April 22, 2003

News of the Old Disptach Crew

In 1989, instead of going to college, I landed a staff job as a photographer on The Hudson Dispatch in Union City, New Jersey. It was a gutsy little daily broadsheet that thought itself a tabloid. We had to have a big black screaming headline across page one each morning: Hoboken Horror!, Turnpike Terror!

The pay was poor but the education rich. It was a hell of a place to learn how to be a reporter or a street news photographer. Hudson County had no shortage of fires, accidents, murders and politicians with their hands in the till. I am still grateful that chief photographer Don Smith took at chance on me, a 19-year-old kid from the Shore with a couple of beat-up Nikons.

Smith and I are still great friends. We even ran with the bulls together in 1999 when Don was 63. My best friend and former Dispatch reporter Dave Reilly was there in the narrow Pamplona street with us too.

The Dispatch folded in April 1991 but many great friendships from those days stay strong. And even though many from the last Dispatch crew have gone their own ways, we stay in touch.

This morning we received great news from Robyn Ryan (former Robyn Pforr).

Robyn and her husband Dennis wrote: We are overjoyed to announce that baby Finn Patrick Ryan has arrived.

Congratulations Robyn and Dennis on the birth of wee baby Finn Patrick. And what a fine Irish name!

And congratulations to my best mate Dave Reilly and his lovely wife Dawn as they celebrate their first wedding anniversary in Italy this coming weekend.

Posted by Jim at April 22, 2003 01:14 PM
Comments

Hey Fellow Dispatcher - I don't know how I came across your Blog - something about the Huudson Dispatch, I guess. I, too, worked for the Hudson Dispatch circa 1935-37 as the "extra boy" for the morning delivery crew. The job of 'extra boy' was to arrive about 5-5:30 in the morning and count out and give to the delivery 'boys' the papers for their morning delivery. I didn't deliver papers unless one of the morning delivery guys didn't show up. If that occurred, I delivered the route AFTER counting out the papers to the other deliverers. It was also my job to collect when the regular kid on the route didn't show up or was sick. Fifty cents an hour and glad to get it. I didn't know then - a couple of years later I was off to WWII. But all was well and I'm still here. Walter Pappas

Posted by: Walter Pappas at May 5, 2004 05:55 PM