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s well. My job was to track down the biggest names I could find for both papers, interview them, and write a 900-word story. Most interviewees were in the arts and entertainment industry -- actors, singers, dancers, writers, musicians, news broadcasters and radio personalities. Bruce quickly recruited me to write the restaurant reviews as well. During my two and a half years at the paper, I wrote about 210 interviews. These are my 100 favorites of the ones that survive.
These stories represent my first professional work as a journalist. I arrived in New York City in November 1976 at age 26, hungry for an opportunity to write full-time after spending six years practicing my craft at college and community newspapers in New England. I had just started to sell a few stories in Maine, but realized I would have to move to a big city if I was serious about switching careers from social worker to journalist.
My gigs as an unpaid writer for small local papers included a music column for the _East Boston Community News_ and a theater column for the Wise Guide in Portland, Maine. I had learned the two most important rules of journalism -- get your facts straight and meet your deadlines. I had taught myself Pitman's shorthand and could take notes at 100 words a minute. So I felt ready to make the leap if someone gave me a chance.
Full of hope, I quit my job in rural Maine as a senior citizens' aide, drove to New York, sold my car, moved into an Upper West Side apartment with two aspiring opera singers, and began to look for work.
One aspect of the New York personality, I soon observed, was that the great often mingled freely with the ordinary. At the Alpen Pantry Cafe in Lincoln Center, where I worked briefly, David Hartman, host of _Good Morning America_, came in for his coffee every morning and waited in line like everyone else. John Lennon was said to walk his Westside neighborhood alone, and largely undisturbed.
The other side of the New York mentality was shown by nig