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Jim Dwyer was one of the greatest of the greats. His New York Times colleagues chose a selection of some of his work for the paper: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/nyregion/jim-dwyer-stories.html
First up is this piece about how a window washer used a squeegee to free himself and others trapped in an elevator.
"At that moment -- 8:48 a.m. -- 1 World Trade Center had entered the final 100 minutes of its existence." https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/09/nyregion/nation-challenged-objects-fighting-for-life-50-floors-up-with-one-tool-ingenuity.html
"At that moment -- 8:48 a.m. -- 1 World Trade Center had entered the final 100 minutes of its existence." https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/09/nyregion/nation-challenged-objects-fighting-for-life-50-floors-up-with-one-tool-ingenuity.html
In this one, he helped tell the story of the final minutes of people's lives before the towers came down: "like messages in an electronic bottle from people marooned in some distant sky, their last words narrate a world that was coming undone." https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/nyregion/fighting-to-live-as-the-towers-died.html
Jim, on Steinbrenner's death: "Maybe the rule against speaking ill of the dead does not apply to rich lunatic uncles." https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/nyregion/14about.html
This one is the first of several Jim wrote about a boy who died of septic shock. "Rory Staunton, 5 feet 9 inches tall and 169 pounds, was big for his age and a student of the world." https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/nyregion/in-rory-stauntons-fight-for-his-life-signs-that-went-unheeded.html?src=me&ref=general
Honestly I have been avoiding this piece for the last day. The revisiting will be hard: Jim Dwyer on Newtown. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/after-newtown-shooting-running-and-hoping-to-find-a-child-safe.html
He was drawn to stories of injustice, including this one about a Black boy who had been shot by the police 4 decades earlier. "That bullet killed Clifford Glover. Its trajectory — through a family, a neighborhood, a generation — can be traced to this day" https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/nyregion/fired-at-queens-boy-fatal-1973-police-shot-still-reverberates.html
In 2015: "Donald J. Trump has always acted this way." https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/nyregion/condemned-and-praised-by-trump.html
A few years ago, on his NYC childhood:
"In the 1960s, my playmates and I stopped everything when it began “snowing” ash from incinerated garbage. We chased tiny scraps of partly burned paper that floated in the air as if they were blackened snowflakes." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/nyregion/new-york-city-smog.html
"In the 1960s, my playmates and I stopped everything when it began “snowing” ash from incinerated garbage. We chased tiny scraps of partly burned paper that floated in the air as if they were blackened snowflakes." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/nyregion/new-york-city-smog.html
He covered the pope's visit in 2015:
"The shape and form of families had changed in ways long resisted by the official church. Not by Francis. He said spiritual vibrancy could come from any “family, people, region or religion” and pledged gratitude" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/23/us/pope-francis-moments-of-us-visit.html
"The shape and form of families had changed in ways long resisted by the official church. Not by Francis. He said spiritual vibrancy could come from any “family, people, region or religion” and pledged gratitude" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/23/us/pope-francis-moments-of-us-visit.html
Jim's last column, in May, was about the 1918 pandemic:
"In times to come, when we are all gone, people not yet born will walk in the sunshine of their own days because of what women and men did at this hour to feed the sick, to heal and to comfort." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/nyregion/spanish-flu-nyc-coronavirus.html
"In times to come, when we are all gone, people not yet born will walk in the sunshine of their own days because of what women and men did at this hour to feed the sick, to heal and to comfort." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/nyregion/spanish-flu-nyc-coronavirus.html
And finally, this one: Jim, on the Central Park 5.
"This is a story of the biggest story of its day, a crime that set a high-water mark for depravity, an urban atrocity that caused existential hand-wringing for America’s biggest city." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/arts/television/when-they-see-us-real-story.html
"This is a story of the biggest story of its day, a crime that set a high-water mark for depravity, an urban atrocity that caused existential hand-wringing for America’s biggest city." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/arts/television/when-they-see-us-real-story.html
All i wanted to do yesterday was read Jim Dwyer's writing, so I'm glad this collection exists. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/nyregion/jim-dwyer-stories.html
But if you'd never heard much of him before all the journalists in your feed started waxing poetic, here's the obituary, 1500 words trying to sum up the life of a man who wrote so many more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/nyregion/jim-dwyer-dead.html
