Alex Beam remembers my dad and his tradition:
Boston is awash in tourism “trails,’’ such as the Freedom Trail, the Women’s Heritage Trail, and so on. Just recently, Emerson College journalism professor Manny Paraschos created the Boston Journalism Trail, celebrating his contention that “Boston is the birthplace of American journalism.’’
It may well be. Our first newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, started publishing in 1690. Paraschos’s trail escorts us past the original site of America’s oldest continuously published English language Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Advocate, and of course along downtown’s Newspaper Row, once home to 13 newspapers, depending on who is counting.
Yet there is a reason that journalism history cannot be left to the professorate. Where, for instance, is Dave Farrell’s table at Anthony’s Pier 4, where the veteran Herald and Globe columnist held court? Or George Higgins’s spot at Locke-Ober, where the novelist (“The Friends of Eddie Coyle’’) and newspaperman always welcomed guests willing to pay a tab?
I would add a few more stops to the Journalism Trail, beginning perhaps . . .
I still expect my dad to call me every day, telling me what’s in the WSJ or the New York Times….