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Useless Information

Fascinating True Stories from the Flip Side of History

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A Lady’s Age Is Her Own Business

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Muriel Nicholson, whose husband operated a New York City car dealership, filed applications with the State Motor Vehicle Bureau to register three different automobiles. Each time she used a different birth date. One said that she was born on September 6, 1914, a second listed her birth date as September 26, 1915, and the last indicated a date of September 6, 1918. 

As a result of her deception, she was charged with three counts of falsifying data. If guilty, Mrs. Nicholson could have received a $500 fine ($4,700 today), one year in jail, or both.

On May 12, 1954, Mrs. Nicholson arrived at the Court of Special Sessions dressed in a gray suit with a fur collar, a pearl necklace and earrings, a black ribbon in her blonde hair, and a short black veil.

After considering the facts in the case, the three judges unanimously dismissed the charges against Mrs. Nicholson.

“We are unwilling to believe that such penalties were intended for one who only exaggerated her age between three and four years,” Justice Herman Hoffman stated. He added that “…the age element is only important as requiring proof from an applicant that she is not a minor.”

“It may be observed, in passing, that the courts are not unmindful that age – as far as our sisters are concerned – is singularly relative, and gallantry exacts an appreciation and understanding of our lady’s age as one of the most gracious in men.”

As for her real age, Mrs. Nicholson never revealed this detail in the courtroom. She did state, late on the evening of the decision, that she had been born in 1916.

Eleven days later, Mrs. Nicholson’s fame would bring her misfortune. Shortly after midnight on May 23, 1954, two bandits brandishing pistols entered the lobby of her apartment building at 10 East Eighty-fifth Street and demanded that the doorman take them to her apartment. Upon entering her sixth-floor apartment, the thugs tied up Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson, the doorman, and a maid. The telephone was ripped from the wall and at least $50 in cash and jewelry was stolen. The Nicholsons were able to free themselves and contacted police.

Muriel Nicholson holding her driver’s license. Image originally appeared on page 1 of the May 13, 1954 publication of he Boston Globe.

Mummies Found in Attic

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On March 7, 1906, workmen remodeling a building that ran between 118 and 122 Elm Street in New York City found two small boxes that were covered with a thick layer of dust, indicating that they had been there undisturbed for quite some time. 

Upon opening the boxes, they discovered the mummified bodies of three infants, an adult’s skull, and the shriveled hand of an adult. 

The date of 1868 was written on both boxes, which means they could have been there for nearly forty years. 

No one knew who placed the human remains there or why they had been stored. The coroner found no indication of foul play.

Mummified cat and rat found in Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin during cleaning. Image dated 1890 – 1910. From the National Library of Ireland collection.

Life-Size Statue Found on Subway Platform

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One would expect many things to be left behind by riders on New York City’s subways: cell phones, umbrellas, coats and similar items. Imagine the surprise of transit workers when they found a life-size statue of St. Anthony holding the Christ child in his arms abandoned on the mezzanine level of the East Broadway station of the IND Sixth Avenue Line on Christmas Eve of 1963. There the brown plaster statue sat in its crate, standing 6 feet (1.83 m) tall and weighing in at a whopping 250 pounds (113.4 kg). With no one there to claim it, the statue was hauled off to the Transit Authority’s lost and found department at 370 Jay Street.

Two days later, a Haitian man named Etienne Agnan walked in to claim the statue. Agnan, who had moved to New York City four months prior, explained that he had done some statue work for St. Teresa’s church on the corner of Rutgers and Henry streets. For his efforts, church officials rewarded Agnan with the statue of St. Anthony, which he planned to take to upper Manhattan for some repair work before shipping it off to Haiti.

So, Agnan lugged the massive statue into the subway but soon realized that there was no way that he could easily get it onto the train. He opted to leave the statue on the mezzanine level while he ran upstairs to seek outside transportation. By the time he returned, subway workers had already hauled the statue off to the lost and found.

Personally, I think it would’ve opted for a U-Haul instead.

The plaster statue of St. Anthony that was found on the mezzanine level of the East Broadway station of the IND Sixth Avenue Line on Christmas Eve of 1963.
The plaster statue of St. Anthony that was found on the mezzanine level of the East Broadway station of the IND Sixth Avenue Line on Christmas Eve of 1963. Image originally appeared on page 4 of the New York Daily News on December 27, 1963.
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