My blogs

About me

Introduction	II am a native New Yorker. I was admitted to the Columbia School of Journalism in 1978 over protests by the dean who warned that I'd never amount to anything. When I graduated, I went to work as a sportswriter. My biggest accomplishment as a scribe was seeing Yogi Berra naked in the Yankee locker room.  Then I helped organize a union. That got me pushed off the paper and onto a blacklist. My career as a mediocre daily newspaper reporter was done. I did, however, get work as the editor of two weeklies on Manhattan's West Side, leading directly to my first book, "You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan.” There were two more oral histories: "The Box," about the early days of TV and "Generation on Fire," an oral history of the 1960s resistance Snaked around that has been my life's work: an investigation into the trials of Alger Hiss, a project I began while in college when I went to work for him as his researcher and continued on and off through the years. After 40 years, it's almost done, but I'll let you in on the ending: he didn't do it.

Introduction

II am a native New Yorker. I was admitted to the Columbia School of Journalism in 1978 over protests by the dean who warned that I'd never amount to anything. When I graduated, I went to work as a sportswriter. My biggest accomplishment as a scribe was seeing Yogi Berra naked in the Yankee locker room.  Then I helped organize a union. That got me pushed off the paper and onto a blacklist. My career as a mediocre daily newspaper reporter was done. I did, however, get work as the editor of two weeklies on Manhattan's West Side, leading directly to my first book, "You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan.” There were two more oral histories: "The Box," about the early days of TV and "Generation on Fire," an oral history of the 1960s resistance Snaked around that has been my life's work: an investigation into the trials of Alger Hiss, a project I began while in college when I went to work for him as his researcher and continued on and off through the years. After 40 years, it's almost done, but I'll let you in on the ending: he didn't do it.