The Cultural Revolution and “No Name Painting Association”

This is Chapter Three of my book Tales of Their Time — about Chinese artists who immigrated to New York in 1980s and 1990s for freedom of expression in speech and art. Before this chapter, there will be an overview of Chinese…

Finding Elise Cowen

Telling the long-lost story of the extraordinary female Beat poet

Thank you for the cool stream of air

You make with your grey wings

Six inches away from my pinky finger

Revisiting the Dinkins Era and the 1991 Crown Heights Riot

Previous to this episode: In 1989, after narrowly defeating Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani, David Norman Dinkins became the first African-American to win a mayoral election in New York City, and in 1990 he took office…

Juries, Confessions, and Re-trials: The Etan Patz, Adam Sirois, & Pedro Hernandez Story

Chapter 1: The Disappearance

What is the harm in walking alone to the bus stop? It’s only two blocks. Stan and Julie Patz let 6-year-old Etan Patz walk to…

Tracing Syria and US Ambassadors from Decades Ago

I want to examine U.S.-Syria relations in the years between Syria independence and Hafiz Assad’s coup in 1971. I found myself thrilled about starting this book project when I found all the declassified CIA reports from the 1950s and 1960s. I…

From the Ashes: Metropolitan Avenue

The fire swept through Powers Street, spreading voraciously from one cockloft to the next, the wood-frame houses going up like kindling. By the time it had finally been snuffed out, eighteen families were homeless. Cast adrift in the night.

The Elusive Poet

— The search for Elise Cowen. Part I

I’ve always found myself attracted to the beautiful, the melancholy and the bizarre, and Beat Poet Elise Cowen was all of the above.

Women Who Write

— The search for Elise Cowen, Part II

In the midst of my research on the life of the lost Beat poet Elise Cowen, I was introduced to a memoir by Anne Roiphe, titled Art and Madness. It was a book about how she, as a female writer, lived in and perceived the culture and…

A View From the Sketch Artist Seat: Pedro Hernandez Trials

I am writing about the very public Pedro Hernandez case — the man just convicted of murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz, who disappeared in SoHo in 1979 on his way to a bus stop. Since that day, the boy’s family and friends have been…