Articles
An Oil Spill Grows in Brooklyn
WITH an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil spilling from the Deepwater Horizon site every day — for a total of some 3.3 million gallons, so far — the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico may eventually prove to be the largest oil spill in American history. But New Yorkers forget, or don’t know, that a…
Read MoreThere Will Be Floods
LAST month, a 30-foot section of levee ruptured in Fernley, Nev. While the cause of the breach, which swamped 450 homes and forced dozens of people to evacuate, is unknown, anyone familiar with the drowning of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina will tell you this: Levees fail. Indeed, there are more than 100 antiquated earthen…
Read MoreWriting Pulia
“THOSE YEARS IN FRANCE were the best time of my life. It was the time when I discovered who I was and what I was about. It was so exciting that I hardly stopped to catch my breath!” So Julia recalled in December 2003, when she was ninety-one and living in a retirement community in Montecito, California. I…
Read MoreSacre Cordon Bleu! The cooking-school exam that ate Julia Child
By late 1950, I felt ready to take my final examination and earn my diplome from the Cordon Bleu in Paris. Bur when I asked Mme. Brassart, the school’s director, to schedule the test -politely, at first, then with an increasing insistence -my requests were met with stony silence. The truth is chat Mme.…
Read MoreMastering the Art of Julia Child
August 20, 2004 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Mastering the Art of Julia Child By ALEX PRUD’HOMME A few days before Julia Child died, we sat together in her compact, fragrant garden in Montecito, Calif., talking about her life. She was about to turn 92. Although she was thin and pale, she seemed stronger and more acute that…
Read MoreInvestigating ImClone
A ”miracle” cancer drug made ImClone the hottest firm in recent biotech history and its high-flying C.E.O., Sam Waksal, the darling of New York’s A-list. But since December, when the F.D .A. gave a thumbs-clown to hjs $2 billion breakthrough, Waksal has been under a financial, scientific, and personal microscope n the evening or December 6 last…
Read MoreShould Johnny Paul Penry Die?
He plunged a pair of scissors into Pamela Carpenter’s chest, raped her, and stomped her to death. His IQ is estimated at anywhere from 51 to 63. Should that exempt him from the death penalty? This month the Supreme Court will provide only part of the answer. By Alex Prud’homme; additional reporting by Joanne Harrison;…
Read MoreFrom Unemployed to Interview Ready – A Nonprofit Offers Clothes, Haircuts and Hope
THEY were 19 men down on their luck, and they came to the penthouse of the Times Square Hotel in New York at lP.M. on a rainy January day to get a big boost in their search for work. A 20th man showed up at 2, one hour late, and .was turned away. “Punctuality is expected…
Read MoreTaking the Gospel to the Rich
For Domino’s Founder, a New Mission The Roman Catholic Church has always struggled to speak with one voice to both the rich and the poor. Last month, when Pope John Paul II toured Mexico and St. Louis, he sternly warned against a runaway freemarket system based on a “purely economic conception of man.” But he…
Read MoreFrom Urban Rust Heap To a Workplace for Art
THE dark brick factory complex on the Brooklyn waterfront would not look out or place In a moody industrlal landscape by Edward Hopper. A few years ago, most of the windows were broken, roofs were collapsing, inters were contaminated with asbestos and the cement was cluttered with leaking drums or toxic substances. The city, which owned…
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