Could everyone write one simple essay about something that once happened in Saltaire…that they saw or were a part of…and put it on one big website? Somebody should collect a lot of stories before we all forget. Otherwise it is like a line in “On The Beach” : The history of the war that now would never be written.” -(JO'H)

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Saltaire through the Eyes of Andy Logan

"Hit her" said Ed Koch to his chauffeur as a little lady walked near his limo in the parking lot of City Hall.
The "her" of course, was Saltaire's ANDY LOGAN, a/k/a MRS LYON, mom of Jon and his siblings of Broadway and Harbor Prom.
Andy Logan came to New York from Ohio or somewhere after Swarthmore, adopted the name of her hero, New Yorker writer E.B. White, and, in what had to be a dream job, got a job writing for that magazine for the rest of her life. Koch's dream of running her down was never realized, but that remark shows the kind of great journalist Andy Logan was. Her papers are archived in the New York Public Library "Andy Logan" collection.

Andy sometimes wrote the Saltaire column for the Fire Island News. Below is a piece she wrote for the Fire Island Guide in 1966. More on Andy's Curriculum Vitae follows the article.
Article and pictures copyright Trigar Publications, 1966:












More on Andy Logan. From the NYPL site: http://www.nypl.org/archives/1580



Isabel Ann "Andy" Logan was a journalist who wrote for the New Yorker magazine from 1942 through the 1990s. Born in Cleveland in 1920, she was raised in Lakewood, Ohio and Chandler, North Carolina and attended Swarthmore College (B.A. 1942).



Immediately after graduation Logan was hired by the New Yorker magazine as a "Talk of the Town" reporter. Her early, unsigned pieces for that column chronicled daily life in wartime New York City. In later years, Logan wrote articles about the Nuremberg war crime trials, essays on New York City history and politics, biographical profiles and an annual review of Christmas toys. In 1943, Logan married Charles S. Lyon, a lawyer who served as deputy chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crime trials. Lyon was later a United States assistant attorney general and a professor at the New York University School of Law. The couple had seven children.



Andy Logan authored two books, The Man Who Robbed the Robber Barons (1965) and Against the Evidence; the Becker-Rosenthal Affair (1970) both concerned with criminal scandals in Guilded Age New York City. In 1969, The New Yorker inaugurated Logan's "Around City Hall" column which focused on local politics and the mayoralty. In her meticulously researched essays for the column, Logan documented five successive mayoral administrations. At the end of her career Logan was recognized by The New York Times as "the dean of the City Hall Press corps." Andy Logan died in New York City on November 21, 2000.

1 comment:

Mary said...

Love this write-up, Jim. And, of course, the pics. How many "kids" can we pick out of this photo? Patsy, Terry Keegan, Barbara Keegan. Is that Sally Standard standing next to the bike? Why do I think it looks like her? Who else is in this pic? And, what are they all looking at?