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Community Corner

Greatness in the Glades

Award-winning journalist and author Pete Hamill honored at Green-Wood Cemetery.

“They say the pen is mightier than the sword,” mused Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz at the Green-Wood Historic Fund’s fourth annual benefit in the cemetery Thursday night. “But great writing is even more powerful than that—it makes us immortal.”

With curriculum vitae spanning 50 years in the newspaper business, serving as editor of The New York Post and editor-in-chief of The New York Daily News—in addition to authoring 21 books—Pete Hamill has achieved enough immortality for the entire borough.

In celebration of his literary talents, Hamill was honored at the event with the DeWitt Clinton Award for Excellence. Last year's recipient was Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, the landscape preservationist and writer, who helped restore Central Park. 

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A Park Slope native who grew up on Seventh Avenue, between 11th and 12th streets, Hamill shared memories of walking the cemetery grounds as a boy with his mother, "Who had an eye for free entertainment in those Depression years," Hamill explained. Years later, he said, he joined mischievous friends to explore it at night.

“I must have been 11 when I first climbed the fence with them in the leafy darkness of the north side,” Hamill told the rapt crowd. “Four or five of us would somehow make it over to play hide-and-seek among the tombstones. This was, of course, a test of our own fears. But it was also an exercise in imagination. As I searched in the dark, wondering if some stranger, some monster or some escaped convict was lurking there too, I was starting to become a writer—though, I did not know it at the time.”

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The benefit lured a mix of patrons, local politicians and fellow esteemed journalists to those same formative glades. Sam Sifton, the newly named national editor of The New York Times, came to congratulate Hamill and bring tidings from columnist and good friend, David Carr. But this time, instead of leafy darkness, all were huddled in the chapel and then beneath two white catering tents to take shelter from the rain.

Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, live music and performances by The Artful Conspirators provided ample distraction from the inclement weather. Meanwhile, Councilwoman Sara Gonzalez, Jason Hamilton on behalf of State Senator Eric Adams and C. Payson Coleman, Jr., Esq., chairman of The Green-Wood Historic Fund, all spoke to the importance of donations toward the future preservation of Green-Wood Cemetery.

But Hamill’s acceptance— and presence— was the true raison d'être.

“If you wander around the grounds, you will see the resting places of so many others who added to Clinton’s vision,” said Hamill, speaking about how Clinton, the sixth governor of New York, was largely responsible for the Erie Canal. He noted that the canal "transformed the New York harbor into the great American port."

Hamill gave a nod to some of the 560,000 permanent residents in the 478-acre cemetery such as Leonard Bernstein, Edward R. Murrow, John Lafarge and Jean-Michel Basquiat. (He also related to Patch that he bought the lot next to Boss Tweed to be his final resting place.)

“And of course the man I first knew as Joe the Blond,” Hamill recalled. “Later, he was called Crazy Joe Gallo in the tabloids. And as a reporter, I covered his burial here.

“I remember his mother calling out at his grave, ‘Joey! Joey! We will never forget you, Joey!’ And I’ve never forgotten her voice,” he deadpanned to peals of laughter, then summed up: “This Green-Wood is full of marvel, memory and the history of this great city.” 

After the reception, Hamill spoke to Park Slope Patch about his feelings toward his old stomping grounds, now commercially developed and more gentrified.

“With the exceptions of Brownsville and East New York, the Brooklyn that I grew up in is in tact!” Hamill professed while standing beside the chapel, as the rain came down. “To understand what happened—it wasn’t the yuppies coming in and driving the working class out. That didn’t happen. Most of the people in neighborhoods like mine, the so-called 'South Slope,' lived off the commerce of the port… And when the port started changing after containerization, [the companies] started moving to Jersey.”

Residents couldn’t commute from Windsor Terrace to Port Elizabeth every morning, Hamill explained. Thus, they moved to parts of New Jersey to be closer to work. It was, after all, the Depression.

“And when the yuppies did discover the place, it was great,” he continued. “People were living there, raising families and they opened restaurants. There were no restaurants before. People carried their lunch to work. They couldn’t afford to eat in restaurants.

“When I lived between 11th and 12th streets the bar on one corner was called Unbeatable Joe’s. Now there are curios shops," said Hamill. "It’s good; I don’t get irritated by that. Some people do. Now the trees are 60 years old since when I first saw them. There are yards and the homes have stoops. It’s more beautiful than it’s ever been.”

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