Person Place Thing With Randy Cohen

He’s just concluded six-years as conductor of the New York Youth Symphony. As a youth himself, he was taken to Disney Concert Hall. “They asked me what it would feel like if you got to conduct here, and I cried immediately.” Tears of Joy. Presumably. Or some trauma with a little mermaid. 

He knows his pandemics, of course. What's more, the recently retired head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases can identify many birds just by their calls, “whether it’s a Carolina wren, a rufous-sided towhee, or a white-breasted nuthatch.” I believe he can do this blindfolded! Which isn’t any harder than eyes-open, but still.

This esteemed musician tells great stories, but they might not be entirely true. “I got to give it a little something. You got to put a little Tabasco on your food.” Presented with the Neal Rosenthal Group. Music: Henrique Prince and Friends (EH Walker, AR Ferguson, Hubby Jenkins) of the Ebony Hillbillies.

He was born into a clan of antiquarian book dealers but avoided entering the family business. Barely. He's now president of Swann Galleries and an authority on vintage posters. Presented with Poster House. Music: Jake Shulman-Ment and Raffi Boden.

This human-rights lawyer, a professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, was reluctant to embrace her Irish heritage. “I was never particularly interested in that identity because I had so many run-ins with the church.” She’s come around. Music: Cleek Schrey.

In 1958, with Hamilton Holmes, she desegregated the University of Georgia and went on to a distinguished career in journalism. Her early inspiration? Brenda Starr. “I read about her in the comic strips in my grandmother’s newspaper; she read three newspapers a day.”

She leads the Public Design Commission, which must approve anything built on city land—statue, historic marker, playground. How to contend with conflicting parties, often angry, sometimes shouting? “As long as dialogue is alive and well maintained, I feel like anybody can come to a good solution.” Presented with the Van Alen Institute. Music: Henrique Prince, E. H. Walker, A. R. Ferguson, and Hubby Jenkins, of the Ebony Hillbillies.

His Broadway debut, in M. Butterfly, won every award going except the Nobel Prize in Mathematics. Fair enough: there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics. He renewed everyone’s admiration with Law & Order: SVU, and that’s not the half of it, or even the quarter, but why be precise? It’s not as if there’s a Nobel at stake. Produced with Materials for the Arts. Music: Hubby Jenkins. 

I stumbled upon the short videos this Scottish comedian posts online and was immediately won over by her conversation between C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien: she plays both of them. What comic does C. S. Lewis? Smart, dark, funny: the Triple Crown.

This terrific comic actor started early: “At five-years-old, I used to sing ‘You Make Me Feel So Young,’ and it got a laugh, and I didn’t know why.” She’s learned, on TV (Only Murders in the Building), on Broadway (Hairspray), and off (the Yiddish Fidler).

On March 2, 2023, the acclaimed architect Rafael Viñoly died suddenly, at 78, just two weeks before our scheduled conversation at the Center for Architecture. Rather than cancel, his son Román used the occasion to reflect on his father. Music: Rich Jenkins.

When she enrolled at the Academy, she had a limited idea of the Coast Guard’s mission: “They save people and clean off oily ducks.” Since then, she has served from Juneau to Miami and deepened her understanding. She is now Rear Admiral Bert. You live, you learn.

For years, the obituaries she wrote for The New York Times were the first thing I’d read in the paper—elegant little biographies, exemplary work in a form that she says was once “the scarlet O you wore on your dress that said, I’m a bad writer but the paper doesn’t quite have enough on me to be able to fire me.”

New York City’s fire commissioner leads a force that responds to medical emergencies, plane crashes, building collapses, hazardous materials, even people trapped in elevators. They also fight fires. “If it’s not the police department, if it’s not a crime, everything else is the fire department.” Produced with the Municipal Archives. Music: Rashad Brown.

This artist says, “An object that has been fixed again and again by multiple owners has a particularly fascinating history to me.” And so we’ve tweaked our format to Thing, Thing, Thing, in particular to Broken Thing, Broken Thing, Broken Thing. Produced with the Morgan Library and Museum. Music: Brian Dewan.

These gallerists have much to say about the artist Kaws. To Brigitte: “He is probably the only artist that is an absolute gateway drug into the art world.” So should he be admired or arrested? Definitely the former, they agree. Presented with the New York Academy of Art. Music: Piedmont Bluz. 

To this historian, the story of the New York City Fire Department is the story of New York City. “It’s not just throwing the wet stuff on the red stuff; it’s the other aspects that really are fascinating.” Presented with the New York City Fire Museum.  

“I think the best writers always know the characters more than the characters know themselves,“ she says. The author of The Book of Goose talks about War and Peace, Wuthering Heights, the stories of William Trevor, and her old army buddies. Produced with A Public Space and Rizzoli Bookstores.  Music: Liz Hanley.

The celebrated pianist offers not only beauty but context and insight, like this observation: “If you go to any concert and you hear a Dvořák piece, look for the pigeon and the train; they’re always in there.” Pigeons and trains, presented with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

As a scholar of 18th-century literature, this Rutgers professor wants to pin down what actually occurred, but certain facts remain stubbornly elusive. Does it drive him nuts? “Some things from 350 years ago just aren’t going to be known, and I think I can live with that.” It’s almost Zen.