WEBVTT - Jonathan Mahler and Alec Agree, “New York or Nowhere” 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.320 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:10.559 Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is a best 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.000 selling author and a staff writer for The New York Times. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.640 Jonathan Mahler's first book, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.280 was adapted into a mini series for ESPN. His second book, 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.720 The Challenge, won the Scribes Book Award in two thousand 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.360 and nine. In the world of sports journalism, Jonathan Mahler 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.920 has been featured in the anthology book series The Best 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.600 American Sports Writing, and has received numerous journalism and media 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:43.560 awards throughout his career. Mahler's latest book, released this past summer, 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.879 is entitled The Gods of New York The Tumultuous Eighties 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:52.400 from Donald Trump to the Tompkins Square Riots. Raised in 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:57.320 Palm Springs, California, I was curious where Jonathan Mahler's fascination 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.760 with New York originated from. 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.320 I was born in New York. Both my parents were 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.440 New Yorkers. My father was a working class Jewish kid 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.319 from the Bronx who you got himself into Bronx science 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.240 and went off to medical school, also in New York, 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.240 and was offered a job out in California at a 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.720 hospital out there, and you know, he had barely left 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:19.840 New York, and I thought he was like, well, this 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.560 is the dream, you know, moved to California, raised my 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.080 family out there. So we moved to Palm Springs, and 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.120 my mom hated it from day one and couldn't wait 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:31.920 to move back to New York and find you way 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:34.319 there for a while. I was there, really my whole childhood. 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:35.080 I moved back. 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.840 I was in college when they moved back, and they 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.280 actually made a deal because my mom was a smoker, 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.160 lifelong smoker, and my father's a doctor. My father said, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.640 if you quit smoking, we'll move back to New York. 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.320 And then what happened next was that they moved back 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.240 to New York. My mom quit smoking. She was so miserable. 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.400 My dad said, please start smoking again. So she got 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:56.920 everything she wanted. She got to move back to New 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:58.160 York and continue smoking. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.080 What was it about New York that he he didn't 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:02.279 want to go, he wanted to stay. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:05.080 Well, he just you know, he was a workaholic, and 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.880 he was so devoted to his patients that he for 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.519 him his life was going to the hospital, seeing patients 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:14.160 in his office, making it a practice. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:14.880 He had a practice. 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.080 He worked seven days a week, and so you know, 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.560 he had a little, a little snippet of time on 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.200 Sunday afternoon when he would sit by the pool and 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.560 you know, read a medical journal. So for him, it 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.880 was it worked out great. But my mom couldn't stand it. 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:34.000 So it's interesting to me that you have written three books, correct, 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.519 The Box is Burning, Challenge, and then this book now 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.959 Gods of New York. They were born in New York, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:41.800 but you're not a lifelong New Yorker. You know, a 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.280 big part of your youth was outside New York. What 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:46.359 is it about New York? Because I mean, we both 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.760 everybody has their opinions as to why do we stay? Yeah, yeah, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.400 it's so challenging, it's so tough. Why do we stay? Yeah? 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.120 It's funny because I grew up in California, but I 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.360 always felt like a New Yorker because both my parents 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.600 were in New Yorker. I'd rooted for the Yankees and 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.960 the Giants and the Knicks. Really from birth, inherited that 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.680 from my father, and we would come back every you know, 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.840 of every chance we got. My mom would bring us 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.200 back to New York, which was, you know, really every year. 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.040 I mean we'd come at least once, so I felt 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.280 always connected to New York. It was always like the 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:18.359 place where I should be. 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:19.160 Living, I think. 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.680 And by the time I got out of college, my 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.640 parents had moved back here, and so it became kind 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.079 of naturally the place to move. And once you kind 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.720 of settle in in New York, it's so hard to 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.480 leave if it worked for you. Yeah, exactly, particularly because 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.440 not only because it's so hard to sort of find 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:38.880 a way to make it work that once you do, 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:40.920 you don't want to give it up, but also because 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.440 New York is it's always changing. You know, you're always 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.880 going to new neighborhoods, discovering new neighborhoods, new restaurants. Your 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.240 life here, I feel like it doesn't feel static in 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.840 the way that it might in other places, so you 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:54.000 just don't get bored with it. 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.040 I think, well, I think that if you have an 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:58.880 escape from New York, that makes everything a lot different. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.080 If you can't go anywhere else, if you have no 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.400 other option, New York can be very very onerous in 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.120 that way of your spending the summer there in the 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.760 hot summer. But now for you, where did you go 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.240 to College of Northwestern? I went to Northwestern? Yea in Chicago, 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:12.680 And did you study journalism there? 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.400 I studied English literature there actually, but I did start 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.400 working on the paper there, so that's kind of what 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.520 got me launched. So even though I was an English major, 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:22.279 I worked on the college paper. 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.200 Why, well, what attracted you to then? You know? 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.200 I guess I feel like as I kind of worked 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.279 my way through college and started to think about what 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.680 I might want to do, I realized that the only 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:33.760 thing I knew I was like pretty good at was 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.880 thinking and writing. And then the idea of you know, 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.040 going out into the world and not spending all my 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.159 days kind of at a desk was appealing to me. 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.080 The idea that I might have a career kind of 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:48.000 engaging with people and thinking and writing reporting, reporting. Yeah, 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.680 so I thought I would maybe be interested in giving 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.080 it a try. So I did it at my senior 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.760 year really at Northwestern, and then I graduated and thought, well, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:58.200 I'm going I'm going to give this a shot and 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.800 see how it goes. Moved to New York and try 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:02.520 to be a journalist and if it works out, great 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:03.720 and if it doesn't. 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:04.560 How did it begin? 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.760 My first job was actually at the McNeil LAIRR News Hour. 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:10.240 How did you pull that off? How? 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.960 I just applied for an internship there and remarkably was 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.040 able to get one, which I loved and you know, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.560 sort of sad to see what's happening to public television. 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:19.680 Now. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.479 Of course that's a separate story, but I felt like 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:23.760 I wanted to I wanted to. 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:25.479 Write how long were you there with them? 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.720 I was there about six months, I think, so recall Yeah, 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:30.800 not very long, no, because it was an internship. 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:32.440 It was just to get me. Well, what did you 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:34.320 pick up on that in terms of I mean, obviously 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.520 I liked both of them and I liked that show, 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.480 but it was among the starchiest news programs in my life. Yeah, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.120 those guys were pretty old school. Did you absorb that? Like, 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.200 I'm here and what do they want from me? 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.520 I mean what they wanted from me mostly was was 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:50.560 lunch orders. 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.800 And coffee, but it was that face. 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.039 Yeah, I mean I think I occasionally, you know, contributed 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:57.520 some research to some stories. 0:05:57.640 --> 0:05:59.279 Was basically the extent of my work. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.839 It was a real inter yeah, true internship, but I 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.680 mean those guys were amazing. I mean, Robert McNeil was 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.040 an inspiring figure just because he had been a foreign correspondent. 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.560 He had just he had this kind of gravatas, like 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.599 the kind of qualter Cronkite type gravatas, and he was 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.640 so cultured and so well read, and it was just 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.320 he was a certain kind of newsman that you just 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:22.920 felt like, Wow, that guy's amazing, Right. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.200 They took the obligation very seriously, totally. Yeah, Yeah, and 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.880 he loved it. Where do you go after McNeil? 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:29.080 Lay? 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.560 After that, I worked at the Wall Street Journal's wire service, 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.120 the Dow Jones News Service, and I was a wire 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.000 service reporter there. I mean a lot of people probably 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.640 even know what a wire service is, because I think 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:40.000 that them barely exist. 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:40.680 Yeah. 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.800 They were these kind of news services that provided stories 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.640 to newspapers all around the world, and they worked on 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:52.040 a very kind of hyperactive schedule. Let's say, I mean 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.000 you were kind of writing all the time. Newsrooms would 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.080 have these little kind of teletype machines and they would 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.320 spit out these stories from the wire services, and they 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.760 would rip them off and use them ass copy in 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.160 their newspapers. So I did that writing about you know, 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.040 financial news for four years and. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:09.720 That was. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.320 Yeah, Yeah, it was grueling, grouling. 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.840 What about it made you stay? Well, that's a good question. 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:20.600 I was sort of moving up. 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.400 I started as a real kind of general assignment reporter, 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.200 where I was I was really just writing. I'm essentially 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.320 rewriting press releases, you know, forty press releases a day. 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.080 And then I became a proper reporter and so I 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.440 sort of, you know, was able to kind of grow 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.480 a little bit there, even though I didn't really love 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.480 the job. So I was kind of looking for what 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:43.960 I wanted to do next at that point, and I 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.720 knew that I wanted to be writing less frequently and 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:52.040 longer stories. And I found my way. I started freelancing 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:53.600 for a newspaper, and then I kind of found my 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.680 way there on Staff, which was a Jewish weekly newspaper. 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:56.880 Called The Forward. 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.600 Yes, it's an amazing institution. I mean it's been around 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.440 for well over one hundred years, over one hundred and 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.000 fifty years. It was a you know, it was sort 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.640 of the newspaper for Yiddish speaking Jewish immigrants who came 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.320 to New York in the early twentieth century and you know, 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.480 a sort of a in the modern era. It was 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:19.120 kind of reinvented as an English language newspaper. So so 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.720 I worked there for a number of years and I 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:22.440 love that it was. 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.520 It was great. I remember reading in the book that 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.960 you're Jewish and your wife Issima is not Jewish, although 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.000 you convinced her to have a Jewish wedding. And she 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.160 refers to the harrowing experience of you going to a 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:35.760 New England Christmas. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.000 That was in an essay I wrote. I think, yes, yeah, no, 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.480 she's a writer, she is an editor. So the first 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.320 Christmas I went to her grandmother, who's no longer with us, 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.720 but yeah, yeah, exactly. She had a little Christmas ornament 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.679 with my name on it, which was you know, it 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.160 was hard enough to be going to Christmas, but let 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.040 alone have an ornament with my name on it. 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:56.640 Was christ You know, it's a very sweet gesture. But 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.280 I was. I was surprised how long went the forward, 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:00.240 How many years I. 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:00.760 Was there for? 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.080 Five years? Wow, So you really build a foundation. I did. Well. 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.080 It takes a while, you think, so, yeah, I don't 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.280 even believe me, right, Yeah, I guess in each of 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:12.280 these jobs, I felt like I was still learning and 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.319 kind of growing and you know, finding new things to do, 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.160 so I could stick around. And also because I was 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.680 sort of here in New York, there would have been 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.400 opportunities at newspapers around the country, But if I wanted 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:25.880 to stay in New York, it's harder. 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:28.120 And the forward were you married when you did the 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:29.800 on the forward? That was after the forward? 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.320 That was after Yeah. So then I actually was at 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.200 my next job where I met my wife, which was 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.640 at Talk magazine, but Tina exactly. 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:40.960 Yeah. So, and Tina said she thought that it could 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.760 work if one for COVID and Harvey bailing out from 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:46.800 his financial commitment to the thing. She thought it was 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.560 a really worthy project. Did you agree? I did. 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.960 I thought it was a great magazine. It really was 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:53.719 just starting out. I mean, I think in the end, 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.120 I started working there a year before launch, so to 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.480 me it feels like it was longer. But I think 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.080 that the magazine really only survived for two years. I 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:03.080 loved working for Tina. 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.120 It was fun. I'd never worked at a glossy magazine. 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.360 It was a whole other world. Describe that it. 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.120 Was just so different. I mean, particularly because I, you know, 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.920 I was at a. I had come from this, you know, 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.559 weekly Jewish newspaper where basically if you took a source 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.920 out to lunch, that meant like splitting the cost of 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.960 a tuna sandwich. And then suddenly I met, you know, this, 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.320 this glossy magazine where you you know, you have a 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:24.560 proper expense account. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.920 You know, yes, you want exactly. 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.480 You know, even even raw tuna. 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:32.840 So it was wild. 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:34.920 I think the idea was that it was obviously kind 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:39.080 of celebrity driven, but it was also literary and classy. 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:39.560 And and fun. 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:41.920 You know, I really enjoyed it, but it was coming 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:44.600 at the tail end of the age of the glossy magazine. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:46.120 What was a story you wrote for her that you 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.600 that you enjoyed. I'll tell you what I remember, because 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:54.240 it's the one celebrity, real proper celebrity profile I've ever written. 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.800 It was when Ridley Scott was making Gladiator and I 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.480 flew over to London to profile Russell Crowe and to 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.920 write about the movie. I was in London for what 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.440 was in the end, I think an hour long interview 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:09.800 in Russell Crowe's hotel room. I was in London for 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.080 a week, kind of waiting to get the nod to 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:17.040 come over and interview, and he obviously had no interest 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:18.920 in talking to me. You know, it was kind of 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:20.720 an education I think in the kind of journalism I 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.120 didn't want to do, but you know, an experience like 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:25.080 I'm glad I had. 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.240 But did he come around when you were with him? 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:29.559 Was he really for me? Was he? No? 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:31.839 No, he was diffident the whole time. He had no 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.760 interest in being there. I'm sure he had been forced 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.839 to do it. And Ridley Scott was much better. Actually, 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:39.760 I then went out to La and he was he's 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:41.880 a salesman. He is a salesman, and I think he 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.560 was interested in talking about his movie. Russell Crowe was 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.760 not interested in talking about his performance. 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:47.760 Yeah, I'll tell you. 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:49.680 There was one other fun story that I did there. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.920 There was a moment in time when the Hermitage Museum 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:58.440 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, had just made an agreement with 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.640 the Venetian Hotel, which had just opened in Las Vegas, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.120 and they were going to send some of their art 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.760 over to the Venetian and so there was going to 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.040 be you know, there were going to be paintings from 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.720 the Hermitage in one of the world's most famous museums 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.760 in the Venetian Hotel as part of this agreement. So 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.560 I went over to Saint Petersburg and spent a few 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.880 days in the Hermitage and interviewed people there, and you know, 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:23.960 in the middle of winter, it was kind of just 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.680 an unbelievable city, just the most beautiful city. And then 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.320 from there I came back to the United States and 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.040 went to Las Vegas to the Venetian Hotel. So it 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.880 was the biggest kind of you know, contrast of reporting 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:37.280 trips you could possibly imagine. 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.360 Yeah, you read talk how long really until it folded? 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.200 Which was three years, I guess in the end, because 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:44.240 I started before launch. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:45.719 Yeah, then where do you go? 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.400 That's when I sold my first book, which was Ladies 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.520 and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning. So I started writing 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.520 that book, and I also started freelancing for the New 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.280 York Times magazine. So I was sort of doing those 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.319 kind of in tandem for a little while until I 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:01.360 got my book done. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.560 Why the book about the Bronx was your first book? 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:05.200 You've been writing for a while now, and you're going 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:06.280 to write this your first book. 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:07.800 Yeah, it was my first book. I mean, it goes 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:09.560 back a little bit to what we were talking about 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:11.680 before that. You know, New York had always had this 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.400 kind of mythic hold over me, you know, because my 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:15.240 father had. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:16.800 Grown up in both my parents had grown up in 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.320 New York. My father grew up in the Bronx, and. 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.200 It was always, as I said, the place that I 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.400 was kind of supposed to be. I you know, I 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:26.760 had this kind of connection to it, but I also 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.840 felt like I didn't know it as well as I 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.000 wanted to, and I didn't know its history as well 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:32.679 as I wanted to. So, you know, when you're when 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.480 you're setting out, especially when you're setting out to write 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.959 your first book, you feel like I need a subject 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.320 that I know it's going to hold my interest because 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.520 this is going to be hard. And so it was 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:45.599 you know, New York, and you know New York in 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.679 the seventies, which was when I had my first kind 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:49.960 of when I first came here, my first images of 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.000 New York were really New York in that era, in 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.880 the seven yeah, exactly seven eight. And you stayed for 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.199 how long on that trip as a child, we would 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.320 come for you know, always a couple of weeks. We 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.200 would stay in an apartment that belonged to a friend 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:03.920 of my parents. 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:04.760 Summertime. 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:06.680 Summertime, we would go to you know, I go to 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:08.920 Yankee Games. We would go to see you know, we 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.400 went and saw show Sweeney Todd. We would see shows 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.840 on Broadway. We would sometimes go to you know, Gilbert 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.680 and Sullivan Light Opera. We would go to Rockefeller Center. 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.200 We would just kind of do all the things you 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.520 do here. I just felt like I knew it was 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:22.520 a subject that had a kind of hold over me. 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.680 Somewhat surprisingly, you maintain memories as a seven year old 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:28.520 I did. I mean just so interesting. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.040 Yeah, I mean, nothing too detailed, but just you know, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.600 almost like movie images that you sort of have a 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.400 vague recollection of, and like kind of a sense of 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.080 almost aesthetic memories in a way, especially with the first book, 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:41.640 I mean, you really don't know what you're doing. I 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.520 did so much research that didn't make its way into 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:46.240 the book. I talked to so many people, I read 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.320 so many books. I mean, in a funny way, a 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.280 lot of that material didn't appear in the book. But 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.200 you have to kind of master a subject in a 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:55.320 way to write a book about it, and that does 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.280 mean a reading widely and talking to people widely and 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.760 going way really beyond the subject of the book to 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.360 feel count yeah, like to just feel marinated in it 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.120 and to feel kind of comfortable a lot. 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.200 You know, it's going to stay out, ye, going to 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:10.760 make the cut. 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.920 No, No, that's exactly it. The book was sort of 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.120 partly about the Yankees from that year, nineteen seventy seven, 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.120 because that had been again this team I followed from 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.800 afar out in California, and I was kind of obsessed 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:24.680 with in the way that you are when you're a kid, 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.120 you become obsessed with sports teams. And then part of 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.840 the book was just about the city and the life 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.440 of the city, the nineteen seventy seven Blackout, the Son 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.400 of Sam, and these were just things that I as 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.400 I researched, I just got kind of more and more into. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.600 It's the great thing about writing a book is that 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:42.920 you know, as you get to know a subject more 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.480 in a way, it becomes more captivating. 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.040 It sort of pulls you in. Who was the imprint 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.640 for our Strauss and Jeru and how did you pull 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:52.240 that off? Getting a book published? Stuff? 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:54.840 I wrote a propose, I had a good agent. I 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.000 rewrote the proposal a couple of times, and they bought it. Yeah, 0:15:58.000 --> 0:15:59.280 and then they published my second. 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:06.920 Book too, Author and journalist Jonathan Mahler. If you enjoy 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:11.960 conversations with intrepid writers, check out my episode with Lawrence Wrights. 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.080 When people go into scientology, they don't you know, they 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.560 don't go into it because it's a cult. They go 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.400 into it oftentimes because they're looking for something such as well, 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.520 you know, sometimes they're spiritual seekers or they're you know, 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.120 you might be one of those people that goes down 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.440 in the subway and someone says, would you like to 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.880 take our personality tests? And you know, well, if we 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.320 see that you have a little trouble of communicating with people, 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.000 that's true, Well we you know, we can what you say, 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:39.800 we can help you with that. We we have a 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.600 course that can help you in your relationships. And the 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.920 truth is, oftentimes they can help. It's like going into therapy. 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:52.880 People do benefit from it. So this initial exposure to 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.760 scientology is often very positive to people. 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.360 To hear more of my conversation with Lawrence Wright, go 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.960 to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Jonathan 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.479 Mahler details how his first book, The Bronx, is Burning 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:26.800 wound up becoming a mini series for ESPN. I'm Alec 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.760 Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. Before joining the 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.119 staff at the New York Times, Jonathan Mahler was a 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:39.120 sports columnist for Bloomberg View. He then became a contributing 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.560 writer for The New York Times, where he covered everything 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.280 from baseball to politics. From Mahler, I wondered what it 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.160 was like transitioning from freelancing to full time staff writer. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:52.639 Actually, for a while I worked from home, and then 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.080 I rented an office for a little while in Dumbo 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.240 in Brooklyn, and I would go there every day and write, 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.439 and then eventually I went full time on staff at 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.520 the time, So they gave you a desk, they gave 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.920