Mike Berger

Rewind three weeks.

That’s when I graduated. Part of the graduation festivities was a Journalism Day, the day honors are awarded. On that day, Michael Paulson, of The Boston Globe, won the Mike Berger award for his series, “Ma Siss’s place,” about a woman, her church (located in a repair shop) and her neighborhood.

The award, named for Pulitzer Prize winner Meyer “Mike” Berger, who’s New York Times column “About New York” set the standard for thought-provoking human-interest reporting about the lives of ordinary people.

Hearing about Paulson’s work and a refresher biography of Berger, I decided that I would read more of his stuff. I read “The Eight Million” last summer. (It was the best book on the J-School summer reading list.)

The next day, I got my chance.

Fast forward to now. I am only 17 pages into New York, A Great Reporter’s Love Affair with a City, but I am hooked. I’ve already learned about the New York of the 1950s (or, “before [my] time,” as a former employer would say it) through Berger’s columns about leeches, liquor licenses on trains passing through Penn. Station and the storage spaces withing the Brooklyn Bridge.

Many of Berger’s columns look back into the city’s history, showing a very different region than known today.

Anyone who is interested in city history should check this book out. Anyone who’s interested in reading really well-written, short stories should check this book out.