The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 80 to 71
One of the last of the old newspapermen, Hamill went from delivering the Brooklyn Eagle as a boy to editing both the News and the Post as an adult; he also wrote for the Voice, and for Newsday. But his interests and talents were always broader: he’s also a well-regarded novelist, won a Grammy for the Blood on the Tracks liner notes, once studied to be a cartoonist… That last tidbit you can pick up from where Brooklynites probably know him best—his 1995 memoir A Drinking Life, which chronicles his childhood in south Park Slope (a vivid portrait of the years during and after the war) and continues into the 1970s to his decision to stop drinking.