#Omero C Catan

[20th-century-personalities]

Omero C. Catan on Jan. 26, 1957, when he was the first motorist on the Florida Turnpike.Credit...via HistoryMiami Museum

“This is the greatest achievement of my life,” Omero C. Catan declared in 1937, on becoming the first toll-paying driver through the Lincoln Tunnel, the newly opened artery linking New York to New Jersey. “There will never be another like it.”

In fact, there would be hundreds more: Throughout most of the 20th century, when a major public-works project arose in New York and beyond — a bridge, a tunnel, an airport, a subway line — Catan, a Brooklyn-born vacuum cleaner salesman, made it his mission to beat all comers onto, into, across or through it.

He was the first person to ride the Madison Avenue bus when that route replaced the old trolley line in 1935 and the first to take the ice at the newly opened Rockefeller Center skating rink the next year. He was the first motorist on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1951, the first paying customer to feed a New York parking meter when the city installed them that year, and the first to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland in 1952.

In 1953, when subway tokens were introduced, Catan was the first to drop one into the turnstiles at the 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue station. He was the first motorist across the old Tappan Zee Bridge in 1955, the first to traverse the newly opened lower level of the George Washington Bridge in 1962 (from the New Jersey side), the first onto Interstate 595 in Florida in 1989 and the first to do a welter of other things.

Embarking on this vocation as a teenager and continuing into old age, he had bagged, by his own count, 537 firsts by the time the 20th century had run its course.

#Omero C Catan #Mr First #1957 #1950s

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Overlooked No More: Omero C. Catan, Who Gained Fame as ‘Mr. First’ by Margalit Fox

By Margalit Fox For a time, whenever a bridge, tunnel or highway opened around New York, he endeavored to beat others onto, into or along it. Published: October 12, 2023 at 02:40PM from NYT Obituaries https://ift.tt/cQxd782 via IFTTT

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#antonio velardo #IFTTT #NYT

[katbal2]

1951. South Side of 125th St. between Lenox And Seventh Ave.

Mr. First, Omero C. Catan, the first person to use the first parking in NYC.

Why Omero Catan was called Mr. First can be found in link

https://untappedcities.com/2015/07/14/the-story-of-omero-c-catan-nycs-mr-first-to-cross-the-lincoln-tunnel/

NYT image.