Pete Hamill

Pete Hamill, journalist and author of multiple books including, "Downtown: My Manhattan", his memoir that we just finished reading, came into class to chat with us about his work and the city that has been his lifelong home.

Hamill told us that he wrote "Downtown" for his grandson, who lives in Westchester. “I wanted him to be able to understand why this old guy with the beard has such passion for this strange city without cows in it,” he said.

In reading the book, I came to understand this passion. With each chapter, it is as though you are walking through another New York City neighborhood as it changes over time. This is no coincidence. Hamill takes walks alone to inspire his writing.

“You can’t know any of these places unless you walk it,” he said. In his rhythmic, soothing voice that contains the potential to lull you to sleep, we walked together through his life as a writer in New York.

As a child, Hamill’s mother told him and his brother never to look down on anyone unless you’re giving them a hand to get up. For Hamill, writing is a way of helping people up. In his journalism he writes with the aim of making small changes. And with his books, which he begins by writing longhand on yellow pads of paper, the aim may be similar. In addition to writing "Downtown" for his grandson, he wrote with the idea that in the midst of the biggest wave of immigrants in ten years, children would be able to read the book and then teach their parents about where they live.

As a lifetime New Yorker, Hamill also has a unique perspective on New York today. Though he may tumble back into reverie on his walks, or even when talking to a class of journalism students, he is still very much in tune to the present. I got the chance to ask him about one of the most pressing issues for this neighborhood: gentrification. In his opinion, the Lower East Side will always be home to immigrants. For him, it is a transitional neighborhood.

“People want to make money and move on,” he said. “They’ll always look back nostalgically on it but they’ll be somewhere else.”