In 1952, when the late Gabe Pressman (dean of New York City’s local TV press corps) was a young staff writer at the New York World-Telegram & The Sun, he came across a story tipped to him by a woman from Montreal who’d taken a cab ride in midtown Manhattan. This was the human-interest feature he wrote up.
And this is a poem I wrote alluding to Pressman’s story. It was included in a collection of my “deformed sonnets,” All That Would Ever After Not Be Said (2021), and again in Shadow Words (2024).
![CLICK TO ENLARGE.](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Pages-56-57-of-All-That-Would-Ever-After-Not-Be-Said-bdr-640.jpg)
What Pressman didn’t know was that the cabbie didn’t want to be named because he was avoiding bill collectors at the time. I know because, as the poem says, that cabbie was my Dad.
So how could he afford to buy a Broadway ticket to “Guys and Dolls” for that grateful out-of-towner? He didn’t have to buy it. He knew all kinds of theater people, including publicists, producers, and box-office hands. He must have arranged a comp.
Dear Mr. Herman,
I am Gabe’s widow, A friend just sent me this. What a marvelous story!
I’m beyond thrilled to have it and to share it with our son. And what a NY character
your father was!
Thank you so much.
Best regards,
Vera Pressman
Dear Mrs. Pressman —
You couldn’t be more pleased than I was when I found that tattered copy.
Here’s an email I received the other day from a longtime NY newspaperman, which you might also enjoy:
“Jeez — when Gabe was still Gabriel. What a character — TV brought him and his diminutive image fame, especially when he led the coverage of the Cape Man, who led the street gang accused of murdering a rival. Gabe was pugnacious, persistent, fearless …. When he died a few years ago, he was memorialized as a NYC hero, which he was…”
Best wishes to you and yours — Jan