Preservationist Anthony Woods: “Landmarks law is written not just to protect architecturally significant buildings, but historically and culturally significant buildings.” When big things happen in small buildings. Listen: personplacething.org

Preservationist Anthony Woods admires Albert Bard, the father of New York’s landmarks protection law, he tells ‪@NYpresArchive.bsky.social‬.“Bard would be horrified by the state of New York today.” Listen: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Playwright Will Power remembers gunplay at the local health food store over raw milk. “Back then, to be a health food person, it was like a kind of a revolutionary type thing.” Listen: personplacething.org

When playwright Will Power’s grandfather faced a tough decision, he knew who to talk to. “He went to seek the advice of Paul Robeson.” Of course he did. Who wouldn’t? Listen: personplacething.org

Playwright Will Power is both happy and sad that healthy food is increasingly available. “Whole Foods opened on 125th and Lennox. 125th and Lennox! That’s like sacred ground.” Listen: personplacething.org

Activist Nilka Martell and her neighbors, amateurs all, have an ingenious plan to cap the vile Cross Bronx Expressway, “We’re so used to hearing no, so alright say no, I’m not going away.” Listen: personplacething.org

Activist Nilka Martell helped revive the Bronx River. Now she faces her greatest challenge: “the thorn in my side, the Cross Bronx Expressway.” Listen: personplacething.org

“I don’t necessarily believe that art can be evaluated by beauty/truth,” says M. C. Kinniburgh. Seems pretty good to me, but I’m old and will soon be dead. Listen: personplacething.org

“I surf. I am always in the waves. And you can’t surf Hamlet,” says M. C. Kinniburgh, a criticism that dogged Shakespeare throughout his career. Listen: personplacething.org

Michael McClure read his poems to lions at the San Francisco Zoo, “an incredible exchange of energy across species,” says M. C. Kinniburgh. An exchange of energy across species more often involves one eating the other. Listen: personplacething.org

Massimo and Lella Vignelli trained as architects but went on to design everything except buildings: maps, type, housewares. “I think of their product designs as an architecture in miniature,” says their son Luca. Listen: personplacething.org

Massimo and Lella Vignelli designed, well, everything—graphics, houseware, furniture. “They were great designers,” says their son Luca, “but they never considered themselves artists.” Hear why: personplacething.org

The ‪@mta.info‬ has revised and reintroduced the glorious 1972 Vignelli subway map. “It was a diagram, it wasn’t a map,” says their son, Luca. He’s right. Listen: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Janis Siegel won 10 Grammies with Manhattan Transfer, but she tells ‪@TheVillageTrip.bsky.social‬‬,“I was not going to be a singer at all, actually; I was going to be a nurse.” The road taken! Listen: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Celebrated for her singing with Manhattan Transfer, Janis Siegel tells ‪@TheVillageTrip.bsky.social‬‬ she identifies as a Brooklynite: “Brooklyn makes you resilient, I think, and prepares you for the world.” Listen: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

As a young singer, Janis Siegel learned from her elders, she tells ‪@TheVillageTrip.bsky.social‬‬.We opened for Big Mama Thornton. That’s how I learned to drink bourbon.” Listen: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Jamie Bernstein tells great stories about her father, Leonard. She tells ‪@TheVillageTrip.bsky.social‬, “Sometimes, when I was really little, I didn’t understand a word of what he was talking about.” She’s come far. Listen: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬

Jamie Bernstein defends her father, Leonard’s, use of twelve-tone music. I demur. She tells @TheVillageTrip.bsky.social‬: “You’ll have to talk to Mr. Schoenberg about that.” Listen: personplacething.org

He's an admirable guy. Here's a more personal conversation with him: personplacething.org/544-jonathan...

Journalist ‪@JonathanCapehart.bsky.social‬ is liberal in his politics, conservative in his dress. “I love a good wild outfit, on someone else.” Listen: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Journalist ‪@JonathanCapehart.bsky.social‬ proposed marriage “in a country where I learned what it meant to be loved, and to love.” Make up your own Trump joke, then hear where: https://personplacething.org‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

As a kid, drummer Bobby Sanabria heard Tito Puente play in front of the Melrose Projects in the Bronx: “And I freaked out, and I said, oh my god!” The making of a musician. Listen: personplacething.org

Latin-jazz drummer Bobby Sanabria loves a range of music from Cuba to Puerto Rico to the Bronx, with special affection for the Johnny Quest theme. Listen: personplacething.org

“People call journalists curious; I think it’s just nosiness,” says journalist @KattybKay.bsky.social. Ah, but a higher form of nosiness. Listen: personplacething.org

“You Americans make it comparatively easy,” says journalist @KattybKay.bsky.social. To get deported to a hell hole in El Salvador? Well, yes, but she refers to our citizenship exam. Listen: personplacething.org

“When you live in Washington and cover politics,” says @KattybKay.bsky.social, sometimes you need to get out of town.” Or out of the country. Or, for me, back to my home planet. Listen: personplacething.org

Donald Trump’s pseudo-war against antisemitism notwithstanding, Jonathan Brent reminds us that, “The greatest crimes against the Jewish people have been from the right.” Listen: personplacething.org

Scholar Jonathan Brent says, “Hitler wrote him a fan letter and said that he keeps it on his bedside because it is his bible.” Make up your own Donald Trump joke or just listen: personplacething.org

Jonathan Bender reads a 1922 letter from Mohonk Mountain House, refusing to employ “people of your [Jewish] race” but apologizing if this “caused you inconvenience.” Antisemitic but—to be fair—so polite. Listen: personplacething.org

Andrea Patterson, Helen in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Memnon, declares: “I would never say anything bad about George Washington Carver.” Why does this arise? The beauty of Person Place Thing. Listen: personplacething.org

Many actors cherish the rehearsal room; Andrea Patterson, Helen in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Memnon, prefers the stage. “With an audience, I have more courage to take more risks. Hear why: personplacething.org

Historian David Levering Lewis was rummaging around the attic of the old Schomburg Center. “I saw bundled together what turned out to be a bunch of newspapers.” The rest is, well, history. Listen: personplacething.org

Historian David Levering Lewis heard W. E. B. Du Bois lecture the Black 400 on their duty to the community: “’You must give them the wisdom of Karl Marx.’ There was no applause.” Listen: personplacething.org

Architects Amale Andraos and Dan Wood met while working for Rem Koolhaas: “It was a collaborative environment. Rem is really more of an editor than a napkin-sketch genius.” The worst sort of genius! Hear why: personplacething.org

Architects Amale Andraos and Dan Wood recently completed a home for themselves. “It’s a passive house, and that basically means you’re building a thermos.” A light and airy thermos! Listen: personplacething.org

The Paul Taylor Dance Company is celebrated for its athleticism, but artistic director Michael Novak says: “Technique is a tool, it is not the end at all.” Paradox? Listen: personplacething.org

Michael Novak, artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, recalls the performance that inspired his career: “That opening sequence is old-school theater brilliance.” Rite of Spring? Phantom of the Opera! He was eight. Listen: personplacething.org

Photographer Mitchell Epstein on a particular hydrangea: "In getting close to something, I gained a kind of perspective, a kind of philosophical detachment.” Listen: personplacething.org

Photographer Mitchell Epstein: “You throw out an act of kindness, and the light will come back and shine toward you in an unexpected way.” Listen: personplacething.org

Photographer Mitchell Epstein on working around the world: “If you embed yourself in a place that’s not your own, you begin to ask questions about all these things that you’ve taken for granted. That’s the gift.” Listen: personplacething.org

It’s not the booing, @GregoryMosher.bsky.social tells @HunterCollege.bsky.social. “The most disheartening thing is someone asking the person they’re with, ‘What are we seeing tonight?’” Listen to the indifference: personplacething.org

He hates subscription theater, @GregoryMosher.bsky.social tells @HunterCollege.bsky.social. “It just seems stupid.” Hear why: personplacething.org

He has great stories—working on a Beckett play with Beckett—and knows how to tell them! They have great songs and know how to, you know...

When @GregoryMosher.bsky.social led theater at Lincoln Center, he tells @HunterCollege.bsky.social, he pondered, “If we were a good theater, what would we be doing?” Brilliantly, I’d say. Listen: personplacething.org

Michael Sparer of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health reflects on the polity: “People do vote against their own economic self-interest, but I don’t think they do so irrationally.” Wrong, but not nuts! Listen: personplacething.org

“We went through cornfields and more cornfields and more cornfields,” says Michael Sparer of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, and his political understanding deepened. Hear how: personplacething.org

Much admired children’s book author Kate DiCamillo says, “Vuillard is called a lesser impressionist, which makes me feel bad for him.” People can be so cruel! Listen: personplacething.org

Beloved children’s book author Kate DiCamillo is celebrating the 25th anniversary of her breakthrough book, Because of Winn-Dixie. Let the joy be unconfined. Listen: personplacething.org

Children’s book author Kate DiCamillo—Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tiger Rising, The Tale of Despereaux— calls herself “a shy kid, who has grown into a shy adult, who knows how to pretend that they’re not shy.” Listen: personplacething.org

Graphic designer Min Lew reveals the secret of her success: “I am comfortable not being comfortable.” However she does it, order a case for all my generals. Listen: personplacething.org