“The most popular explanation hinged on the impatience of one John Gotti, a violent little fat man from Howard Beach”

“The centerpiece of the scheme, the 150-story erection, is Trump's third go at the 'world's tallest building.' ... Was ever a man more preoccupied with getting it up in public?”

Portrait of a New York intellectual

“If history is benevolent, the wounds suffered from within and with­out, from the worst of colonial history and contemporary African corrup­tion, greed, and gangster politics, will all someday become no more than the ritual scars of an initiation into world status”

“The wimp who would save the world, Bernhard Goetz is transformed with a few bullets into Clark Kent, the mild­-mannered bachelor ready to shoot a mugger before he makes a single bound.”

“As in a colony, the Bronx's leadership positions are all held by outsiders (who are also white males), including the office of Democratic county leader, the borough presidency, the office of the district attorney, the Surrogate, and the majority of seats on the Democratic County Exec­utive Committee”

“There will be a Mexico when this is finished. But if they only clean up the physical mess, then we are doomed.”

“Five years ago my friend José Torres told me that Cus D'Amato had found a trou­bled 14-year-old kid from Brooklyn who is going to become the heavyweight champion of the world”

Five specific, systemic, attainable reme­dies to the epidemic of police abuse

“Toward the end, he thought perhaps that he had the perfect heavyweight at last in young Michael Tyson: "I have no doubt he'll be a champion. But more than that, he might be a great fighter”