Breslin's Nuyawk

Jimmy Breslin is a raspy personification of the NYC I knew as a kid. Best professor I ever had at Seton Hall was a former Daily News city editor named Dick Blood who worked and drank and drank some more with Breslin and spoke of him with the naked enmity and grudging respect of a dejected suitor describing da bum who stole his girl's heart. Great piece in Sunday's NY Times is a little more kind:

And with a past like that, it would perhaps be excusable if Mr. Breslin simply churned out pieces from the time capsule and sat back on his journalistic laurels. While his last few books were tepidly received and did not attract the typical strong reaction, he remains quite busy — as a crank, a scold, a public nuisance, a curmudgeon of the foulmouthed Irish mold, who has made a cottage industry out of keeping alive the grit, vitality and maverick spirit of New York’s phone-booth-and-fedora days.

For those of you of a certain age, this audio cue is as old-school NY as dirty-water-dogs, buying fake IDs in Times Square and dealers whispering "coke ... smoke ... no?" along 42nd Street.