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Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: My guest today is Harry Siegel.

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Speaker 1: Harry is, among other things, a lifelong Brooklyn night, a

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Speaker 1: senior editor at the Newsroom the City, a moynihan public

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Speaker 1: scholar at City College, the creator and a co host

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Speaker 1: of the Pac NYC and litt NYC podcast, and a

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Speaker 1: long time New York Daily News columnist.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Harry, so nice to have you on.

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Speaker 3: Hey, Carol. Always great to see you have.

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Speaker 1: One of my favorite New York accents, like the one

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Speaker 1: that I consider my part of Brooklyn New York accent,

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Speaker 1: get out of you Yeah, oh yeah, yeah for sure,

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Speaker 1: Like I think when I hear you, you've sound super

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Speaker 1: familiar to me and like my childhood.

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Speaker 3: It's funny because everything is always on these weird legs, right,

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Speaker 3: Like you grow up and you see six year olds

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Speaker 3: dressing the way they thought was real cool. We're nineteen,

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Speaker 3: and how they talk, and then you talk that way

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Speaker 3: and you don't realize it's all channeling this older stuff.

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Speaker 3: Like when I grew up, there really was like a

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Speaker 3: DS and dose Brooklyn for sure, much heavier accents. And

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Speaker 3: I'm always trying on my podcast and whatnot to speak

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Speaker 3: like an uninflected English like queen or something.

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Speaker 2: I don't think you're succeeding good luck with that though.

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Speaker 3: Apparently when I try, I sound much more inflected, so

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Speaker 3: I've given up on that, right.

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Speaker 1: I would say that I worked on decreasing my New

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Speaker 1: York accent, not because I didn't like it or anything,

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Speaker 1: but because nobody understood.

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Speaker 2: Me in Scotland and in Georgia and places that I lived.

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Speaker 1: And now I kind of regret it because my brother

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Speaker 1: still sounds super Brooklyn and I don't do.

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Speaker 3: You ever get identified by voice as a New Yorker? Now?

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Speaker 2: Never?

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Speaker 1: No. In fact, when we first moved to Florida, when

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Speaker 1: we were kind of doing like our Florida Testra, and

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Speaker 1: my daughter was like, why does everyone sound like they're

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Speaker 1: from New York except us? So so tell me about

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Speaker 1: how you got your start in this crazy thing of ours.

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Speaker 3: You've seen Goonies, right, I love Goonies.

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Speaker 2: My youngest son is super into it right now.

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Speaker 3: Great movie. One of the joys of kids, of course,

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Speaker 3: is getting to revisit all the stuff yeah when you

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Speaker 3: were a kid again and see it with someone seeing

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Speaker 3: with fresh eyes. But there's the great scene in Goonies

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Speaker 3: where they got Chunk. Who's you know, the pudgy kid. Yeah, Chunk,

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Speaker 3: And sure they're holding a blender behind it, but he

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Speaker 3: thinks it's a chainsaw or something and they say, tell

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Speaker 3: us everything you know, and they mean you know about

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Speaker 3: the treasure and the highest of the things that are

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Speaker 3: relevant to the movie. Chunk starts one time. Second great,

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Speaker 3: I peed in my pants, so I'm not.

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Speaker 2: The time you peed in your pants. And second RDE.

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Speaker 3: That's a different, that's a show. My resolution for this

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Speaker 3: year is to figure out elevator pitches. But in some

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Speaker 3: ways I got into this thing of journalism and the

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Speaker 3: news and all that just because of the house I

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Speaker 3: grew up in. My dad, Fred Siegel, who's passed away now,

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Speaker 3: was a professor and an academic and those things who

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Speaker 3: got frustrated with some of the limits of the academy

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Speaker 3: and feeling like the map wasn't matching the territory and

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Speaker 3: all that. So I was still teaching. He was a

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Speaker 3: professor of history at Cooper Union in Manhattan. He started

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Speaker 3: getting very involved in the New York political scene, and

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Speaker 3: then he was writing a column for the Daily News

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Speaker 3: and he was editing this magazine City Journal, and was

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Speaker 3: involved in that world. And so I sort of grew

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Speaker 3: up steeped in a lot of this stuff without even

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Speaker 3: quite knowing it or having any idea what I was

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Speaker 3: doing in life necessarily. And then long story, very short,

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Speaker 3: I graduated from college. I'm a sort of a total

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Speaker 3: loss in life. Not entirely together.

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Speaker 2: Cool among us, you know, I'm still.

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Speaker 3: There at forty eight and twenty five years later. Break

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Speaker 3: up with my girlfriend nine to eleven happens, and i'd

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Speaker 3: been working my first job sort of around politics for

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Speaker 3: this political consultant, you know, Hank Shinkaff for this candidates

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Speaker 3: for controller at the time, Bill Thompson. But I was

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Speaker 3: working in the municipal archives, which were a weird, cool place,

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Speaker 3: doing research. And the primary was supposed to be.

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Speaker 1: Nine to eleven, right, Oh, I remember very well looking

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Speaker 1: for where to go vote in my new neighborhood.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And the morning of the primary, I was like

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Speaker 3: giving money to people to pass out flyers. I'm not

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Speaker 3: sure if that's legal, but the statute of.

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Speaker 2: Limitations, nobody's going to come get you.

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Speaker 3: And someone says there's a plane accident, I'm like, oh boy,

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Speaker 3: I've been to rush into the city. So is the

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Speaker 3: trans are gonna get all screwed up? Yeah, And now,

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Speaker 3: making this a nine to eleven story, I'll skip ahead,

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Speaker 3: and this happens. I was in the city and I

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Speaker 3: ended up doing some stuff, just volunteering around Ground zero

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Speaker 3: and all of that, and then left New York and

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Speaker 3: went to visit a family member I'd never met before

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Speaker 3: outside of Seattle. Was all messed up, and I'd done

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Speaker 3: a handful of pieces, writing things here and there because

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Speaker 3: I had some ideas and it had a sort of

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Speaker 3: interesting and peripatetic five Burroughs life, and I had no

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Speaker 3: idea what was doing. And it was this new paper,

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Speaker 3: the New York Sun, starting and they were interested in

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Speaker 3: talking to me, and I took a train back to

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Speaker 3: New York for the interview and they stood me up

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Speaker 3: and really they did, and seth and Ira indeed, oh wow.

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Speaker 3: And then I had had a second interview and they

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Speaker 3: were there, and I got this incredible job, like being

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Speaker 3: on the editorial page, writing some of the editorials, like

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Speaker 3: commissioning some and editing all of the op eds. It's like,

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Speaker 3: so I can edit three thousand words a day, lay

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Speaker 3: it out in quirk right, because we're before the whole

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Speaker 3: internet thing. Here, write some editorials and do all this stuff,

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Speaker 3: and you'll pay me thirty two thousand dollars a year.

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Speaker 3: And I'm like, what a scam. And I can have

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Speaker 3: all the books I want for free and all I

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Speaker 3: have to do is plus yeah and review them. You know.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, what an incredible job. And I get to

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Speaker 3: call up powerful and interesting people and ask them questions

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Speaker 3: and they have to answer yeah. And all I have

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Speaker 3: to do in exchange for that is write it up

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Speaker 3: in a really tight, exactly shaped box intelligently as if

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Speaker 3: I had massive knowledge of all of the issues coming

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Speaker 3: in with as much of that as possible. And I

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Speaker 3: just loved it.

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Speaker 1: It all sounds very good except for the thirty two

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars apart.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, they paid me thirty six thousand by accident,

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Speaker 3: and then about three months in are like, well, we

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Speaker 3: paid you too much by accident, so we're going to

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Speaker 3: doc your checks. And I kept working there. I'd been

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Speaker 3: prior to that. I started this magazine with my friend

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Speaker 3: Tim Marshman, who at the time was a clerk at

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Speaker 3: the Strand bookstore in Manhattan, and that was great because

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Speaker 3: it meant I could get an employee discount on books

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Speaker 3: the best, and I had all these sort of pals

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Speaker 3: who worked there. I was any responsible young guy. So

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Speaker 3: I did spend some time romancing all of the clerks

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Speaker 3: at the Strand and getting my book discount. And he

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Speaker 3: had an online magazine we'd started called New Partisan that

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Speaker 3: was totally incoherence, just let's do good and interesting things.

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Speaker 3: And we'd been running that for a bit and this

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Speaker 3: came up at the Sun. I worked there, and they

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Speaker 3: gave me a couple of like I did good. So

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Speaker 3: there was all these interesting characters who were there, and

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Speaker 3: people were sort of recognizable in journalism now. So I

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Speaker 3: was editing erro Lewis and Smith was there, and it

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Speaker 3: was a really good era.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.

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Speaker 3: Wonderful, and I had no idea what I was doing

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Speaker 3: and was just just sort of thrilled, like I can't

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Speaker 3: believe I'm in this, this sort of fascinating world. And

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Speaker 3: one thing went to another, but I never I never

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Speaker 3: quite found my way out.

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Speaker 1: And I guess my question to you for anybody who's listening.

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Speaker 1: Harry mentioned his dad, Fred Siegel, who was just a

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Speaker 1: legend in New York City in the political world. And

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Speaker 1: in you know, the writing world, the journalist world. How

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Speaker 1: did you not think you were going to end up there?

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Speaker 1: You seem so surprised. I mean, just based on who

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Speaker 1: your dad is. It seemed like that was a natural path.

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Speaker 3: Fathers and sons, children and parents. It's complicated. Like my dad, like,

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Speaker 3: who's a very tough and aggressive guy and with me

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Speaker 3: my brothers in certain ways, and was also inordinately proud

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Speaker 3: of everything we did. Yeah, to the point where it

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Speaker 3: was a little insane. So he played college football. He

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Speaker 3: was a very good basketball player little pool for a bit.

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Speaker 3: It was like a really talented ass of that. Not

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Speaker 3: to brag, but I'm not no, but my dad was

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Speaker 3: like utterly convinced, like, oh, you know from from the

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Speaker 3: pickout games we played where I be the sixth best

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Speaker 3: out of nine. They was like, you know, you probably

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Speaker 3: could have gone pro. And took tremendous pride in my

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Speaker 3: accomplishments and my brother Jake's, and we rewarded that pride

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Speaker 3: by being aggressive, very clear, and everything he was wrong

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Speaker 3: about in the world and arguing these things to death

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Speaker 3: and without without full filters on this, you know, like

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Speaker 3: inside voice arguments and so forth, for years and so

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Speaker 3: the idea I was going to follow that part of

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Speaker 3: his life didn't occur to me. The thing he wanted

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Speaker 3: me to do, which he'd done, is he's like, you

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Speaker 3: need to stay in school, get credentialed, and have that

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Speaker 3: sort of stability in life, which twenty five years and

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Speaker 3: to be a cranky journalist who always has at least

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Speaker 3: two jobs so that nobody fully owns me and could

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Speaker 3: tell me what to say or think, and not having

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Speaker 3: that that sort of stability of I'm teaching. I've sort

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Speaker 3: of gone through these hurdles and I have this protection.

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Speaker 3: In hindsight, I have a lot of regrets about but

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Speaker 3: at the time, every time he's like, you need to

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Speaker 3: do this. You know this is with kids you can't

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Speaker 3: help but say it, and kids like you don't know

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Speaker 3: what you know?

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Speaker 1: So what would have been the plan be if this

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Speaker 1: hadn't worked out, what would you have done instead?

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Speaker 3: I have literally no idea. You know, I was gonna

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Speaker 3: I was going to be a novelist. I did a little, uh,

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Speaker 3: you know, kid stuff, and it's some drug selling and

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Speaker 3: some this and some that, and some restaurant work. And

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Speaker 3: in hindsight, I really think maybe I should have been

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Speaker 3: a postman and just have like a nice civil service thing,

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Speaker 3: and you can have all your big thoughts and ideas

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Speaker 3: and about the world and not have to cross that

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Speaker 3: over with I need to have those ideas to eat

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Speaker 3: and participate in those things. But I think that's that's

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Speaker 3: that's a little bit sour grapes. One of the things

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Speaker 3: I love about journalism is some of this normalizes and

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Speaker 3: there's routines like with anything day to day, but there's

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Speaker 3: always new questions and questions, new challenges and new puzzles

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Speaker 3: you're figuring out. Like there's not some last level or

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Speaker 3: plateau that you you must reach. You know, some people

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Speaker 3: sort of choose to plateau and that that that can

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Speaker 3: be fine. Like I want to put this much into

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Speaker 3: my work life and be bounded and I finished my

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Speaker 3: banker's hours or whatever, and here I am. But it's

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Speaker 3: it's really a young person's game in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 3: I'm realizing, Ye, I'm not so young. Yeah, but I

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Speaker 3: just I wit. We don't know what else I would

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Speaker 3: do or would want to do. I love teaching and

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Speaker 3: I've done a little of that, but don't just want

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Speaker 3: to teach. I think a lot of what I have

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Speaker 3: to teach is it's not Actually, journalism isn't a field

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Speaker 3: of study. And I tell everyone I teach journalism this,

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Speaker 3: and you should probably just go and start writing and

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Speaker 3: be a paper.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I say the same thing, and.

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Speaker 3: Stop studying or study something else. But being in these mixes,

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Speaker 3: you know a lot of the things you know when

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Speaker 3: you're different person person. When I was twenty, I just

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Speaker 3: had no idea about and being able to sort of

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Speaker 3: explain how this actually works. Yeah, how the news is produced,

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Speaker 3: what the compromises that go into that are, what the

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Speaker 3: things you won't compromise are, and how that plays out

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Speaker 3: in practice. I think a lot about generational transmission these days,

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Speaker 3: not just because of my own kids, but because we're

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Speaker 3: in such a strange period with technology and AI and

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Speaker 3: economic disruption, and I see all the things that aren't

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Speaker 3: really getting passed down or like the Kredi institutions very much,

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Speaker 3: including colleges that are doing they're sort of holding on

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Speaker 3: to what they have but doing less and less to

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Speaker 3: actually pass on right knowledge.

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Speaker 2: And some of the kids, you know, do you make tiktoks?

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Speaker 3: No? And I don't think I'm on TikTok either, So

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Speaker 3: I just see them as they show up in other feeds.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, same, same, right two weeks later on Instagram. So

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Speaker 1: you said you might have wanted to write a novel.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that you might still do that.

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Speaker 3: It's been the week I'm going to get it together

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Speaker 3: for twenty five years now, and I've not got.

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Speaker 2: This is a good week to get it together.

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Speaker 3: It is, but I haven't given up either, and I

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Speaker 3: love If I end up with the time and space

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Speaker 3: to do that. My guess is I won't, or if

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Speaker 3: I do, it'll be a different phase in life and

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Speaker 3: sort of as a hobby thing again, not something I

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Speaker 3: want to eat off of, right, right, or sort of

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Speaker 3: stake myself to those ways. I feel like my kids

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Speaker 3: are thirteen and eleven now, so I've got about ten

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Speaker 3: years just thinking about stability, health, insurance, college.

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Speaker 2: And then you could yolo, right, yeah?

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Speaker 3: Or what's the other one? You either yolo or you

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Speaker 3: faffo and you don't.

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Speaker 2: Find out until after could be either one.

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Speaker 1: But you know, the kids these days, they really are

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Speaker 1: not out at like that age. It's still what I

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Speaker 1: hear from parents older than us, because I also my

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Speaker 1: oldest is fifteen, I have twelve and ten.

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Speaker 2: They don't leave at eighteen and that's it. They stick

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Speaker 2: around for a while.

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Speaker 1: They stay on your phone, plane and your Netflix password

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Speaker 1: and all of that for a while.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I was on my parents' car insurance until

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Speaker 3: definitely after having kids, maybe forty, and was otherwise like

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Speaker 3: a very independent person. You have these little boons and

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Speaker 3: take advantage, and you know, I think about that, and

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Speaker 3: I had some The reason I got hired at the

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Speaker 3: Sun initially was they were scouting around. My dad said

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Speaker 3: you should talk to my son, and I've written some things,

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Speaker 3: and I did this, and that was sort of the

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Speaker 3: whole of the connection. And this wasn't a guaranteed job

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Speaker 3: or thing or anything else, but like it cracked open

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Speaker 3: a door and then I burst through that door. And

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Speaker 3: I'd like to think, all these years later, I did

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Speaker 3: all this.

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Speaker 2: You did You should absolutely feel that you did this.

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Speaker 3: But I did all this. I should feel a lot

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Speaker 3: of that. But I remember both as like a son

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Speaker 3: and a paranow myself and all that that, Like that

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Speaker 3: door was cracked and at that point, as I said,

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Speaker 3: I had no idea what I was doing in life,

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Speaker 3: and I would maybe not have even gone to that

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Speaker 3: door otherwise, or it might have been just a little

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Speaker 3: more closed and I would have walked on into some

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Speaker 3: other door. And like, I'm very grateful to have had

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Speaker 3: parents who were invested in me.

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Speaker 2: Keep your insurance.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that thank you, mam.

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Speaker 2: What are you most proud of in your life?

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Speaker 3: Again, I'm working on my elevator pitches, but like I

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Speaker 3: am inordinately proud of my my my children. I think

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Speaker 3: they're just incredible Eric Adams wisdom, perfectly imperfect.

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Speaker 1: That you're going to tell me you're proud of Eric Adams,

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Speaker 1: which is going to be confusing.

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Speaker 3: And brilliant and very much their own people who I

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Speaker 3: have responsibility for and uh I love, but are going

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Speaker 3: to go off and do their own things. And so

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Speaker 3: far these very fraud ages and they all in different

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Speaker 3: ways have like figured it out and risen every challenge.

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Speaker 3: And just seeing them grow and sometimes with help from me,

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Speaker 3: quite honestly, sometimes in spite of me, like just makes

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Speaker 3: me feel full and like like like fruitful with the

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Speaker 3: with the world. I love that, yeah, and with everything else.

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Speaker 3: I just I you know, maybe this is why I

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Speaker 3: keep doing the daily journalism thing. I'm just always turning

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Speaker 3: over stones and what feels great in the morning by

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Speaker 3: the afternoon, I'm shaky about or what's next or what's

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Speaker 3: wrong with this one? And I like having gotten somewhere

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Speaker 3: and having done some things in the in the world,

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Speaker 3: but I don't really care with me that way, whereas

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Speaker 3: with my kids, who by the way, could definitely go

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Speaker 3: pro it just nothing. But just like swelling with Pratt

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Speaker 3: love it.

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Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right

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Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.

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Speaker 2: Give us a five year out.

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Speaker 1: Prediction can be about the kind of the world, music, art, anything.

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Speaker 3: I think the bottom may be coming out all around

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Speaker 3: and for all of us in a lot of different ways,

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Speaker 3: and I'm concerned about that. The other way I think

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Speaker 3: about it is sort of a flood, almost in biblical terms,

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Speaker 3: that's going to wash away a lot of what's seemed

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Speaker 3: permanent and health. And I do mean in the next

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Speaker 3: five years thinking about this in terms of technology and

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Speaker 3: then the effects that that I think is having on

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Speaker 3: our politics and everything else. But just broadly speaking, I

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Speaker 3: think a lot of the certainties we've had about our

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Speaker 3: economic positions, our social positions in the world, how we

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Speaker 3: treat other human beings. Big stuff is much more fraught

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Speaker 3: than it's felt for me as somebody who grew up

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Speaker 3: in sort of a golden age of America, a golden

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Speaker 3: age for Jews in America, really good times. And my

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Speaker 3: consolation in all that, and it's a big one, is

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Speaker 3: I think, without some of the same immediate imperatives to

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Speaker 3: provide for and understand ourselves in the world, like some

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Speaker 3: beautiful new things may open up. It may just be

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Speaker 3: other we destructive and all of the other problems and

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Speaker 3: won't be around or want of time to think about

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Speaker 3: it if that's the case. But I'm hopeful that we

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Speaker 3: might have a period where suddenly people can can think

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Speaker 3: and write very much on their own terms because there's

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Speaker 3: no other reason to engage in those activities. People are

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Speaker 3: going to have to be very focused on what's happening

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Speaker 3: immediately around them in ways we've moved away from, and

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Speaker 3: that some beautiful moments and opportunities might emerge from all that.

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Speaker 3: So that's what I'm hoping, all.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's a hopeful ending to that, because it started

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Speaker 1: kind of iffy there.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't sure things were going to end on a

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Speaker 2: high note.

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Speaker 3: I see mostly very dark clouds, but I am not

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Speaker 3: dismissing silver linings, and you know, moments of big shift,

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Speaker 3: lots of things get lost for better and for worse,

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Speaker 3: and it feels very painful for the people who've been

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Speaker 3: through that or connected to the old empires, if you will.

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Speaker 3: Usually is something on the other end, and that something

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Speaker 3: can be beautiful and good and healthier in certain ways.

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Speaker 3: I love humanity, but I'm aware that we're like cricket timber,

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Speaker 3: and the only thing worse than cricket timber, like the

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Speaker 3: lunatics who would try to straighten it out entirely.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Harry, I have loved this conversation. I've been a

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Speaker 1: longtime fan of yours. I just think you're a fantastic

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Speaker 1: writer and a fantastic human. Leave us here with your

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Speaker 1: best tip for my listeners on how they can improve

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Speaker 1: their lives.

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Speaker 3: I am not the right person to ask, but since

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Speaker 3: you did, Carol, and I think you're actually a pretty

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Speaker 3: awesome and incredible person, journalist and person in the world

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Speaker 3: as well. I think being focused and concerned with the

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Speaker 3: things that are around you is almost the whole thing,

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Speaker 3: and by around you, I mean within sight and within reach,

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Speaker 3: and that if you think about the really big and

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Speaker 3: global questions that way and things that don't end at

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Speaker 3: the end of your siteline. You end up in like

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Speaker 3: a healthier and more honest place that way, And I

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Speaker 3: think it's also a lot of a lot easier than

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Speaker 3: to talk to other people who have totally different giant

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Speaker 3: world views and all that stuff. But being present where

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Speaker 3: you are is like the thing I found that has

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Speaker 3: rewarded me the most of life. And conversely, when I

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Speaker 3: failed to do that, and I have like a galaxy

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Speaker 3: brand sometimes about giant things and you.

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Speaker 2: Get lost, you got to come back to basics.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, come back to basics and be where you are.

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Speaker 2: I love it. He is Harry Siegel.

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Speaker 1: Check out his podcast fac NYC and lit NYC and

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Speaker 1: beat him in the Daily News New York Daily News.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Harry, Thank you Carol for the record. I

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Speaker 3: wanted it to be FAQ. I wanted it to be

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Speaker 3: fac NSC, and then it was going to be okay,

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Speaker 3: what the fact was going to be? That sounds right, yeah,

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Speaker 3: And I love that and sometimes use that, but I've

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Speaker 3: been forced by my partners on.

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Speaker 2: The pod f a Q, thank you, n y C

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Speaker 2: and is it l I T n y C.

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Speaker 3: I've been going back and forth on that because I

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Speaker 3: can't figure out what l I T would be as

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Speaker 3: an acronym.

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Speaker 1: All right, Check him out at f a Q n

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Speaker 1: y C and lit NYC podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Harry, Thanks so much.

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Speaker 3: Yah,