James Ridgeway, a leading alternative journalist, has died at 84. The DC Gazette, forerunner of the Progressive Review, ran his articles in the 1970s, but, as the NY Times reports, he did much more:
In a career that spanned six decades, Mr. Ridgeway wrote for The New Republic as a staff member and as a contributor to The New York Times, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Ramparts, Hard Times and Mother Jones. He was the Washington correspondent of The Village Voice for 30 years; wrote, co-wrote or edited 20 books on national or foreign affairs; and wrote, produced and directed several documentaries.
Sam Smith: And he helped me find office space as I described in 1999:
Dupont Circle is a border
checkpoint between DeeCee and Washington through which you pass
to go from community to facility, from experience to ritual,
and from the anarchy of engaged life to the order of bloodless
systems. Like all stereotypes, there are exceptions and, with
the help of Jim Ridgeway of the Village Voice, I found one, a
fifth floor garret des refusés, which I now share with
Jim, a doctor of alternative medicine, and an African lawyer.
On the first floor, a seamstress keeps her door open so you greet
her as you approach an elevator so venerable one almost expects
to see Joan Crawford leave it. The heavy doors resist your lean
as you try to maneuver past them with your box and bag and a
little notice etched in the brass reminds you of a forgotten
choice: "With Attendant," "Without Attendant."
I already feel at home.
1 comment:
Jim was one of the great reporters, writers, and activist journalists of our era. I knew him for decades, and worked with him on numerous stories/causes. We first met when he was editor of the Daily Princetonian, and I was in a similar role at the Yale Daily News (our contemporaries included Andy Kopkind at the Cornell Daily Sun and Adam Clymer at the Harvard Crimson.). As the fine NYT obit makes clear, he had rigorous standards; all of his work was meticulously fact-based. He was big-hearted, sweet, and generous. And a good friend as well. Pretty much the opposite type of social being from our contemporary, Christopher Hitchens, Jim was something of a hermit in D.C. But if he could do you a favor, he was always there. R.I.P.. Jim, your lamp will always be lit.
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