Newsday through the years

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Newsday was first published in 1940. Here are some of the stories of the men and women who helped it to grow over the years.  **In order to the articles you must click on the links below and then enter your library card information.

Jack Altshul

Jack Altshul began to work for Newsday in 1941, just after it started and wrote a column for Newsday until 1982. He had a deep feeling for Long Island and the people who lived there and it was reflected in his work.

Columnist Jack Altshul Dies

This obituary by colleague Harvey Aronson tells a great deal about who Jack Althshul was. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/1000204186/895C52733A814999PQ/15?accountid=35174

A Day With the Sands Pt. Costellos

In 1950, Jack Althshul and his wife Edna, a Newsday photographer, spent a day with Frank Costello and his wife at Costello’s Sands Point home. Costello was said to be the head of the Mafia.The Marlon Brando character in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather was supposedly based on him. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/888744973/4EBAFEE22A6A47EBPQ/1?accountid=35174

An immigrant Who Fled Tyranny in Russia

This is the story of how Jack Altshul’s parents escaped the persecution of Jews in Russia and came to America and made a life here. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/964432798/102F8911C21B4413PQ/2?accountid=35174

Patrick Owens

Patrick Owens came to work Newsday as a columnist in 1969. His immense talent was only matched by his ability to generate controversy.

Pat Owens Was a Journalistic Giant to Be Envied

This obituary by Paul Greenberg, a former colleague captures the flavor and fervor of a man who could accurately be described as a force of nature. https://www.newsday.com/pat-owens-was-a-journalistic-giant-to-be-envied-1.365124

Who They Were: A Special Report On LI'S 428 War Dead

Patrick Owens tells the stories of some of the Long Islanders who died in Viet Nam. In his recounting you can feel the pain of lives lost too early and the families that were left behind. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/hnpnewsday/docview/915786706/6A7D8019EBAE4BD5PQ/1241?accountid=35174 With George McGovern

Owens spent a day with George McGovern when he came to New York City to make a speech. His essay focuses on the quiet strength of McGovern and wonders if a man who can’t light up a room, but has a strong sense of purpose and decency, could be elected president. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/hnpnewsday/docview/915858905/53E86E33633E4D07PQ/100?accountid=35174

Les Payne

Les Payne like Patrick Owens also came to Newsday in 1969 as an investigative reporter. He won a Pulitzer prize in 1974 for being one of the reporters who wrote "The Heroin Trail", a series of 33 articles that detailed how heroin originated in Turkish poppy fields and found its way to the streets of New York City. He then wrote a weekly column from 1980 to 2008.

Les Payne, former Newsday editor who won Pulitzer Prize, dies.

This obituary covers the years of Les Payne’s years at Newsday as an editor and writer. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/2015727085/E0B3161B9D934CECPQ/11?accountid=35174

Black Initiative: Killing It Softly

Les Payne writes about his and his friends experiences with an education system that sometimes relegated blacks, no matter how intelligent they were, to shop classes instead of academic classes. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/278606701/A4B291DF8CFE46B4PQ/1?accountid=35174

On eve of Tet, head-to-head with Charlie

Payne, a Vietnam veteran, writes about an experience that he had before the Tet Offensive in 1968. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/279891990/64DA90F2F5134501PQ/1?accountid=35174

Irene Virag

Irene Virag started working for Newsday in 1982. She was the writer of powerful portrayals of life on Long island who became Newsday’s garden columnist from 1995 until she retired in 2008. She is a breast cancer survivor who has written extensively about living with the disease. In 1984, she had been on the team at Newsday that won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of a child with spina bifida and the political struggle over her treatment. She now teaches journalism at Stony Brook University.

Gardens: A garden full of love and life

The title says it all about Ms. Virag’s essay. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/280105482/A7D5CFBE530040A2PQ/5?accountid=35174

When D-Day Dawned on LI: A son's heroism, a father's grief, a town's memories Irene Virag

Arty Cerny was a paratrooper from Bohemia who died in France on D-day. Ms. Virag tells the story of Cerny’s life before the war and how his family coped after his death. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/993754886/61C3D6A7294545D2PQ/1?accountid=35174

Breast cancer: my first year

Irene Virag was writing a series about breast cancer survivors that became a book when she found out that she also had breast cancer. In this fourth installment of an occasional series she chronicles both her journey and the lives of the women she wrote about. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/279092491/4D1CE1806E124260PQ/4?accountid=35174

The God Squad

The God squad has been published in Newsday since 1991.The column was originally written by Rabbi Marc Gelman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman. Monsignor Hartman had to stop writing the column because of Parkinson’s disease in 2007. Rabbi Gelman has continued to write the column to this day.

A heartfelt memory of Thomas Hartman

Four years after Monsignor Hartman’s death, Rabbi Gelman wrote this warm and very humorous remembrance of his friend. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/2360740854/A6F6F45DAE60425BPQ/2?accountid=35174

Finding Meaning in the Holidays: We need to recall the past to help beat loneliness and commercialization

In the first article of the God Squad to ever appear in Newsday, Rabbi Gelman and Monsignor Hartman offer a plan to reclaim the magic of Christmas and Chanukah for those who have forgotten what it was like. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/2316247503/B29F554BC2E94ACFPQ/1?accountid=35174

God Squad: The questions borne of a real-life miracle

Rabbi Gelman writes about a man in his congregation who received a miracle and also questions why miracles happen. https://0-search-proquest-com.search.livebrary.com/docview/849291991/E11EFC7568