PURE GOLD: TRUE STORIES.

At Columbia, I had the good fortune to study under Lionel Trilling, an inspiring teacher and one of the nation’s top cultural mavens of the 20^th Century.  About the same time, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg were studying under Trilling.  Both were part of a beat group that included Lucian Carr, a classmate of mine who was easily the best student in the class.  When I graduated, I visited Trilling, who paid me a great compliment:  “Have you thought of going in for teaching?” he asked.  “No, I’m not literary enough for that, but I might try journalism,” I answered.

 

Both Carr and Ginsburg would get in trouble on campus, Carr for using the fire hose in the dorms after he found his bed frenched, and Ginsburg for violating campus rules for letting Kerouac use his room and for writing epithets on his dorm windows.  One such note said, “Butler has no balls,” a reference to the university president who was considered saintly in some educational quarters.

 

Carr was reprimanded by the dean, but Ginsburg was given a leave of absence, returning in 1949 to get his degree.  His writings had made him famous and he was called “potentially dangerous and subversive” by J. Edgar Hoover.

 

In the ‘70’s he showed up in Greenwich Village, campaigning to have the abandoned Food Trades high school on 13^th St. turned into a cultural center.  I was the chair of Community Board Two’s Institutions Committee and committee members preferred converting the building into a center for gay activists, a position supported by the full board and eventually approved by the city.  The result was LGBT Center.  Ginsburg lost the battle but, of course, went on to world fame.

 

Henry Stern, the former parks commissioner, has had several offbeat hobbies.  For years he carried around a counter and clicked it every time someone patted his dog.  He wanted to set a world record for dog-patting.  But his passion was really devoted to his other hobby— giving people honorary park names.  He kept a book on all the names he assigned and gave each recipient a lapel name pin.  He awarded me “Reformer.”

 

Once he invited me to Washington Square Park where he was making a speech.  In the middle of his address he spotted me and yelled: “Where’s your lapel pin?”  Of course, it was at home.  He was a bit annoyed:  “You’re supposed to wear it when you’re in the park.”

 

In 2002, the Clinton Foundation and NYU sponsored an all-day forum on “Islam and America in a Global War.”  Bill Clinton sat through the entire proceedings, took voluminous notes and summarized each panel discussion for the audience.

 

At lunch, Clinton headed up the aisle and for some reason stopped in front of me and another reporter  Then, to no one in particular, he said with some anguish in his voice:  “I really tried very hard to get an Isreali-Palestinian peace agreement and we almost did it.”  Then he headed for the exit door.

 

It was Ed Koch’s 75^th Birthday Party at the Hilton, and a huge crowd had turned out.  I was schmoozing at the dining hall when Koch came over and said he wanted to meet someone.  Of course, we were on good terms at the time.  He took me over to meet Hillary Clinton, who was running for the Senate, and introduced me as “one of my oldest friends.”  A photographer snapped our picture and Koch disappeared.

 

Clinton, good at small talk, asked:  “How do you know Ed?”  “We go back a long way,” I told her.  “I think he’s still mad for beating him for vice-president in our club in the Village.”  I was joking and she knew it.  She laughed and said, “I’m sure he’s forgiven you by this time.”  Then Koch brought someone else over to meet her.

 

In 1977, Koch and Bella Abzug were running for mayor.  They were coming over to attend a street fair on Jane Street, where I was visiting John and Arthur Stoliar.  He had been an early chair at CB2 and we’d been colleagues on the board for many years.

 

Along came Bella, accompanied by one of her loyal supporters, Yvonne Morrow, who later worker for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.  “Be a good sport,” Morrow yelled, knowing I supported Koch.  “Come over and say hello to Bella.”  So I walked over and Morrow said: “Be friendly.  Put your arm around Bella.”  As I did a photographer jumped out and took our picture. 

 

Five years later, Morrow handed me an envelope containing the picture.  There I was, an arm around Bella, and the picture was inscribed: “For Ed— My biggest supporter.  Bella.”

 

Amy Tan, best-selling novelist of such books as Joy Luck Club, shares best friends with me.  So while she lives mainly in San Francisco, I sometimes get invited to her home in SoHo.

 

She has talked to me about such things as her trip to the tiny kingdom of Bhutan in Asia, her kicking the smoking habit with the counseling from a man called “The Mad Russian” in Boston, and our shared experience with neuropathy.

 

On one of her visits to New York, we had breakfast at Joe Jr.’s on 12^th St. and 6^th Ave.  Tan once taught language development.  On occasion she could be a bit mischievous.  She offered an example of her language skills.  We roared; it was the best example of pure Brooklynese I’d ever heard.

 

In 1996, the state Democratic Party was in poor shape after Nelson Rockefeller had just won the governorship.  The leadership decided to explore ways to strengthen and unify the party.  A very disparate committee of Democrats from all sections of the state was formed.  I was at  the time chair of the Democratic reform movement in the city, otherwise known as the Roosevelt-Lehman group, so they put me on the committee. 

 

We had a superior chair in Ted Sorenson, counsel to Jack Kennedy and famous for Kennedy’s Presidential Inaugural Address. 

 

Sorenson was able to find common ground on most issues, but he was stumped on one subject that today would be considered an anachronism.  The topic in question:  Why not have a single district leader in every district?

 

In retrospect, the debate seemed ironic.  None of the women would agree.  They were all convinced that a man would always win against a woman in an election.  How wrong they were!

 

I was working on a newspaper in Gallup, N.M. in 1950 where they were shooting a movie called “Ace in the Hole.”  Kirk Douglas played a cynical journalist who screws up a rescue effort to get a story. 

 

At the time, I was a pathetic sight to behold at 6 feet 1 inch tall and 135 pounds, with hair down to my shoulders.  I went on the set to cover Douglas, who was in his prime, and the public relations man came up with a clever idea, captioning the picture with the line: Real reporter interviews fake reporter.

 

The photo wound up on the front page of the Santa Fe New Mexican, the state’s best paper.  In a state with a small population, only about half a million in New Mexico at the time, you get to know a lot of people.  I was friendly with the state’s assistant attorney general.  He clipped the photo and sent me a note: “You should get a haircut and eat some decent meals.”

 

For many years, I was part of Ed Koch’s Saturday luncheon group.  On one occasion he surprised everyone by ordering pecan pie a la mode for lunch.  Several at the table told him it wasn’t healthy.

 

Koch replied: “I go to the gym regularly and I have one inch of muscle all over my body.”  He paused for a moment and then continued:  “The only trouble is that under the one inch of muscle is an inch of fat.”  And he plunged into his very sweet lunch.