1752

The cornerstone of St. Michael’s Church was laid.

1934 – Porgy and Bess

George Gershwin and Dubose Heyward

In a letter to Dubose Heyward, George Gershwin reported that “I have begun composing music for the first act, and I am starting with the songs and spirituals first.” He then asked Heyward to join him in New York so the work could be expedited.

Over the next two months, while living in a guest suite of Gershwin’s famous fourteen-room house at 132 East Seventy-second Street, Heyward wrote the lyrics for almost a dozen Gershwin compositions, including “Summertime,” “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing,” “Buzzard Song,” “It Take A Long Pull to Get There,” “My Man’s Gone,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and “I Got Plenty of Nuttin’.”