0:00

You're listening to Radio Diaries. This is Joe,

0:02

and we have some exciting news from the

0:04

Radio-Topia family. Our friends at Mumbai

0:06

Crime have a new series out, and

0:09

if you haven't heard of Mumbai Crime, it's

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an audio drama of thrillers, all set and

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recorded on the streets of Mumbai, India, and

0:15

their newest series is the take on

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the Charles Dickens classic, Martin Chiselwit. Set

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in Mumbai's Catholic community, it explores the

0:22

Chiselwit family as they grapple with the

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destructive effects of money and power. Here's

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a clip. We should get together

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and make sure the family money isn't squandered.

0:33

Money has caused many rifts

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in our family, everyone

0:38

vying for my brother's fortune. They

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won't get a thing. Check

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out the Mumbai Chiselwits, out now on

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the Mumbai Crime podcast, wherever you get

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your podcasts. From

1:01

PRX's Radio-Topia, this is Radio Diaries.

1:03

I'm Joe Richman. This

1:05

is our final episode of the year, and we're doing

1:07

something a little different. Every

1:09

year we bring you a lot of stories, but we

1:12

don't often get to share the work behind them, why

1:14

people talk to us, and the challenges they

1:17

face telling stories they may have rarely told

1:19

before. We recently wrapped

1:21

up our series, The Unmarked Graveyard, stories

1:23

from Heart Island, and

1:25

Radio Diaries has been around a long time, and this

1:27

project was one of the most ambitious things we've ever

1:29

done. So to celebrate the

1:31

end of the series, we recently did a live

1:33

event here in New York City, at WNYC's The

1:36

Green Space. We invited a few

1:38

of the people from our stories on stage, along

1:40

with our producers, and a cellist to

1:42

go behind the scenes. Today

1:45

on the show, Radio Diaries Live.

1:48

We begin with a welcome from WNYC's Kyrite.

1:51

Good evening. So

1:54

as announced, I'm Kyrite. I host

1:56

Notes for America, which is WNYC's

1:58

Sunday evening show. The

2:00

Unmarked Graveyard, Stories from Heart Island, is,

2:02

as you know, a radio diaries project.

2:04

Radio diaries has been, for 25 years,

2:07

making stories for public radio. I'm

2:10

going to bring you, your actual

2:12

host for the night, Joe Richmond,

2:14

executive producer and founder of Radio

2:16

Diaries. Welcome

2:24

to the Unmarked Graveyard. Thank you all for being here.

2:27

So, there are more than a

2:29

million people buried on Heart Island. They're

2:32

buried in mass graves. There are no headstones

2:34

or plaques, so it's not always easy to

2:36

know much about who they were. Heart

2:40

Island is known as a place where people

2:42

end up because their families couldn't afford a

2:44

private burial, or they

2:46

couldn't be identified, or in some

2:49

way they fell through the cracks, forgotten or

2:51

unclaimed. But there are a lot

2:53

of reasons people end up on Heart Island, and we

2:55

set out to tell some of these stories, how people

2:57

ended up there, the lives they lived, and

2:59

the people they left behind. Neil

3:02

Harris was last seen in Inwood, New York on

3:04

December 12, 2014. There

3:11

were thousands of questions. Where's

3:14

his family? Where's

3:16

his people? Uncle Caesar was estranged from our

3:18

family 40 to 50 years. The

3:21

playwright, novelist, and author of Happy

3:24

Island, Miss Dawn Powell. Holy

3:26

s***, I know that person. And

3:29

it's got a name attached to it. Neil

3:32

Harris Jr. You can't help

3:34

but wonder what her life has been. I

3:36

never went back and I

3:39

never looked back again. And they found

3:41

you, she found us, and we're here. Now

3:44

we know who you

3:47

are. Neil Harris Jr. So just

3:49

a little bit of background. Radio Diaries has

3:51

been around for 25 years. We've been

3:53

doing documentaries for NPR and for our

3:55

podcast. And Heart Island

3:57

has actually been a project that has been

3:59

on our list for more than a

4:01

decade. But it's just kind

4:03

of sat there not really knowing exactly how

4:06

to approach this project. And originally we thought

4:08

about doing a series that was sort of

4:10

like audio obituaries for people who never got

4:12

an obituary. That was the original idea. As

4:14

we started doing research and reporting, each

4:17

story got more complicated

4:19

and involved and it

4:21

became sort of like mysteries in a way. We

4:23

began to think of them as mysteries. And

4:26

I actually started to think about the series as like

4:28

true crime without the crime. So

4:31

tonight you're going to hear five of those stories.

4:33

There's a woman searching for the father she never

4:35

knew, a well-known writer

4:37

who was forgotten after her death, a

4:40

man who spent every day for two years on a

4:42

park bench on the Upper West Side, and

4:44

a woman who lived for four decades at the

4:47

Belvedere Hotel in Midtown. And

4:49

this one. Rhode

4:53

Island is not a place many people choose

4:55

to be buried, but that's exactly what Noah

4:57

Krzyzewski did. Noah

5:08

Krzyzewski was a composer. He wrote

5:10

experimental electronic music. He called

5:12

it hyper-realism. He

5:14

died a few years ago at the age of 75 and this

5:16

piece was the last

5:18

one he completed before he died. So

5:27

Noah lived for 42 years with his husband,

5:30

David Sachs, and when Noah found out that

5:32

he had cancer in just a few months to live, they

5:35

had to make a decision about what would

5:37

happen to his body after he died. Here's

5:39

David. Nothing

5:41

seemed to him more vulgar

5:44

than fetishizing death with

5:46

real estate. You know, a

5:48

stone, a mark, or a

5:51

mausoleum. He just didn't want

5:53

a part of it. So the

5:55

idea of being buried collectively in

5:57

what they used to call a pauper's

5:59

grave it seemed very meaningful

6:01

to him. Now the

6:04

simplicity, the anonymity,

6:07

the humility, and it

6:09

was on the water that she loved. And

6:12

for someone who was such

6:14

an egalitarian, who believed genuinely

6:16

in everyone's equality, it

6:19

was the right decision for him.

6:23

So according to David, Noah wasn't religious, but

6:25

he was a spiritual person. He

6:28

didn't think that death was necessarily the

6:30

end. And while he didn't believe he

6:32

would still be Noah or come back

6:34

as someone else, he thought maybe he

6:36

could come back as a tree or

6:39

a breath. Since Noah's

6:41

death, friends have often asked David if

6:43

he regrets the decision, not having a

6:45

traditional grave site with a marker or

6:47

a plot, a place where he could

6:49

visit and spend time with Noah. And

6:51

David's answer is always, no. Here's

6:54

David again. You know,

6:57

I wake up sometimes and I

6:59

see he's not in bed with me. And my

7:01

first instinct is to call him, assuming

7:03

he's in the other room. And then

7:05

I realized more or less quickly

7:08

that no he's not there. And that hits

7:11

you sometimes like a ton of bricks. He's

7:15

not in the other room or in

7:18

another city. He's not anywhere. And

7:21

then almost immediately a

7:24

more calming realization

7:26

sinks in. He's

7:29

everywhere. So

7:39

David is in the audience tonight. I just want

7:41

to acknowledge him. Can you wave? Thank

7:44

you. Thank

7:47

you for coming and for sharing

7:49

your life with Noah with us. On

7:52

public radio. As

7:57

I mentioned at the top, many of the stories

7:59

were like... There's

10:02

some tenants here that don't have nobody to

10:04

talk to. Nobody say,

10:06

have a good day, or nobody say happy

10:08

holidays. Nobody

10:10

say, I love you. Nobody say, I hate you.

10:14

You know? I

10:17

always saw her alone. Alone yet happy.

10:21

Perhaps to each their own. You

10:23

see such a person and you can't help but

10:26

wonder what her life has been. We

10:29

also wondered what her life had been. But

10:32

unfortunately no one at the hotel really knew

10:34

anything about her. They didn't know where

10:36

she was from. They didn't know what she did for a living. The

10:39

closest we came was Renee Cadyhero who lives in

10:41

room 207. My

10:50

name is Renee. And

10:53

I live here in Belvedere Hotel when

10:56

Miss Isigos was still alive.

11:00

This is where she lives, room 208. And

11:03

I live in 207 across the hall. As

11:08

far as the nearest neighbor I am the only

11:10

one who she talks to and she knows my

11:12

name. Doesn't say

11:14

so much. You know?

11:18

Except, you know, the

11:20

usual greeting, how are

11:22

you, whether it's nice.

11:26

I'm going to get my mail. I

11:30

always call this one. This

11:35

is my piano and I

11:37

play it in the evening most often.

11:40

She knows when I play the piano. Because

11:43

she hears it. She

11:47

tells me, you know, it's a good thing

11:50

you played the piano last night. How

11:52

nice is it? Those

11:54

things are very

11:57

gracious. I

12:04

got to spend some time at the Belvedere over the last

12:06

couple months. Most of the apartments

12:08

are small, just one room, but they have

12:10

a private bathroom. There's like a

12:13

tiny kitchen nook the size of like a

12:15

closet and they have a few appliances that

12:17

pop plate in the fridge. But

12:19

it's affordable, which is why so many of the tenants have

12:21

stayed there for so long. One

12:24

Friday morning in 2016, it was

12:26

Jerry the bellop who realized he hadn't seen his taco.

12:29

She asked the upper management to go up and check up

12:31

on her and sure enough, they found out that she had

12:33

died in her apartment. In

12:36

her research, we discovered very little about the life that she

12:38

lived. We know she was born in Japan in 1934. She

12:41

probably came to the US in the 1970s. And

12:44

after she died at the Belvedere at the age of 82,

12:47

she was buried in plot 379 on Heart Island.

12:51

Thank you so much. One

13:13

of the things about living in New York City is

13:16

that sometimes we get to know people, you

13:19

know, people we see every day, you

13:21

know, at the deli in our neighborhood, people who

13:23

become part of the fabric of our lives, but

13:25

we don't know anything about them. This

13:27

next story is about a man who became a fixture

13:29

in a neighborhood park on the Upper West Side. He

13:32

sat on the same bench every day for two

13:35

years and the residents there knew him as Stephen.

13:38

But during those two years, he has someone many

13:40

miles away looking for him and she

13:42

called him Neil. I want

13:44

to bring up Radio Diaries producer, Elisa Escarce,

13:46

along with Susan Hurlbert and Joy Bergman. Please

13:49

welcome her. See you everyone. I

14:00

really am researching this series. I

14:02

came across this story and it

14:04

immediately really struck me about

14:07

this young man who had died a few years ago

14:09

in Riverside Park. The police weren't able

14:11

to identify him when he died and so he was

14:13

buried on Hard Island. And

14:15

he had lived these two separate lives. Our two

14:18

guests tonight each knew him in one of those

14:20

lives. And

14:23

Susan, I want to start with you. You

14:25

are Neil Harris Jr.'s mom. Yeah. When

14:28

we talked, you know, you told me about Neil's childhood,

14:31

how he was a really happy and energetic little

14:33

kid. Could you

14:35

share a little bit about his early childhood and then

14:37

what he was like growing up? Growing

14:39

up he was energetic, hyperactive. He

14:42

had friends who he brought

14:45

home to wrestle in the house and

14:49

destroy things. But

14:52

he was just like

14:54

a normal hyperactive child. He

14:57

just thrived on video

14:59

games. Would you like to play together, right?

15:01

Yeah, well kind of. Yeah, I kind of

15:03

got into it too. There were times

15:05

when I'd stay up late with him and I'd

15:08

say, well, you don't have to go to school tomorrow.

15:10

We can continue Super Mario Brothers. I

15:13

will beat you. And

15:16

I did. And

15:20

then when we talked, you told me

15:22

also about how as Neil got older

15:24

his personality started to change and

15:28

he eventually was diagnosed with

15:30

schizophrenia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

15:32

And, you know, I know you tried to

15:35

get him help, but his mental

15:37

illness started to put a strain on your relationship.

15:40

So one day Neil was living with you in his 20s

15:42

and then when he was, I think, 29, he one

15:46

day he asked you to drop him off at the

15:48

train station and he ended up

15:50

disappearing. So we're going to play a clip of you

15:52

talking about that moment. He's

15:54

like, I want you to drop me off at the train

15:56

station. And he would sleep on

15:58

the platform. When

16:01

we pulled into the parking lot of

16:03

the Inwood train station, he just got

16:05

out, took his little backpack,

16:07

threw it over his shoulder, walked

16:10

away, never looked behind. And

16:13

there was a cop sitting in the parking

16:16

field there and I got out and

16:18

I said, that's my son and he wants to be here.

16:20

He wants to be homeless. And

16:23

the cop said to me, and it says, right. He

16:25

said, but we'll check up on him. So

16:28

I figured, okay, so I'll go every week.

16:31

And the first time we went down, we looked

16:34

and we did see him, but he

16:37

walked away from me. And I

16:39

was like, Neil, wait, I just want to give you money. And he stopped,

16:41

took the money and walked away. And

16:44

that was the last time I saw him. My

16:50

name is Joy Bergman and I live on the Upper West

16:52

Side of Manhattan. And this

16:54

is my dog, JJ. JJ,

16:57

let's go. Every

16:59

day, JJ and I are in Riverside Park.

17:02

This is a bench where we would see

17:04

Stephen in all weather, all time to stay.

17:07

He'd always be sitting bolt upright

17:09

on the bench, big canvas rucksack

17:11

at his feet, same clothes,

17:14

same facial expression. Yeah,

17:17

JJ, you remember Stephen. So,

17:22

Joy, you were one of the

17:24

neighbors on the Upper West Side who started noticing this

17:26

young man who called himself Stephen in 2015 or so.

17:31

He became a real fixture in the park. What

17:34

was it about him that left such an impression on you

17:36

and on your neighbors? The

17:38

absolute reliability of always seeing him

17:41

in the park in the same

17:43

places every single day and his

17:46

sort of Buddha-like posture

17:48

and silence and serenity

17:50

every single day. I

17:52

would see him either up in

17:54

Riverside Park near 75th Street or down

17:56

by the river every single

17:58

day, no matter what the weather. was. I

18:01

remember you saying that he was a

18:04

reassuring presence. Yeah, he's a big

18:06

guy and ordinarily that might

18:08

be a little off-putting to someone early in

18:10

the morning in the dark but I found

18:12

him just a comforting presence. He seemed to

18:14

be sort of just

18:16

the palace guard of the park. He

18:19

just kind of sitting silently observing,

18:21

didn't say a word ever but

18:25

didn't seem disturbed in

18:27

any way. He just wanted to be there,

18:29

calm and present. Yeah, yeah

18:32

and I know he left an impression on a

18:34

lot of people. It wasn't just you, right? Absolutely.

18:37

Steven, I just think he's

18:39

one of those people that as you said

18:41

in the opening, you

18:44

know but you don't know and he

18:46

was a mysterious presence but always, always

18:49

there and so you just get used to seeing

18:51

him and everyone knew who he

18:53

was when he did pass

18:56

away in the park and I wrote the story

18:58

about this John Doe that had passed away in

19:00

the park and I called him the young man

19:03

in the maroon hoodie and everybody

19:05

knew instantly who I was talking about and

19:07

there was an outpouring of grief from the

19:10

from the neighborhood. People put flowers on the

19:12

bench where he would sit. A

19:14

local church had a memorial service for him. It

19:17

was just like everybody noticed this young man

19:20

and no one knew who he was exactly

19:22

but he was a welcome

19:24

presence. Yeah, what struck

19:26

me so much was that even though everyone described

19:28

him as being really quiet, it seemed like a

19:31

number of people had these individual relationships with

19:33

him where they would bring him food. You

19:35

talked about bringing him to your magazine. Yeah,

19:37

I rarely saw him walking around the neighborhood

19:39

but the one time I did saw him

19:42

walking around, I noticed he had picked a newspaper off

19:44

the edge of a garbage can

19:46

and he was looking through it with some interest so

19:49

every once in a while I'd bring a bag of magazines that

19:51

I was going to recycle and I just kind of let them

19:53

there and he would kind of give me a little Look

19:55

and a nod but no words were ever

19:57

exchanged and then I'd go away and. Pm

20:00

look at it were there so it was just sort

20:02

of a in exchange of friendly. Pleasantries

20:05

and and. Been.

20:07

Neighbors? Yeah. Yeah. I'm

20:10

so a couple years after he appeared

20:12

in the part in the annual died

20:14

unexpectedly he was only thirty two and

20:17

his body was found by a security

20:19

guard at or at the head of

20:21

security at a nearby condo building. I'm

20:23

and to joy you write about his

20:26

to ask ah. But

20:28

even though many people in the neighborhood new

20:30

Steven and have these personal relationships with him

20:32

on, they knew almost nothing. You know almost

20:35

nothing about his background. People didn't know his

20:37

last name. know I? I had no idea.

20:39

And on he never said a word around me.

20:41

A couple of the. More

20:44

gregarious I guess Park goers got him to

20:46

seek a few words and and they call

20:48

themselves even and told them I'm from Long

20:50

Island But I never heard him speak so

20:52

I wasn't even sure if you might have

20:55

a by a hearing disability or maybe didn't

20:57

speak English. I'd never heard him speak one

20:59

in two years, have seen him every single

21:01

day. He as. And

21:04

I think that this story is that up

21:06

until this point it's others. A lot of

21:08

stories on had ellen. That are similar to this.

21:11

But then the story took it

21:13

pretty unusual turn and that I'm

21:16

so year and a half after

21:18

Stephen was buried. I'm a journalist

21:20

and and friend I just because

21:22

Brockington who also new season from

21:24

walking her dog in the park.

21:26

She was looking for a missing

21:28

persons database for a different project

21:30

and stumbled on a photo of

21:32

him than that photo effects when

21:34

names in recognized at which was

21:36

Meal Harris Jr. And

21:38

Susan you had been looking. For and yell for

21:40

a few years at that point and

21:42

posting information about him all over social

21:45

media. Religious? both? yes and so are.

21:47

Jessica was able to reach out to

21:49

you and contacts you end up here

21:51

except for going to play Clippers I've

21:53

had to the remembering your first conversation

21:55

and she called me and she's that

21:57

okay. So. This decided.

22:00

Getting in Riverside Park. And on

22:02

my. Birthday.

22:06

Money and I'm not so much.

22:08

Are you kidding me? Neil with

22:10

you. Is.

22:12

Such a thing as the

22:14

city. This is a new.

22:18

By other products you forget that I

22:20

know this guy. You see them. That's

22:22

what he called himself, right? and on

22:24

my visit. She

22:27

says yeah I'm just to tell you what I got

22:29

from him. She said I would walk through the park.

22:31

I have to door. And

22:33

they would immediately run for him

22:35

and he'd just reach. Son started

22:37

putting them in kind of models

22:39

and wasn't necessarily smiling at me

22:41

but with focused. On the

22:44

Dog Lama Academy. And

22:47

then am I arguing with in my

22:49

own has my has you know say

22:51

no no no and then saying maybe

22:53

maybe no no no no no. And

22:57

then I sent her

22:59

the medical examiner's photo

23:01

of. Her son after

23:03

his autopsy. And

23:05

the picture came up. He

23:08

was more like disheveled. I

23:11

could sell it. She had to save and in a while. But

23:14

I know my son. And

23:17

I knew as soon as I saw that fits as I was my

23:19

first. I thought was

23:21

actually catch mother. Susan,

23:25

What was it like to get that call him to find out

23:27

for the first time when it happened to me. Today

23:31

I wanna say it was you know,

23:33

like. A

23:36

relief, but not a release. It was.

23:40

Devastating. It was like

23:42

what you mean the and are I

23:44

just I couldn't I couldn't breath with.

23:47

Their phone for was like the

23:50

best because I met says because

23:52

and we became good friends and

23:54

but. The worst because of the news. when

23:58

you had been looking for those four

24:00

years. What

24:04

did you imagine might have happened to him? I

24:07

couldn't imagine. I mean it was like he disappeared

24:09

off the face of the earth. He

24:11

never left Long Island. We took him

24:14

to the city once, twice.

24:16

We took him to see the Christmas tree and

24:19

he hated the city. To be the people, I can't

24:21

stand this, we have to go home, I don't like

24:23

it. He was claustrophobic. We

24:26

left right away. Just look at the tree, Neil. No,

24:28

I don't want to look at the tree. Got

24:31

back in the car and off we went. We

24:34

came back again for a wrestling event.

24:38

We passed it all the way in the back. Our

24:40

seats were up front. I paid good money for

24:42

these seats. We

24:45

had to stand in the back by the exit door

24:47

because he was like, you know, I gotta

24:49

get out of here. Yeah. We couldn't get out

24:51

of there fast enough. Had to get home.

24:54

But it seems like there was something about Riverside Park

24:56

that called to him. What

24:58

I heard was somebody brought him

25:01

there. A friend or something brought

25:03

him there. And then when

25:06

the weather got bad, they

25:08

called in a crisis unit and

25:10

the crisis unit came and asked them both, you know,

25:13

let us take you, let us help you, let us

25:15

take you in and whatever. And the

25:17

other person said, okay, fine. And took off and

25:20

Neil said,

25:23

no. So

25:27

a little while after you and

25:29

Jessica connected, the community that

25:32

Joy is part of, that knew Neil from

25:34

Riverside Park decided to hold a memorial for

25:37

him at a local church. Let's

25:39

hear a clip of that. I

25:43

walked in and looking

25:45

at all these people.

25:48

I'm like, I don't

25:50

know these people. Neil

25:53

didn't know these people. And

25:56

I sent it to my sister. I said, you know, Neil

25:59

didn't know them. and she looked at me

26:01

and she said, well obviously he did. Listen

26:04

to what they're saying. And

26:34

my husband nudged me and he said, get up there and say

26:36

something. And I'm like, I don't know what

26:39

to say. There

27:02

are people that really, really care.

27:05

Even if it's a stranger, they care. That

27:14

was the only good feeling I came out

27:16

of there with. Because other than that, it

27:18

was not a good feeling. I

27:20

was hurt that I

27:23

was left out of his life as his mother.

27:26

I kept saying, I did something wrong.

27:28

What did I do? Or

27:32

what didn't I do? Everybody

27:34

kept saying, well at least now you have closure.

27:37

There's no closure. I

27:39

don't understand what people think when

27:41

they say, well at least now you know. I'd

27:45

rather not know. I'd

27:48

rather keep on looking. In

27:52

cases of people who go missing, people

27:55

talk so much about the importance of

27:57

closure for families. And

27:59

so it's just... really struck me that you

28:01

said, you know, there's no closure. And I

28:04

wonder now, you know, a little while out,

28:06

like how do you feel about this idea of

28:08

closure now? I still feel the same way. There

28:10

is no closure. Closure would be me having my

28:12

son back. Yeah. That would

28:14

be closure for me. To me, a part

28:18

of me doesn't want to know. I

28:20

still want to search. Yeah. I

28:22

had hope. Yeah. Neil

28:26

was buried on Hard Island and I know your

28:28

feelings about Hard Island evolved over time.

28:31

Yeah. How

28:33

did you feel about it initially and how

28:35

did that change? I was devastated. I was

28:38

mortified. Oh my god. You

28:41

know, mass burial. My family, they were all,

28:44

you know, you've got to get them out of

28:46

there. You got to do something. The city did

28:48

offer to exhume the body and, you know, we

28:50

could have put him in a family plot. And I thought

28:54

about it and I was like, you know, Neil

28:56

never knew his father and

28:59

his father was also buried on Hard Island.

29:02

And I'm like, how uncanny is

29:05

that? That his

29:07

father, who's also Neil Harris, is buried

29:09

there too. And then we came

29:11

to find out that they're not too far apart. So

29:15

it was like, this may have

29:17

been meant to be. He's not really

29:19

alone. Yeah. You know, I felt

29:21

like he was alone, but I wasn't

29:24

sure what to do. And then I came

29:27

to the conclusion he's with his father. That's

29:29

where he is. And that's where I

29:32

think he wanted to be. He

29:35

found his father. Thank

29:39

you so much, Susan. And thank you, Joy,

29:41

for sharing the story with us. It was

29:43

such an honor to get to ask you

29:45

about it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank

29:54

you. Thank

30:05

you. Celebrity

30:32

graves are some of the most beloved

30:34

places in the country. Elvis

30:37

Presley's burial site at Graceland draws more

30:39

than a half million people every year.

30:42

Fans leave red kisses on Marilyn Monroe's

30:44

headstone in Los Angeles, and

30:47

jazz lovers trek to our very own

30:49

Flushing Queens, to the grave of

30:51

Louis Armstrong. There aren't

30:53

many celebrities buried at Heart Island, but

30:56

in one of those graves is

30:58

a woman that Ernest Hemingway called his

31:00

favorite living writer. Mutual

31:04

presents... Author of Happy Island! Now

31:08

we'd like you to meet our guest authors for the night. Lead

31:11

playwright, novelist, and author of Happy

31:13

Island, Miss Dawn Powell. Dawn

31:17

Powell looked on society when she

31:19

wrote it up. She

31:21

made fun of millionaires and

31:23

communists. She was a very

31:25

smart, tough, sarcastic woman who

31:27

put all of that into

31:29

her books. When they got

31:32

back there, you see, he had opened up and

31:34

there was a tearome and there was dinner time,

31:36

and they had to have the regular blue plate.

31:41

She was a true killer. Women

31:43

who pointed things out, women who observed things, women

31:45

who told the truth. Those kind of

31:47

women scared men. I do think

31:49

there will come a time when people will

31:51

realize that she's one of America's greatest drivers.

31:54

Well, Miss Powell, thank you for joining us this evening.

32:00

where she died, Dawn Powell

32:02

was really kind of forgotten. Here's

32:08

Radio Diaries producer, Micah Hazel, to tell you about

32:10

the story of Dawn. Hi

32:14

everyone. I

32:22

promise this story won't make you cry,

32:24

unless you get really emotional about

32:26

failed artists. So

32:30

what interested me about Dawn's story is

32:32

that she went from, you know, she

32:34

came to New York around the 1920s

32:37

from a very small town in Ohio,

32:39

and she said she wanted

32:41

to be a writer. And unlike most

32:43

people, she actually made it. She

32:46

published over 12 novels. She

32:49

was really good friends with a lot of

32:51

names we all know, like Ernest Hemingway, you

32:54

know, Dorothy Parker, Gourd Vidal. And

32:57

she was even a finalist for a National Book Award

33:00

in the 60s, which if you were a woman back

33:02

then, sure we can all imagine, it's not very easy

33:04

to do. And yet

33:06

she ended up, you know, buried in

33:08

an unmarked grave by the end

33:10

of her life. So we were really

33:12

interested in kind of untangling,

33:15

you know, how that happened, but

33:17

also untangling her as kind of

33:19

this enigma of a person. This

33:22

was pretty hard to do because she was born in

33:24

the 1800s. So naturally,

33:27

a lot of her family is

33:29

now dead. A

33:31

lot of her work has gone out of print,

33:33

you know, and there really aren't many surviving recordings

33:35

of her voice. So yeah, her

33:39

life is just really a myth. But

33:41

she, like any typical writer, kept

33:44

a diary for over 40 years. And

33:47

it goes into a lot of her life, it goes

33:49

into a lot of her emotions. And

33:51

I read all of it. And it

33:53

really, thank you, I heard that with me. It

33:56

was work, it was work. And

33:58

it really just opened. opened up

34:00

her whole world for me. I mean, she really

34:04

wrote a lot about success, about

34:06

wanting more success, about wanting more

34:08

money, about wanting more appreciation, and

34:10

just all of these things that are really

34:12

universal, I think, for artists, but also for,

34:14

I think, human beings in general. And

34:17

it really made her work come alive for

34:19

us. So for the story, we ended up

34:21

talking to Tim Page, who

34:23

was her biographer, and also really the

34:25

sole reason we can still read her

34:27

books today. We also talked

34:30

to her great niece, Vicki, who,

34:32

even though she only has a

34:34

couple toddler-aged memories of

34:36

Dawn, was really, really attached to her work, and

34:38

kind of like my experience, just the second she

34:41

opened Dawn's books, it really opened up her world

34:43

for her. And

34:45

we talked to Fran Leibowitz, who

34:47

calls herself a Dawn Powell evangelist,

34:50

and is low-key obsessed with her. Don't

34:52

tell her I said that. And

34:54

that really made her work come alive. So here's a clip

34:57

from that story. You know,

34:59

she came from nowhere. She was no one. All

35:01

right. But she knew that she was smart

35:04

enough, good enough to be very

35:06

good in New York, which is the most

35:08

competitive place in the world. She

35:11

met people like Dorothy Parker and

35:14

Fitzgerald. She

35:16

knew all of the famous

35:18

writers. She was very funny,

35:21

and people liked that. And she liked to

35:23

drink. So she was out

35:25

at taverns a lot of the

35:27

evening, sleeping around and not caring

35:29

what other people thought. Had

35:32

a best party. Had new dress and

35:34

was very drunk. Met Floyd Bell at

35:36

dinner. She

35:39

started keeping a diary. It touches

35:41

on her friends. It touches on

35:44

sight she saw in New York, and

35:46

the whole city comes alive. I

35:49

contend that a writer's business is

35:51

minding other people's business. So

35:55

yeah, she was a wild girly.

35:57

And she wrote all about that in

35:59

her diary. you can see here and naturally

36:02

it really kind of bled into her work.

36:04

I mean her characters were really

36:06

ahead of their time. These are women who slept

36:08

around for the job. These were

36:10

women who lied and cheated for the job. These

36:13

were men who lied for the job and

36:15

she really talked a lot about work

36:17

but she also just talked a lot

36:19

about human nature and was really kind

36:21

of relentless about it. But

36:24

naturally, as you can imagine, her woman

36:26

back then wasn't necessarily appreciated by certain

36:30

critics. So even though she was

36:32

surrounded by this circle of really famous writers,

36:35

she never really got to their same level. You

36:37

know, the way we know Hemingway, I don't think

36:39

any of y'all probably would say, you know Don

36:41

Powell. So

36:44

by the end of her life, she really

36:46

didn't have much money. She did not make

36:49

that much sales on her books and she

36:51

kind of struggled with money for a lot

36:53

of her life. And when she got intestinal

36:55

cancer, she ended up dying and

36:58

her body ended up being donated to

37:00

science in order to kind of avoid

37:02

the cost of a burial. But

37:05

because of kind of a mishap in where

37:07

her body went, she ended up buried on

37:09

Hard Island. We can play a clip about

37:11

that. There

37:20

are people who say, I want this when I die. This

37:23

is where I want to be buried. This is

37:25

the kind of gravestone I want. I think Don

37:27

Powell was too smart and

37:29

realistic to care about this. I

37:31

don't think she would have cared. I just don't.

37:35

I mean, in a weird way,

37:37

she might have been pleased in

37:39

a funny way that the city

37:41

of New York paid for her

37:43

burial. She loved New York. She

37:46

told the truth about New York

37:48

and I'm not sure she'd want to be anywhere else.

37:51

The main memorial to Don Powell

37:54

is in her writing. There

37:57

is really one city for everyone, just as

38:00

One major love. New

38:02

York is my city, because I have an

38:04

investment I can always draw on. A

38:07

bottomless investment of building up an idea

38:09

of New York. So

38:11

no matter what happens here, I

38:13

have the rock of my dreams of it that

38:16

nothing can destroy. Yeah,

38:28

so that voice you heard, Tim

38:30

Page, he and

38:32

the Library of America kind of collaborated back

38:34

in the 90s to bring some of Don's

38:37

work back in print. So

38:39

we don't have everything, you know, not everything

38:41

is available to read, but she's since kind

38:43

of come back. And

38:45

the people who like her are a pretty small cult.

38:49

The people who love her really, really love her. And

38:53

what I'm kind of hoping this story does

38:55

is kind of give her more of the

38:57

recognition that she deserves. You know, she's kind

38:59

of had some pops of fame here and there

39:01

in terms of celebrities like Julia

39:03

Roberts have tried to make the film of her

39:05

work. Angelica Houston

39:08

as well, but she's never really

39:10

had her moment, which

39:12

is something I think that this story can do. In

39:15

terms of Hard Island, her family,

39:17

like Vicky that I just mentioned, they are

39:19

okay with her being buried there. As

39:22

people who you heard in

39:24

the story mentioned, you know, they kind of think it's

39:26

fitting for her personality. Her

39:28

great niece, Vicky, actually said that, you know, if she

39:31

could write another book, she'd probably write about

39:33

that and how ironic it is. So I

39:35

hope you guys enjoy that story

39:37

and I hope her work gets enjoyed. Thank

39:39

you. Thank

39:45

you. So

40:22

long before we started this series, I

40:24

personally have loved cemeteries. I

40:27

love walking in them, I love the feel of them,

40:29

and most of all I love that they are like

40:31

a database of stories. Each

40:34

marker with just a few words is like

40:36

a tease or a suggestion of someone that

40:38

we know very little about. If

40:41

you look back in history cemeteries have

40:43

always been places to visit. Some

40:46

of the most well used parks in this very

40:49

city were once public cemeteries, or Potter Seals as

40:51

they were known, Washington Square

40:53

Park, Madison Square Park, Ryan's Park.

40:57

But for 150 years, Heart Island has been mostly

40:59

off limits. And

41:01

the city started using Heart Island as

41:03

a cemetery back in 1869, and for most of that time

41:06

it was managed by the City's Department of

41:08

Corrections, the agency that runs

41:11

scales, and in fact the people burying bodies

41:13

were often men incarcerated at Rutgers Island

41:16

nearby. Just

41:18

two years ago, that all changed, the management

41:20

of the island transferred from the Department of

41:23

Corrections to the New York City Parks Department.

41:28

So today, going to Heart Island,

41:31

you have to be a family member or a close friend

41:33

typically. There are two dates a month.

41:36

If you get a spot, you

41:38

show up at a dock off in City Island

41:40

in the Bronx and you take a small ferry,

41:43

and a guard escorts you to the site.

41:47

You're not allowed to just wander around, and

41:49

since these are mass graves, they put a

41:51

little orange marker where they estimate your loved

41:53

one might be buried. We

41:56

were able to visit Heart Island by tagging along with some

41:58

of the family members in our stories. And

42:00

one thing that I felt, and I think this is

42:03

true for pretty much everyone that we visited with, is

42:05

that for a place with so much stigma, when

42:07

you actually go there, it

42:10

changes how you feel about it. Oh

42:19

my God, that's the island. Crazy.

42:25

There's not a lot of land for that

42:27

many people to be buried. At

42:31

first I thought it was eerie, but

42:34

it's kind of pretty because the

42:37

fog just erases the city. It's

42:41

just beautiful. It's

42:44

nicer than I thought. That

42:51

was Annette Vega, and please

42:53

welcome Annette Vega. Hello.

43:05

Hello. So we're just going to jump into your

43:07

story. When you were seven or eight years old,

43:10

you found out that your father wasn't your biological

43:12

father. Right. And at that point you didn't

43:14

seem to think that much about it, but there was

43:17

a certain point where you got more and more curious,

43:19

and then you started launching. You basically launched a search

43:21

to find out. What got

43:23

you more interested and more curious and feeling

43:25

like you needed to find out more about

43:27

who this person was? I just

43:30

think throughout the years, as

43:32

you get older, particularly in your

43:34

teen years, we were trying to

43:36

find your identity, and things that

43:38

I would do. My mom, you

43:40

remind me of your father. What's

43:43

that like? She had thrown

43:46

away all pictures because she had

43:48

me when she was a teenager, so I didn't know what

43:50

he looked like. And

43:52

he mentioned a resemblance. There

43:55

was nothing for me to

43:57

refer back to. looking

44:00

in the mirror and saying, what would a guy

44:02

look like? Or things like

44:04

that. And so, but as I

44:06

got older and I started to develop into

44:08

my own person, I just

44:10

really wanted like, where's this

44:12

dude at? Who is

44:14

he? And essentially

44:17

who am I? You

44:20

know, there'll be any stuff. You did interview

44:22

your mom for the story. Let's jump in

44:24

and let's hear a clip of that. Okay. Hello.

44:35

Hey mom. Hi, Lett. Hi.

44:39

So I wanted to ask

44:41

you some questions, if you don't mind.

44:43

Yeah, go right ahead. Okay. The

44:46

questions are related to Angel Garcia, who's

44:49

my biological father. No kidding.

44:52

Okay. All right, Martha. So

44:55

what do you remember about him? He

44:58

was very sweet. He was good

45:00

to me. He knew he was

45:02

good looking. He had this

45:05

cologne. Oh my God, it was the

45:07

best cologne ever. He

45:09

was a charmer. He

45:12

talked about Puerto Rico, where

45:15

his family came from. He talked

45:17

about the future of when we

45:19

got married and where there are things about

45:21

me that remind you

45:24

of him. I think you

45:26

look like him a lot. You

45:29

had green eyes. Green eyes? You had very

45:31

green eyes like he did. Remember

45:33

my mom, Chicago, my six cylinder that I

45:35

would be driving fast and you'd be like,

45:37

oh, you remind me of your father. And I'm like,

45:39

oh yeah, cause he used to love to drive. He

45:42

used to steal cars. And I think he used to

45:45

steal cars just for the fun of

45:47

it. Wow. He was a bad boy.

45:50

So I guess maybe I was used to bad boys, who

45:52

knows? Are

45:54

we all? Oh my goodness. You

46:00

became make your own kind of

46:02

private investigator, some of your own

46:04

family history you and when we

46:06

go with a friend you requested

46:08

criminal records, you signed up for

46:10

ancestry.com and a dna test and

46:12

am. I. Love that you

46:14

are! You found out he was in a

46:16

motorcycle gang com Athena wings and say you

46:18

went to the Sinhalese club house in the

46:21

Bronx to document us. How.

46:23

I was born and raised in

46:25

the bombs fell of Iraqi. People

46:28

and. One particular

46:30

guy. Little sketchy

46:32

but he's off a killer the I

46:34

know some guys and so I went

46:36

over there and that singling houses very

46:39

young painted black you don't have walked

46:41

in front you don't like. He crossed

46:43

the street. And own ethical

46:45

catch up. A little powered is this

46:48

guy was with me although he stayed

46:50

off at assistant. So.

46:53

I went over nothing hey you know

46:55

like if I'm my father his name

46:57

is and I gave his nickname which

47:00

is my to and insecure green eyes

47:02

a picky would have been around here

47:04

in the eighties then you say can

47:06

you have as many as top of

47:08

people in Another person came out and

47:10

another one oh one lady came out

47:12

in C C C look like to

47:14

see had a rough. Last.

47:17

Night. Month years,

47:19

home and. See. That's

47:21

all I remember that remember him

47:24

really nice guy will pardon me

47:26

if I partied hard any

47:28

help carry me to my room

47:30

in than. Have me

47:32

what a blanket any is done. Anything

47:35

but he didn't. Really nice guy of

47:37

that party in gangs. that nice guy.

47:39

Very interesting. Group.

47:43

After. decades of searching on you gotta

47:46

methods and earth a pseudonym and you

47:48

got names of relatives and your used

47:50

your during the detective work for space

47:52

program where pages and everything and you

47:54

were done in able to get in

47:57

touch with someone i'm very close to

47:59

biological father his sister Miriam.

48:02

What was it like to find out that you had this family,

48:04

to get in touch with this family for the first time and

48:06

to talk to her for the first time? My

48:08

mom had told me she knew that

48:10

he had a sister that was a

48:12

year or two older, but she wasn't

48:15

sure in the name. And after the

48:17

ancestry match and they gave me a

48:19

name, that's when it like you said,

48:21

I did the discovery and searching. And

48:25

when I first got connected and

48:27

we spoke on the phone, she

48:29

was very nervous when they connected

48:31

the phone and like a

48:33

three-way phone call and she started

48:35

crying hysterical. And she

48:37

was and she told me in Spanish, she said,

48:40

you know, my niece, I've been looking for

48:42

you for years. Where have you been? I

48:45

was so surprised. You know, I

48:48

had anticipated, you know, if you're

48:50

looking for some people, you know,

48:52

family that they may be

48:54

rejection. And the

48:56

conversation was very, very emotional.

48:59

It was very heartfelt. It was

49:01

very welcoming. And it

49:05

was full of love. Love instant

49:08

is really nice. And then trying

49:11

to ask questions and giving me information on

49:13

siblings. I had a sister, I had four

49:15

brothers, I had, you know, then I'm like,

49:17

OK, where's my father? Where's

49:20

he? And they're like, oh, we don't know. Yeah,

49:23

you recorded a conversation with her. You visited

49:25

her for the first time and recorded that.

49:27

And you talked about the last time that

49:29

she heard from him. Let's hear

49:31

that. Mira,

49:37

you received the phone

49:39

call from him in

49:42

the summer of 1989 that he was very

49:44

sick with pneumonia and he wanted

49:46

to come home. Her

49:50

and her husband went

49:53

to New York. They

49:56

walked through the streets looking for

49:58

him. But

50:02

she never heard from him again. She

50:05

hasn't seen him in 30 years. I

50:09

don't think he's alive. So

50:16

at that point, what were you thinking? I

50:21

knew that, you know,

50:23

from all the questioning that he had been an

50:25

IV drug abuser and that he

50:28

had escaped prison in Puerto Rico and

50:30

went to New York. The story was that

50:33

he was looking for me, like a foreclosure,

50:35

but AIDS, IV

50:38

drug abuse, pneumonia. He,

50:40

and you haven't heard from him since then. He

50:43

has to be dead. Yeah. He has

50:45

to be dead. There's like, no, I

50:48

don't think there's any other possibility. So

50:51

I think, well, if he died in New

50:53

York City, then what

50:55

happened to him? Like, where would he be? So

50:59

I, um, spoke to my best

51:01

friend who was retired NYPD detective

51:03

and you know, what, what

51:05

do you think about this scenario? She

51:08

was like, you remember

51:10

Potter's field? And I was like, Oh yeah, it

51:12

is, you know, something that

51:14

I knew growing up, it was like, Oh,

51:16

you know, homeless people would

51:18

end up there or the unknown or the

51:21

unwanted, and that was the stigma attached

51:23

to it in my youth. And, um,

51:25

you know, my perspective back then, and I was

51:27

like, well, I guess that would

51:29

make sense because if he was on the run with

51:32

no family to notify, you know, he

51:35

had to be, he had to pass. So

51:38

then that's what we, where he would be. So

51:41

more investigating. And you

51:43

did find him there. You found, found five, five

51:45

angel Garcia's and you kind of narrowed it down

51:47

and you found that that he was there. Talk

51:51

about, um, you

51:53

know, whether that was the end of your search. What does that feel

51:56

like at that point to find out that he was dead and

51:58

to kind of locate him in that way? You

52:00

know, I think, I'm

52:03

looking back and it's like at that point, I should

52:05

have been like, I

52:08

don't know, disappointed and like, okay,

52:10

that's it, that's where he's at, that's the

52:13

end of it, I'm never going to

52:15

meet my father. And it

52:17

was like, no, no, no, no,

52:19

I need to find out, I

52:21

need to prove that it's him,

52:23

prove request a death certificate, request

52:25

an autopsy, I have to prove,

52:27

not just the dates and

52:29

I have to find him,

52:31

I have to find out, find as much

52:34

as I can. And

52:36

not only for me now, you know,

52:38

I had an aunt and family that

52:41

we were expressing so much affection

52:43

and sharing with me and giving me as

52:45

much information, I just, I

52:48

don't know, I felt, I felt relentless

52:50

in trying to get the puzzle

52:52

pieces together and to explore and

52:55

discover like what exactly happened to him

52:57

and that it was him there. I

53:00

know you've had something beautiful before when

53:03

we talked about how that ended

53:05

one search and it opened up another, like you found

53:07

something else you weren't looking for. In

53:10

a way, I felt like

53:13

I was searching for him, the physical

53:15

person, my father, like and

53:17

I knew that if

53:19

I met him, it may not be a great, you

53:21

know, okay, I know he's

53:24

been gang's bad boy in jail, all this stuff and

53:26

I'm like, hey, you know, he wasn't going to, not

53:28

had a dad in my life, you know, thankfully.

53:31

But had I, actually had he survived

53:33

and I met him, I

53:36

would have not found him,

53:38

I wouldn't have found my father because

53:40

I would have found somebody who's sick

53:42

or addicted to drugs but

53:45

by discovering and meeting my family and

53:47

speaking to people and speaking

53:49

to my cousin, my aunt, my

53:51

aunt, my siblings,

53:54

I kind of like discovered him

53:57

and I think that was like the best.

54:00

scenario because I heard their

54:02

stories about him and the good

54:05

things about him, not just what he, you

54:07

know, the check marks on paper and what

54:09

it looks like he was. And

54:11

he was a human being. He was a

54:14

person that was loved and that he

54:16

meant something even to the lady in the

54:18

jingling. So, you know, he was a good

54:20

guy. And

54:25

I had to believe that that is

54:28

part of who I am. That maybe, you

54:30

know, that's in my DNA, you

54:32

know, maybe a little parting, but

54:34

no, no, no,

54:37

no, no. You

54:39

did finally go to Heart Island to

54:42

see him and you didn't go alone. You

54:44

actually went with your brother who you're meeting

54:47

there at Heart Island for the very first

54:49

time, which I love. So we're going to

54:51

close your story and this

54:53

evening tonight with the same way that you

54:55

end your story, your audio story with this

54:57

scene of you visiting Angel at Heart Island.

55:00

And as you said recently, you said it was like putting a

55:02

period at the end of the novel. Yeah.

55:05

So let's hear it. Hi. Hi.

55:08

Hi. I

55:11

can't believe I'm standing here. I

55:18

can't believe I'm standing here with my brother. It's like

55:21

it's small. It's like he's so cute. Look

55:23

at him. Thank you. I'm like,

55:25

it was so nice. I

55:27

found out that I had a brother named

55:30

Angel. I've never met him. He

55:33

also didn't know where our

55:36

father was. She reached out to

55:38

me and wrote me a letter telling

55:40

me she was my sister. I

55:42

was incarcerated. I

55:45

was incarcerated. So at first

55:47

I was like, what, what the hell was going

55:49

on? She went

55:51

into detail telling me who she is and

55:54

how she went about finding me. So

55:58

I restarted that paid off. I

56:00

know, I should be a private

56:02

investor. Yeah. It's like, guys, yes.

56:07

Now we're going to go see our father where he

56:10

was buried. It was weird. Like,

56:12

nobody knew where he was at all these years. Plots,

56:16

401, that's just me. Right

56:19

there, 201, grave 27. Yeah.

56:23

So this is the plot where

56:25

Angel was buried. Our

56:28

dad. I

56:32

was always his biggest fan, like rooting for him.

56:36

I must have been like seven years old. And

56:39

we went to the prison to visit him. And

56:42

he took us from the visiting room to

56:46

the dormitory. He

56:48

introduced us to all the dudes

56:50

that was locked up with him or his friends or whatever.

56:55

And he gave me like a bolt made

56:57

out of wood. And

57:00

that's the last time that I've seen him. The

57:06

people that loved my father, whether

57:09

it my brother, my aunt, my

57:11

cousins, everyone talks about how

57:14

he was such a good guy. I

57:17

think they were afraid to tell me the

57:19

bad stuff, whether it's being in

57:21

a gang or in prison, being

57:24

an IV drug abuser. You

57:26

know, Angel was

57:29

not an angel. But it's

57:31

who he is. I mean, it's

57:34

not a complete story without

57:36

all of it. He's

57:40

putting flowers here at

57:42

his grave, just planting

57:46

and marking. Good. He's

57:49

here. He's

57:51

not lost. I'm

57:54

happy to see where he laid.

57:56

And to like, tell him like, oh, I

57:58

never found you. She was. We found us and we

58:00

hit. Now

58:03

we know you out. And

58:15

that thank you for sharing your story

58:17

with us. And

58:21

that, Vega. Thanks

58:33

to the folks at WNYC's Green Space for

58:35

making this live event possible. Also

58:38

thanks to WNYC's Kai Wright, the

58:40

wonderful Chellis Lilly-Gelfand, to the

58:42

folks from our stories who joined us,

58:44

Joy Bergman, Susan Hurlbert, Annette Vega and

58:46

David Sacks, and the Melinda Hunt of

58:48

the Heart Island Project. The

58:51

Radio Diaries team is Nellie Gillis, Elisa Scarsay,

58:53

Micah Hazel, Lena Englestein and myself. Our

58:56

editors are Deborah George and Ben Shapiro. Radio Diaries

58:59

is a proud founding member of

59:01

Radiotopia from PRX, a network of

59:03

independent, creator-owned listeners supporting podcasts. You

59:05

can hear them all at Radiotopia.fm.

59:09

And we have support from the National Endowment

59:11

for the Humanities, the Lilly Auchincloss Foundation, New

59:13

York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, and

59:16

from listeners just like you. If

59:18

you want to be a listener just like you, you

59:21

can support our work by donating before the end of

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a non-profit organization and your contributions help

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us do what we do. To

59:29

support us, visit our website,

59:31

radiodiaries.org. I'm Tim Richmond.

59:33

Thanks for listening.