Interesting history about the hotel that now houses JW's...
A Day to Remember for Those Who Do There was no cheering on Montague Street on Tuesday, no confetti, and no revelers in front of Borough Hall. A car horn rang out a little after 3:43 p.m., at precisely the anniversary of one of Brooklyn's happiest moments, but it was only because a Jeep Cherokee with a "Baby on Board" sign was too slow heading through a green light. Giddy fans with Johnny Podres filled the Bossert lobby when the Dodgers celebrated victory.
In short, the day was like any other in local history, except for one, exactly 50 years earlier, when the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first and last World Series and the borough erupted in celebration. The anniversary went uncommemorated at the corner of Montague and Court Streets, where a plaque identifies a Commerce Bank building as the site of the team's former offices, where the much-reviled owner, Walter O'Malley, arranged the Dodgers' move to Los Angeles two years later.
"A couple of people stopped to read it; as a matter of fact, I read it," Matty Prial, an off-duty police detective who was guarding the bank, said of the plaque. But those who lingered did so out of curiosity, not nostalgia. "All the Brooklyn Dodgers fans that I know hate that they left."
Montague Street was dotted with scattered passers-by wearing Yankee or Red Sox hats, marking the start of this year's playoffs. And on the corner of Hicks Street, the old Hotel Bossert, site of the 1955 Dodgers' delirious victory party, still stood. The building was renovated in the 1980's, so although it is now a residence for Jehovah's Witnesses staff members, it looks much the same from the street as it did in its prime.
The sidewalk under the red canopy in front, where fans had crowded 10 deep to greet the returning players, was quiet. The lobby, where giddy fans serenaded the Dodgers manager, Walter Alston, with "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," was empty except for some lingering residents and a pair of smiling receptionists.
The same crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, though, restored by the Jehovah's Witnesses and scrubbed of decades of cigarette smoke. Anyone who tried could almost picture the players and their families hurrying through, to a party that lasted all night.
"All the marble you see here," said Robert Alexander, a member of the building management staff, "the Brooklyn Dodgers looked at the very same thing back in 1955."
The ballroom in which the Dodgers had their party is a Witnesses dining room now, and the nautical-themed top-floor lounge called the Marine Roof, a player favorite for years, has been turned into a pair of events spaces in modern beige.
But Emil (Buzzie) Bavasi, a former team vice president, vividly remembers that night at the Bossert, a time Brooklyn came out on top. "Johnny Podres could have been mayor, president of the borough," he said last week of the pitcher who won the final game. "It went on for a week. We had to close our office for three days because the fans kept coming up wanting a piece of furniture, anything about the Dodgers."
Mr. Bavasi, who was hired for his first baseball job out of college, has seen a lot of celebrations, but this one was special. "I guarantee," he said, "there was more celebrating in Brooklyn that day than there was for the end of World War II."