Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

This composer, mastermind of “Piano Puzzlers,” feared premature death: “Schubert died at 31, Mozart died at 35, Gershwin died at 39. I thought because my father died when he was 55, that I would, too…

As young actor—he’s now 97— he studied with Stella Adler along with Marlon Brando, (“He was a great actor but an impossible person.”) a saga he recounts in The Star Dressing Room. One of them became …

This Grammy-nominated musician, celebrated for his work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Rhiannon Giddens, sums himself up: “I play the banjo, talk about Black people, and really love Star Trek.…

Her book The Quickening recounts an Antarctic expedition to Thwaites Glacier, which holds enough ice to raise sea levels three feet. “It’s this otherworldly being that has the power to shape us.” But…

Lifelong friends, these writers grew up on the same block. His newest book is Brooklyn Crime Novel; she is developing the Imitation of Life Musical with John Legend and Liesl Tommy.. Presented with T…

A friend of his wife gave his novel Empire Falls to Ivanka Trump. Her response: “This is a book about poor people. Why would I want to read a book about poor people?” Some bad reviews are better than…

This poet, president of the Mellon foundation, quotes June Jordan on the question activists should ask: “Where is the love? What are we moving toward, not just what are we fighting against?” Poetry, …

The president and CEO of the Hudson River Park Trust offers a too-modest explanation of its popularity: “I think there’s a universal urge that people have to see and connect with water.” Melville wri…

The founder of Paylocity, he is a partner in the Wayfarer Foundation, whose mission is to “advance humankind spiritually toward a future peaceful world civilization.” Dauntingly ambitious. My mission…

“The best future for the United States belongs to people who can appreciate both the Declaration of Independence and Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,” says Manhattan's borough historian …

Early in his career, the conductor of the National Children’s Chorus interviewed for a job with Sister Stella Maria Enright. “She said, ‘Where did you park?’ And I said, ‘Right in front.’ And she sai…

A former writer and performer for Saturday Night Live, he says that each episode was written in one night, “and by night I mean eight, nine PM, until three, four in the morning.” A former U.S. Senato…

Following in her father’s footsteps, the head of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services says, “I had a chance to see first hand someone who worked for New York City government.” She’s sec…

Through her many projects, this landscape architect has learned a lot—about nature, about human behavior, about their intersection. Her hope for the future: “Can we just make better mistakes? Can we …

He’s just concluded six-years as conductor of the New York Youth Symphony. As a youth himself, he was taken to Disney Concert Hall. “They asked me what it would feel like if you got to conduct here, …

He knows his pandemics, of course. What's more, the recently retired head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases can identify many birds just by their calls, “whether it’s a Car…

This esteemed musician tells great stories, but they might not be entirely true. “I got to give it a little something. You got to put a little Tabasco on your food.” Presented with the Neal Rosenthal…

This human-rights lawyer, a professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, was reluctant to embrace her Irish heritage. “I was never particularly interested in that identity because I had s…

In 1958, with Hamilton Holmes, she desegregated the University of Georgia and went on to a distinguished career in journalism. Her early inspiration? Brenda Starr. “I read about her in the comic stri…