor La Guardia banned pinball in public spaces shortly after the Pearl Harbor bombing in an effort to combat crime and prevent juvenile delinquency, so there you go. All right. Let's see what we got here. Since tomorrow is Halloween, here's a little spooky New York City history for that. Creator of the modern horror tale, as we know him to be, Edgar Allan Poe lived in a cottage in which New York City borough?

Alex: Golly, not Brooklyn.

Brian: You have a 20% chance of getting this right if you even can pull that out of a hat.

Alex: Well, not Staten Island. It's either Manhattan or the Bronx. I'm going to go with the Bronx.

Brian: The Bronx is right. According to, cue the trumpets, nycparks.gov-- The trumpeters are sleeping. They're getting very complacent. Maybe we're giving away too many hats. They want to renegotiate their union contract. I don't know. According to nycparks.gov, the famous American poet rented a cottage near Kingsbridge Road in Valentine Avenue in the Bronx for $100 a year from 1846 to 1849. All right, hang on. Alex, we're going to take your address off the air and send you a baseball cap. All right. Now, for our last two questions, we're going to give away a hat if you get even one right. Peter in Bed-Stuy, you're ready to play?

Peter: I'll do my best.

Brian: All right, because this is going to be hard. Only one and if you get it right, you will win the baseball hat. Can you name every mayor of New York in the last 50 years that is starting with the election of 1973 to the present? If you get them all, you will win a hat instantly. I'll start you off in 1973 with the election of Abe Beame. How about the rest after that?

Peter: Let's see. Abe Beame. This is not going to be in order, Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani, Bloomberg, Blasio, Adams, and-- I'm missing somebody.

Brian: And-- Wait, did somebody come after Adams? Did I miss it? Did Adams abdicate the throne?

Peter: No. Did I get them all?

Brian: You got them all. Cue the trumpets. Peter wins a baseball cap for getting-- How many was that? Seven mayors in a row covering the last almost 50 years. All right. Andre in Brooklyn, you're going to be our last contestant. You're ready, Andre?

Andre: Yes, I am.

Brian: Listen to this.

Andre: Okay.

Brian: True or false, even though their headquarters moved to New Jersey in 1958, Mister Softee was founded by William Conway and James Conway in 1956 in Brooklyn, true or false?

Andre: True.

Brian: Sorry, that is false. Mister Softee was founded in Philadelphia, though it's been in New Jersey ever since their headquarters. The irony is Philadelphia Cream Cheese was founded in New York. Thank you all for playing. I'm glad we gave away a few WNYC Brian Lehrer Show baseball hats. We'll have one more membership drive quiz at this time tomorrow.

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