Joseph Mitchell (1) (1908–1996)

Well let me change from day today this book currently is in my top 10 favorite books. Mitchell was a long time reporter for various New York newspapers in later than New York or during the first half of the 1900s. His pieces are wonderful slices of New York history told through various character sketches and regions of New York that has long since disappeared. Each story is a gym starting with McSorley‘s old Ale House and moving onto other colorful characters such as Maisie who ran a movie theater on the lower Eastside waterman fisherman oysterman who worked the docs around New York Harbor and the Fulton fishmarket. He captures since of long last New York through a character Joe Gould described as a true Greenwich Village bohemian. Highly recommend.… (mehr)

A once-obscure collection of Mitchell's daily newspaper work from the earlier part of his career; that is, before he began his long run at The New Yorker. The collection can be a bit hit or miss, but some pieces definitely foreshadow his later work, such as the absorbing and interesting examination of oyster fisheries. Other pieces read like miniature Profiles, like the interview with Jimmy Durante. Some other pieces aren't quite as good, but one has to account for the fact that this is early in his career, and subject to rewriting. Generally recommended.… (mehr)