A Minor Celebrity Sighting - Pete Hamill

Being a New Yorker, I have a highly developed sense of tunnel-vision -- I don't usually look at other people on the street. Every so often, however, I do spot the occasional celebrity: Chris Eigman (the guy from the Whit Stillman movies, saw him on the subway), Robert Klein (ditto subway), Ralph Fiennes (actually rode an elevator with him once), and more recently Claire Danes with her boytoy Hugh Dancy.

Today, going to lunch, I saw someone who's not a big celebrity but is most definitely a New York legend: Pete Hamill, the great reporter and columnist, someone who calls himself and will forever be identified as an old-fashioned "newspaperman."

He's been writing about New York City for almost fifty years, has worked at almost every major newspaper in this town (he even edited the Post for a while), has written novels, and also appeared a lot on television. He even had the distinct yet scary honor of being on Nixon's enemies list back in the 1970s, along with folks like Ted Kennedy, John Lennon, Joe Namath, and Paul Newman (how freakin' cool is that?).

Hamill wrote the best book ever of New York nostalgia -- Downtown: My Manhattan. It's a loving tribute to this city, combining history with memories and anecdotes. It gives us Hamill's personal views and feelings about the city but manages to make them universal at the same time. I've never read a book quite like it and I highly recommend it as an upcoming summer beach read.

I didn't say anything to Mr. Hamill when passing him outside my office today. But I smiled, glad to know he was still roaming the streets, doubtless thinking of other wonderful things to write.