City Room

by Arthur Gelb

Overview

A New York Times Notable Book

Arthur Gelb was hired by The New York Times in 1944 as a night copyboy—the paper’s lowliest position. Forty-five years later, he retired as its managing editor. Along the way, he exposed crooked cops and politicians, mentored a generation of our most-talented journalists, was the first to praise the as-yet-undiscovered Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand, and brought Joe Papp instant recognition. 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 gives an insider’s take on the great events of this nation's history—what he calls “the happiest days of my life.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425198315
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/02/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	672
Product dimensions:	5.97(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.37(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Arthur Gelb began as a copy boy at the New York Times in 1944 and went on to play a major role at the paper until his retirement in 1989, serving as a critic, chief cultural correspondent, metropolitan editor, deputy managing editor and managing editor. With his wife, Barbara, he also authored two definitive and acclaimed biographies of the playwright Eugene O’Neill.

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Excerpted from "City Room"
by .
Copyright © 2004 Arthur Gelb.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for City Room

“Essential reading for people who love (and hate) The Times.”—Gay Talese 

“A large window into the inner workings of one of the country’s premier institutions…enlightening as it is entertaining.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Superbly written, with integrity and elegance.”—Elie Wiesel

“A magnificent memoir of coming of age amidst the vibrancy and kaleidoscopic life of America’s greatest city, seen from the perspective of a brilliant career on our greatest newspaper. City Room is a grand read.”—Neil Sheehan

“A sense of intelligent innocence permeates this affectionate memoir.”—Pete Hamill

“Rich with personalities.”—The New Yorker

Editorial Reviews

Praise for City Room

“Essential reading for people who love (and hate) The Times.”—Gay Talese 

“A large window into the inner workings of one of the country’s premier institutions…enlightening as it is entertaining.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Superbly written, with integrity and elegance.”—Elie Wiesel

“A magnificent memoir of coming of age amidst the vibrancy and kaleidoscopic life of America’s greatest city, seen from the perspective of a brilliant career on our greatest newspaper. City Room is a grand read.”—Neil Sheehan

“A sense of intelligent innocence permeates this affectionate memoir.”—Pete Hamill

“Rich with personalities.”—The New Yorker

From the Publisher

Arthur Gelb's exuberant memoirs prove to be keenly observed social history, full of fascinating tales and details.

A. Scott Berg

...a must read for all aspiring journalists [as] a reminder of what it means to be the best.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault

...compelling visit to about the most interesting place I've ever been, by one of the most interesting and inspiring men.

Richard Reeves

City Room gives us all the news that was fit to print and some of the stories that weren't.

Anne;Stiller Jerry Meara

...the chronicler of the ups and downs of America's greatest journalistic institution...his new book is always interesting, insightful, and fair-minded.

Gay Talese

...a fascinating insider's look at the editorial and political quakes that have swept the city room of The Times.

Mike Wallace

Anyone yearning for the romance, energy, and integrity of journalism should read this book.

Wendy Wasserstein

It has to be said that this is a book for aficionados, those readers who are either in the trade or on its margins, though the attentive general reader—the Kansas City milkman who may not care what Abe said to Scotty and what Scotty said to Punch and what Punch did in the climactic winter of 1968—will find the early chapters of City Room a wonderful evocation of what the newspaper business was like in the postwar years; the words are rough-and-tumble.—Ward Just

The New York Times Book Review

A sense of intelligent innocence permeates this affectionate memoir of Arthur Gelb's life across five decades at The New York Times. Without falling into sentimental mush, he expresses clearly his love for his immigrant parents; his wife, Barbara; the city of New York; the imperfect craft of newspapering in general; and The New York Times in particular. The book's low-key triumph is that Mr. Gelb is able to look back with such innocent eyes and make the past as fresh as the present.—Pete Hamill

The New York Times

For all its forthrightness, City Room is the work of a gentleman reporter of a kinder era.

New York Daily News

When Gelb was still a copyboy at the Times, he edited a chatty internal newsletter called Timesweek, and this voluminous memoir suggests that although he rose to become managing editor, he retained a taste for his old job. His account of five decades at the paper is rich with personalities—from the wartime rewrite men, who had shrapnel in their backs and scorn for college boys, to the sixties-era female reporters who shook up the city room with frank language and countercultural convictions. Gelb is generous with praise, but not above a little score-settling—accusing his rival, Scotty Reston, the longtime Washington bureau chief, of having missed the Watergate story because he was too busy palling around with the White House élite to maintain contacts in the police department. Gelb also enjoys dishing vintage gossip, and cites a once popular dictum: “Liquor is the curse of the Herald Tribune and sex is the bane of the Times.

The New Yorker

...offers a large window into the inner workings of one of the country's premier institutions....enlightening as it is entertaining.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

"To me, there was nothing as stimulating as a good story," declares Gelb in this enthralling memoir of his 45 years at the New York Times. Gelb, who began as a copyboy in 1944 and retired as managing editor in 1990, has a wealth of terrific stories. An airplane's crash into the Empire State Building in July 1945 marked his professional reporting debut. Vivid recollections of the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate break-in and the 1970 investigation of New York City police corruption abound, and Gelb's recounting of these events illustrates how reporters investigate and present complex news stories under deadline pressure while striving for accuracy, fairness and good taste. Later, as drama critic and cultural editor, Gelb mingled with glamour and celebrity. A witty raconteur, he tells uproarious anecdotes about Tallulah Bankhead and Marilyn Monroe. Although there are plenty of amazing scoops and delicious gossip, Gelb devotes equally passionate attention to the evolution of the Times as a workplace. His portrait of the city room circa 1944, with 100 all white and virtually all male reporters, is a fascinating historical snapshot and becomes more telling as he describes its changes over the years. By 1972, the department included 425 reporters, but only 40 of them were women. As a paean to his colleagues and the organization where he spent his "happiest days," Gelb naturally emphasizes high points, but he's frank about internal politics, the paper's uncharacteristic timidity in covering the Holocaust and its continuing struggle to diversify its staff. Addressing this year's Jayson Blair affair and the subsequent management changes at the paper, Gelb helps put those issues into a broader context with his balanced and sympathetic overview. (Oct. 13) Forecast: Gelb's authoritative view of the paper of record will attract widespread media attention, and his lively storytelling should have great appeal for general readers. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

In this fast-paced memoir, former New York Times managing editor Gelb reminisces fondly about his coming of age as a reporter and editor. The story begins in 1944, when Gelb landed a job as a copyboy at the Times. He vividly re-creates the hustle and bustle of a newsroom where typewriters clattered, reporters yelled out "Copy!" and hands were smudged by newsprint still black with fresh ink. After about two years at the Times, he and some other copyboys started up an in-house news sheet called Timesweek that covered the news of the newsroom for the reporters themselves. Because of his impressive work on Timesweek, he was promoted to reporter and was later assigned to review theater. During those years, he began writing about a then newly popular theatrical form, stand-up comedy, covering the young Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, and Lenny Bruce, among others. When he eventually became metropolitan editor, he covered the Harlem riots, the blackout of 1965, and the opening of Lincoln Center. In a memoir that views the growth of the city in terms of the growth of its greatest newspaper, Gelb succeeds fully in re-creating the liveliness and charm of an older Manhattan. As with many memoirs, however, Gelb's piles detail upon detail in a chockablock fashion that often makes for tiresome reading. Recommended for large public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/03.]-Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A loving, extremely guarded memoir of the author's 45 years with the New York Times, from durance vile to managing editor. A son of the Bronx, Gelb appeared in the Times' "raffish, freewheeling" city room in 1944 at the age of 20, a copy boy in a world of paste pots and scissors, bookies and cigars, Morse code and cable, a rough trade with its own caste system and clashing personalities. The best reporters, like Meyer Berger, awed him with their crisp curiosity, their obsession to probe, logically interpret and explain the facts, and their desire to imbue newspaper writing with style. The Times aimed to get the record straight and without prejudice; it was not a crusading paper, but a centrist one. But as Gelb took on the editor's mantle, first at the cultural desk and then as deputy metropolitan editor, reporters began to take a feistier approach: Gay Talese, David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, were among those who shook the system until creative restlessness drove them from day-to-day journalism. Though hardly pugnacious, Gelb did help bring an "up-front, spontaneous style" to the paper, lest we forget the Pentagon papers or the Weekend section. The only slightly dirty laundry he washes is his prickly relationship with James Reston and a major put-down (recounted here with relish) inflicted on R.W. Apple by Homer Bigart. Gelb's critiques of news and managerial misjudgments are bland to the point of why-bother: Of the paper's insensitivity to gays he writes, "I believe that on this issue, of such poignancy to so many, the paper did tarry for too long." Still, under Gelb as managing editor, the Times entered the 20th century, kicking and screaming, with more black and female reporters andbetter coverage of African-Americans and women, even as hard news made room for soft features. The company line from a protective organization man: readers will learn little more than they would by reviewing the microfiche.

Kirkus Reviews