Remembering Tom Robbins, Who Bore Witness to New Yorkers’ Everyday Battles

Remembering journalist and former City Limits editor Tom Robbins who died this week after decades spent sharing the stories of New Yorkers who as he put it were at work in the trenches trying to do what leadership had refused to do for their neighborhoods Tom Robbins and Annette Fuentes City Limits editing organization in the early s in the magazine s offices Photo by Brian Patrick O Donohue City Limits Archives Tom Robbins first joined City Limits as an associate editor in having previously worked as a housing organizer on the Lower East Side at a time when landlords would step out the door and torch their buildings he recalled decades later That early group activism was a fitting gateway into a long and storied career in investigative and accountability journalism including five years as an editor with City Limits and later roles with the New York Daily News The Village Voice and THE CITY He the bulk in recent weeks served as the Investigative Reporter in Residence at CUNY s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism a position he held for years until his death this week at the age of What makes reporting the greatest job in the world is that you get to talk to people and hear their stories Robbins explained in a speech at City Limits nd anniversary gala where he was honored with the newsroom s Urban Journalist Award And there were no better stories to be recorded than those narrated by the folks who were at work in the trenches back then trying to do what authorities had refused to do to stop abandonment to rescue buildings from lousy landlords to push banks and politicians to reinvest to create new affordable homes Tom Robbins right with former City Limits editor Jarrett Murphy in Photo by Larry Racioppo Robbins recorded countless such stories during his decades covering the city He marched alongside housing organizers in spring of as they picketed on Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower battling programs that granted fat tax breaks to luxury advance while shortchanging affordable housing He chronicled the long fight over Seward Park five-acres of land along Manhattan s Delancey Street that sat vacant for years after the city evicted thousands of residents and razed their homes in an act of urban renewal He attended the housing court hearing of a single mother and her son in Queens facing eviction from their apartment where the landlord had removed the doors in an attempt to get them out Writing for City Limits allowed me to be a witness to the battles everyday New Yorkers were waging in neighborhoods throughout the city Robbins noted in that earlier gala speech He continued Being there changes you It informs how you see the world Icicles on a radiator in an East Flatbush apartment where kids are huddled under blankets I remember this one clearly because my pal Marc Jahr took a photo of it Slick rat holes in a tenement on Norfolk Street where the landlord is trying to evict everyone Roofs caved in by fires purposely set to empty a huge complex in Boro Park A millionaire politician preening at the old Board of Estimate that low income housing only breeds crime I ve been out of City Limits for more than years but those images stay with me and shape how I see the world I write about But the bigger story from that time and this is another takeaway remains to be recounted How New York City was really saved from what s now considered the bad old days Somehow the prevailing wisdom among those who claim to know what turned New York around in that era is that it was largely the work of a limited farsighted politicians and financial leaders That ultimately it took a mayor who promised to crack down wherever there were broken windows That kind of talk unfailingly makes me grind my teeth Because those of us who watched it happen know that neighborhood groups were the only ones fixing broken windows decades before that mayor took office And they had to do it largely on their own You can read Robbins full remarks from that speech here Beyond his own reporting Robbins taught and mentored countless emerging journalists in the craft of covering New Yorkers stories and invariably with an eye toward exposing injustice City Limits was lucky to collaborate on and publish particular of that work including student-led investigations into a web of deteriorating properties owned by a notorious Bronx landlord and another into how errors on court and law enforcement records threatened the livelihoods of millions across New York State Jeanmarie Evelly editor City Limits When I first came to New York in to help launch a not-for-profit dedicated to media criticism I was fortunate enough to encounter Tom Robbins for the first time Tom was years older than me and he had already accomplished much by then first by being City Limits formative editor and having made waves early in what would be a decades-long tenure of path developing reportage at the Village Voice and Daily News When I met him Tom already felt part of a larger than life historic cohort of New York journalists He and the cadre of civically engaged reporters and columnists then working at the Village Voice and elsewhere had a definitively New York sensibility This was not only as a development of their beats but in the brave stubborn way they went about covering stories and uncovering graft vanity and hubris No fear or favor Corrupt political dealings unions failing on their promise the perversion of justice or the pernicious influence of organized crime in city life all were targets for Tom He was an avatar of a tradition that stretched back to Jacob Riss and Nellie Bly and went through Breslin Kempton Hamill Newfield and his comrade in arms Wayne Barrett Tom worked not only at emerging stories but seeking in his own way to investigate interrogate and define the promise and peril of New York City Tom Robbins pictured at the podium introducing former Village Voice colleague Wayne Barrett at City Limits gala in Photo by Adi Talwar At the very first he seemed a little larger than life to me but swiftly we became friendly sometimes combatively so when I moved on to become a press secretary in local cabinet When I later became the steward of City Limits for a time in the early s Tom was a source of reassurance wisdom guidance and realism not to mention endorsement and generosity His time as City Limits editor set a template for its work of serious policy-focused journalism A journalism that seeks to uplift the afflicted and hold the powerful accountable The true north he set is still etched on City Limits compass Tom carried a wry sometimes slightly world-weary air that was leavened by a gentle sardonic humor a proverbial twinkle in his eye a reservoir of deep kindness and a seriousness of moral purpose in his work He was a good man He was the best of New York He will be missed Andy Breslau board member City Limits Share your memories of Tom Robbins editor citylimits org The post Remembering Tom Robbins Who Bore Witness to New Yorkers Everyday Battles appeared first on City Limits