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).
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