City Room | Arthur Gelb | Why we are where we are today

City Room | Arthur Gelb | Essential reading for New York Times Junkies

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City Room

	City Room Arthur Gelb, 2003 - 672 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

When Arthur Gelb joinedThe New York Times in 1944, manual typewriters, green eyeshades, spittoons, floors littered with cigarette butts, and two bookies were what he found in the city room. Gelb was twenty, his position the lowliest-night copy boy.

When he retired forty-five years later, he was managing editor. On his way to the top, he exposed crooked cops and politicians; mentored a generation of our most talented journalists; was the first to praise such yet undiscovered talents as Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand; and brought Joe Papp public recognition. As metropolitan editor, Gelb reshaped the way the paper covered New York, and while assistant managing editor, he launched the paper's daily special sections.

From D-Day to the liberation of the concentration camps; from the agony of Vietnam to the resignation of a President; from the fall of Joe McCarthy to the rise of the Woodstock Nation, Gelb's time at the Times reveals his intimate take on the great events of the past fifty years.

The raffish early days are long gone, the hum of computers has replaced the clatter of typewriter keys, but the same ambition, passion, grandstanding, and courage Gelb found at twenty still fill the city room.

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Why we are where we are today

It's great to see someone of Arthur Gelb's age and experience who has remained true to the very core of what reporting and journalism is all about -- keeping people informed. He outlines his rise from copy boy to managing editor of the Great Gray Lady, the New York Times, through some of the most turbulent years of the nation. He doesn't pull punches when describing some of his associates in those years, and I raised my eyebrows more than once at his descriptions of some of the giants of the Times. At times, his exhaustive attention to detail does bog the reader down, but he is peerless in his recollection and objectivity. He never hesitates to give credit where it is due, whether he liked the person or not. My one real criticism of this book is its complete absence of pictures. I would have liked to have seen a few of the people he so lovingly described, particularly those of his early years on the Times. But, like the paper he has devoted his life to, photos play a secondary role to the text. Definitely worth reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Times, and with it, the substantial portion of today's press, has grown and changed in the past 50 years.

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Essential reading for New York Times Junkies

Full disclosure: I am one of that nationwide brotherhood of folks who cannot get along without the New York Times. Though 450 miles and two states removed from New York City, I still devour the Times as a starving man would devour a hearty meal.

It is good news for us Times junkies that Arthur Gelb's recounting of his career at the paper, published to considerable acclaim last year, is now out in a paperback reprint. The book is not without flaws, but Gelb tells his personal story with gusto and weaves it deftly into the lore, traditions, triumphs and crises of the paper itself.

Gelb joined the paper at age 20 in 1944 as a copyboy. He worked his way up through the reporting ranks, covering police, hospitals and various other beats, then spending many years in the cultural department, dealing with the paper's critics of art, theater, architecture and music and covering the nightclub scene himself. Then they made him metropolitan editor (Times-speak for city editor) and by the time he retired in 1989 he was managing editor. He leaves the impression that life in the rarefied air of the paper's higher echelons was not to his taste --- he longed to be back in the city room, covering news and writing about it on a daily basis.

Gelb's book is discursive and anecdotal. He goes into too much detail about many things and has a tendency to get sidetracked from the main thrust of whatever crisis he helped to report or cover by some alluring but peripheral topic that pops up out of nowhere. He has a hundred stories to tell, and he tells them all, come hell or high water.

His rise through the paper's ranks was propelled by his own obvious talent, plus a flair for self-promotion, a take-charge attitude under stress that fit the needs of a major newspaper, and a shrewd ability to ingratiate himself with people who could do his career good. The pattern was set at the very start, when Gelb was looking for a way to set himself apart from the other copyboys who shared his desire to become a reporter. A sympathetic older staffer suggested he start an internal staff newsletter. He got right on the case and did the job well enough to eventually earn promotion to the reporting staff. In the process he even met his future wife. Not a bad parlay!

One point that Gelb emphasizes will surely seem odd to present-day journalists on other newspapers: He constantly emphasizes how, in his reporting days, police, press agents and government officials seemed actually eager to give the Times inside information and helpful spoonfuls of hot news. How times have changed! Today these functionaries generally work hard to make a reporter's job more difficult, or to feed him only self-serving puffery. Perhaps the solution to this mystery lies in the fact that the New York Times, is, after all, The New York Times. Those who work for lesser papers are treated accordingly (I speak from experience).

A great virtue of Gelb's book is his humanizing of his fellow reporters, critics and editors. Bylines that we have read for years suddenly become well-rounded people with interesting histories and weird habits. And Gelb is not shy about venting his disapproval of some very big names who he feels made his life more difficult than it needed to be (Lester Markel and James Reston, to name just two). He is generous in his praise of others, notably his longtime friend A. H. Rosenthal and publisher Arthur Ochs ("Punch") Sulzberger.

There are some fascinating vignettes along the way. Do you know, for instance, that the Times briefly but seriously considered publishing an afternoon paper as a kind of counterweight to its lordly morning self? And the spectacle of seven high-ranking Times editors trooping down to a porno theater to personally inspect the notorious sex film Deep Throat makes for truly diverting reading.

Gelb was unhappy at the Times' slowness to report on Nazi atrocities during World War II, and he was highly critical about the paper's lackluster performance during the Watergate scandal. Tension between the New York office and the Washington bureau is a recurring theme, with much of the blame being laid upon Reston.

The book ends on a note of regret and nostalgia, the standard lament of the old hand who feels put out to pasture, that things are not what they were in "the good old days."

Gelb is a good storyteller, though like many storytellers he tends to go into too much detail and ramble (I lost count of how many times he and his associates had lunch at Sardi's). There is also a large dose of standard "How We Got The Big Story" reminiscing, but in all honesty, much of it is darned interesting.

CITY ROOM is essential reading for us Times junkies, and for anyone else who thinks newspapers are still at the top of the media profession despite the rise of television. One cannot imagine a similar book about a television station, that's for sure.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)

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Fascinating Memoir

A fascinating memoir, history of the second half of the 20th century and history of the New York Times, the premier paper of the country. After a brief introduction of his early years as a child and teenager in NYC, Gelb takes his reader into the city room of the Times. Gelb truly makes one feel as if you are a part of the smoky, beer drinking group of reporters who populated the Times in 1944. From there he gives you a incredible memoir of 45 years (plus a few) in which the Times touched on virtually every aspect of the second half of the 20th century. He either personally knew, wrote about or edited stories of every major event of the last 50 years. From the end of WWII (imagine the mayor of NYC excoriating the citizens for abandoning their jobs to celebrate VE day), to the executions of the Rosenbergs, to the Red baiting of the early 50's. In the 60's he reviews in detail the explosion of the counter culture. In 1970 he details the Times primary role in exposing the corruption in the NYC police department (Serpico). Throughout he details lovingly his personal interactions with the entertainers who participated into the culture of NYC (including a brief, touching encounter with Marily Monroe). Gelb's story includes details of how and why the New York Times is the most important paper in America, how and why it manages to maintain that status. There is also a fascinating account of period in which the Times almost went bankrupt, and his important role in helping to rescue the paper. As a long time reader of biographies and autobiographies, Gelb's City Room is at the top of my recommended list.

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Gossipy Details

Gelb's book isn't an attempt to describe the broad sweep of power at the top of The New York Times. For that you need Gay Talese's book, "The Kingdom and the Power".

Rather it's the story of the rise of a reporter to a key day-to-day editor from 1944 to the end of the century. Many will find the stories and descriptions of maneuvering at the Time dry. But his look at events of the world and how they shaped the newspaper is fascinating.

An example is when the newspaper initiates a luncheon with key newsmakers by hosting New York Police Commissioner Michael Murphy:
"He spoke about the difficulties of protecting President Kennedy on his visits to New York. The president, he said, liked to stop his motorcade to shake hands with admirers, who lined his route from the airport to Manhattan. It was a tremendous headache for the Police Department, and Murphy said he had personally warned Kennedy to change his habits, for he made an easy target for the unhinged.

"At that moment, the phone in the anteroom range and a waitress summoned Clifton Daniel. He returned to the dining room looking stunned and ashen. 'President Kennedy has just ben shot in Dallas.'"

There are momentous events. And there are the trivial (and gossipy ones). For example, early in the book he describes in detail the speakeasy run by the father of TV host Barbara Walters.

But overall, this is well worth the effort and will introduce some interesting historical details even for those very familiar with American history from the end of World War II to the end of the century.

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The Inside scoop

Arthur Gelb, writes an intimate precise account of his long tenures with the NY Times. He started from the very bottom and worked his way to the very top. At times, some of the style of writing comes off a little corny and i felt that the author was either afraid to write more critically or he was simply just accustomed to stating the facts as he did with the paper. I would have given this book a 5 star, if not for that reason and possibly that this book could have benefitted from an archive of photos showing the transition of a city paper desk from the 40's to the current state today.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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