Articles Written By Clay Risen
TMN Contributing Writer Clay Risen’s first attempt to build a website fell apart after he learned that risen.com had been bought by a hardcore Christian rock band. Clay is a senior staff editor at the New York Times and the author, most recently, of The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act. He lives in Brooklyn.
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Personalities
Washington Gothic
Within the halls of Washington, D.C., lurks a stench of unsolved crimes, muttering highwaymen, and altogether strange behavior. Our writer peers into the capital’s dark corners.
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Opinions
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
Psychoanalysis in literature is old hat, but there were days when it was new. Returning to Mary McCarthy to see which neuroses still ring true.
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Opinions
The Secret Gardener
Your parents’ hobbies seem odd and quaint until you discover you can’t sleep late on the weekends anymore. Finding early middle age in the flower boxes of your backyard.
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Opinions
Springtime for Washington
Daisies and rifles are never easy bedfellows, especially when both are just starting to bloom.
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Opinions
Lost in Translation
The Chinatown bus network: offerring inexpensive transport between the major Chinatowns of the eastern US. The New York Times coos over the novelty; we actually take a ride on the bus and have a decidedly different take.
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Opinions
What Lies Beneath
New York and Washington have their differences, but the greatest disparity (at least to someone who just moved from Manhattan) is in their subway systems.
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Stories
The Summing Up
We may spend more time with our co-workers than our families, but that doesn’t mean we have to like them. Our D.C. correspondent Clay Risen starts a new job and barely gets past the front desk.
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Personalities
Joe Mitchell’s Secret
Considered the best profile writer New York’s ever seen, Joseph Mitchell’s influence is unfortunately on the wane. Why today’s prose-makers have lost their way.
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The Switch Bearer
Santa’s Not-So-Little Helper
You know Santa: cheeks like a rose, nose like a cherry. Now meet the Krampus, a boozy, goat-horned menace that whips European children during the first days of December.
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New York, New York
Tunnel Visions
There may be a thousand art exhibits in the city at any time, but few are housed in an abandoned subway tunnel buried under Brooklyn.
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Opinions
Branding
No longer content with acronyms or surnames, companies now hire brand consultants to name their children. The best and the worst of new-age monikers, including those easily pronounced as ass-enter.
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New York, New York
Hart Island
New York City is a collection of islands, and one, Hart Island, is completely inaccessible, possibly because it’s reserved for the dead. A report on the home of potter’s field and an abandoned missile base.