Author: lgsnyc

My latest for The Forward

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“It was the biggest painting in the world — how could it just disappear?”
Forward

I hope you’ll follow along my journey as I uncover the forgotten story of a colossal painted Gina Lollobrigida mural, a spicy midcentury movie stunt once billed as the world’s largest oil painting. Guarded by two armed guards during its national tour, this colossal artwork even stopped at the sorely missed Old Penn Station -sob – Old Penn. But what happened to the painting after that? And who was the artist behind the painting? Can you see it now?!

Fun to write!

Read the story at Forward

I won the Silurians Press Awards Gold Medallion for Best People Profile!

lgsnyc

The Silurians Press Awards is a big one for New York journalism. I couldn’t believe it but the Times entered my Si the Pilot story and it has just received the Gold Medallion for best People Profile. Even they were amazed it got the gold as they don’t normally nominate freelancers. I’m going on June 15th to the award ceremony at the National Arts Club sitting at the Times table next to the Times editors. Wuh? SO honored and excited. I’ll post on the day.

From the announcement:

The New York Times and Newsday Win Top Honors In The 77th Annual Excellence In Journalism Awards.

Fortune Magazine, ESPN, WABC-TV, Type Investigations, THE CITY, WINS 1010 Radio, The New Yorker, Gothamist/WNYC, The Record/northjersey.com, News 12 Network, City Limits, USA Today Network, Foreign Policy Magazine And CUNY’s Craig Newhouse Graduate School of Journalism Also Win Awards.

A powerful 18-month long investigation by Newsday into policing on Long Island that uncovered abusive treatment of detainees by law enforcement and discrimination against black applicants for police jobs and an incisive New York Times series that reported how the pandemic has devastated the New York City economy were both awarded the President’s Choice Medallion, the top prize in the Silurians Press Club’s 77th annual Excellence in Journalism Awards. 

The Times led this year’s winners with six first place Medallions winning the President’s Choice Award and awards for Breaking News Reporting, Investigative Reporting, Arts and Culture Reporting, Editorials, Commentary and Public Service, People Profiles and Feature Photography. Newsday was close behind with five winning Medallions, capturing the President’s Choice Award, and awards for Business and Financial Reporting , Breaking News Photography, Sports Photography and TV Feature News.

The Silurians Press Club, established in 1924 as The Society of the Silurians, is an organization of more than 300 veteran and retired New York journalists. 

People Profiles
Medallion: “He Bombed the Nazis, Outwitted the Soviets and Modernized Christmas” 
Laurie Gwen Shapiro
The New York Times

Merit: “Lives of New York”
Alex Vadukul
The New York Times

Merit: “The Ultimate Obit: The Real Unabridged Authorized Warts-and-All Saga of Brooklyn Trolley King Bob Diamond”
By Simi Horwitz  
Streetsblog NY

Read the full announcement

My Upcoming Piece for Columbia Magazine

lgsnyc
Portrait of Billy Gawronski

“The Tale of the Stowaway who Traded Antarctic Adventures for a Columbia Classroom”

Funny backstory! I wrote it three years ago, got paid, and I forgot about it. I was promised it would run eventually but it wasn’t getting canceled.

Well they finally found the right place for it on the back page which will now have a series of quirky stories. This short piece is launching that series.  Enjoy the read!

Read the article on Columbia.edu