A hundred years ago, on the afternoon of Thursday, October 27, 1904, New Yorkers walked into various entrance kiosks of the city’s new Interborough Rapid Transit Company, headed down a flight or two of stairs, and took their very first rides under the sidewalks of New York, the transportation

One of publishing’s most remarkable success stories in recent times centers on an old man, a young man and life’s greatest lesson. It is the book, later an Off-Broadway play, called Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. The hardcover edition, published by Doubleday in 1997, nested comfor

It was on a balmy day in early autumn, some 20 years ago, that I was privileged to meet Mother Teresa personally. She was in the United States making visitations to some of her Missionaries of Charity communities. At this particular time she was at their house on 145th Street in the South Bronx. Act

Children are a fascinating lot. In their innocence, trust, playfulness and inquisitiveness they can often be our teachers. They question and wonder about big and small things; they hunger for knowledge. There’s no end or limit to their sense of wonderment. And this will never change.   Th

If Broadway producers can do it, why not book publishers? “It” is the revival, in the case of theater, or the reissue, in the case of books. Heaven knows there is ample need for updated editions of longstanding classics, or what the industry calls “backlist staples.” And spea

A few weeks ago I made a quick stop into my local deli for a small can of tomato sauce, which wound up costing me $105.49. The 49 cents was my actual purchase. The $105, thanks to New York’s Mayor Mike (which rhymes with hike) Bloomberg, was a parking citation.   You’ve heard, I&rsq

On Dec. 4, seven weeks shy of her 94th birthday, my mother, Marie, was called home to God. In a way, it was rather unexpected, the final “complication” following a fall down a flight of stairs 10 days earlier (nothing broken, miraculously), then a brief bout with chest congestion. I got

As of last Sept. 11 the word hero has assumed a life of its own. Although our political and social history is replete with heroes and heroic deeds, whether in wartime or peacetime, a new way of looking at heroism, of defining courage and sacrifice, was born on that fateful day in 2001. In his addres

Revelations over these past few months are enough to dizzy one’s mind. Even more dizzying, though, are the perhaps millions of words that have been penned in the media worldwide. Have we heard enough? Have we heard more than enough? What’s to be done? Shocking...scandalous...disgraceful.

Every practicing Catholic, if asked, can summon a number of memorable moments (memorable being the operative word) in their liturgical life experience. Lucky for me, these span two time zones: pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II. I am convinced it was the magic and mystery in the priest’s Intro