Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

The gender balance in her profession is disheartening, she says, “It has one of the smallest percentages of women. I mean the ratio is astounding.” U.S. Senator? Catholic priest? Not quite that bad. …

They spent much of their professional lives as public defenders in the Bronx, working in an unjust system, and its flaws persist. Discouraged? Nah. “If you’re trying to solve a problem you can solve …

Poet, theologian, host of the On Being Studios podcast Poetry Unbound, he has a favorite pencil but is not a fanatic: “I use anything to get the idea down. I have written with pens and pencils; I hav…

The president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is proud that it is a treasure for the entire city and maybe even prouder of its ties to its local community: “The neighborhood is deep into us, and we’re…

Music offers more than aesthetic pleasure, asserts this conductor: “Music has the power to transport its audiences to a time that no longer exists.” A gentler time, without covid or attack drones or …

Writer of “The Morning” newsletter for The New York Times and author of Ours Was the Shining Future, he admires A. Philip Randolph, who championed this idea: “Collective action around labor and worke…

I’m against nose jobs for ordinary noses (like mine), but this journalist, who’s covered cosmetic surgery for decades, is less judgmental: “I believe everybody is free to do what they want with their…

This former Manhattan borough historian admires the enormously accomplished, nearly forgotten, 19th-century New Yorker Andrew H. Green: “He is often compared to Robert Moses. In a favorable way.” To …

As a young actor (Local Hero, Crossing Delancey, Animal House) he played Goldberg in The Birthday Party, overseen by Harold Pinter himself. One speech was particularly opaque. “I had no idea what it …

This interior designer is celebrated for her work on low-income housing projects, but not universally celebrated. Sometimes a client resists: “You’re making it too nice for these people; these people…

This Israeli-American architect likes buildings, of course, but it’s the spaces between buildings that he loves. “It’s a blur between public and private, it’s a stage, it’s sort of an in-between terr…

Some architects want their buildings to endure unchanged for all eternity, but these partners embrace transformation: “We hope our La Brea Museum, 100 years from now, will be appropriated by somebody…

As a kid, this mezzo soprano sang in a church choir with this implicit purpose: “To bring joy to people, and bring comfort to people, and help people feel what they need to feel.” Not a bad approach …

Although utopia has not arrived, racial segregation has diminished since the reopening of the Apollo Theater in 1934, so is the place still needed? Absolutely, declares its Director of New Works: “Th…

The International Declaration of Human Rights is a blueprint for compassionate, egalitarian, democratic societies, says the president and CEO of American Jewish World Service, including this: “Articl…

This New York Times book critic has many off-the-job accomplishments: “Learning how to eat chicken feet and love them is one thing I’m really proud of.” The author of The Upstairs Deli expands our ca…

This magician had mixed feelings when he figured out how a colleague performed an illusion. “It was no less amazing to me when I knew how it was done, but it was disappointing.” The austere joy of kn…

Her father, Walter, was the grand master of cat photography. “Growing up,” she says, “when you told somebody what your parents did, it was just like: what?” Presented with Fotografiska, where his wor…

In addition to his work for corporations (Nike, Apple) and non-profits, this graphic designer documents everything, not just as a way to record an event but as an act of meditation: “Documenting allo…

Speaking at—and of—Gansevoort Plaza, a public space he designed, landscape architect Ken Smith considers the implications of the past as well as the needs of the present: “Land has memory. It’s reall…