Best New Yorker Articles of 1993

Bob Kearns and his patented windshield wiper have been winning millions of dollars in settlements from the auto industry, and forcing the issue of who owns…

A REPORTER AT LARGE about a multi-generational black family and the welfare system that supported them. Tells about the lives of Crystal Taylor (pseud.), …

PROFILE of painter Agnes Martin. The reasons for Martin's relative obscurity have much to do with the cult of celebrity that came to dominate …

Hendrik Hertzberg explores the similarities between Bill Clinton’s Inaugural Address and John F. Kennedy’s.

A poem begins this story describing the overnight hike of the C.G.I.T. (Canadian Girls in Training) that was led by Miss Mary Johnstone, and that this year…

Comment on the U.S. government's arbitrary denial of security clearances to prospective government employees who are gay. President Clinton has agreed …

Nearly every day for decades, Irving V. Link tanned by the luxury pool, Adam Gopnik writes. Then his idyllic life style came under threat from the hotel’s owner, the Sultan of Brunei.

David Remnick’s 1993 Profile of the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Post columnist Murray Kempton.

Stephen Schiff on the life and work of Stephen Sondheim, and how the composer discreetly revolutionized American musical theatre with shows like “Sweeney Todd.”

PROFILE of Christopher F. Patten, forty-eight, British Governor of Hong Kong since last July. He is the last of Britain's vice-regal figures, in the …

Guy Trebay on the drag performer breaking out of the downtown-Manhattan underground and into the commercial pop scene with his début video, an MTV staple, “Supermodel (You Better Work!).”

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the defused crisis between India and Pakistan in 1990, which could have led to nuclear war between the two countries, and …

Mark Singer sits down with the magician Ricky Jay, whose illusions flout reality, and who rejects the idea that magic is a suitable entertainment for children.

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, and the Islamic fundamentalist movement in Egypt. Tells how the World Trade Center bombing was carried …

When activists accused the behavioral scientist Edward Taub of needlessly torturing captive primates at Silver Spring, a long legal battle called into question the motives of crusaders on both sides.

A REPORTER AT LARGE about street prostitutes, AIDS, and Dr. Joyce Wallace. Wallace is attempting to provide services to the lower classes of streetwalkers,…

A REPORTER AT LARGE about endangered cranes in Asia, especially species in the Amur River basin. Writer travels to southesternmost Siberia, for a …

With a simple operation, a man who had been blind since childhood miraculously regained his vision, Oliver Sacks writes. Then he had to learn to see a world he no longer knew.

Lawrence Wright’s 1993 report on how charges of sexual and satanic-ritual abuse in Olympia, Washington, escalated into a landmark case in the national obsession with cults and “recovered” memory.

Part II of Lawrence Wright’s 1993 report on how the case of Paul Ingram, who was charged with raping his daughters, became the focus of a raging debate over satanic-ritual abuse, sex-crimes investigation, and criminal accusations made on the basis of “recovered” memory.

Reprinted excerpt from a PROFILE which ran Oct. 28, 1961.

Paul Wilkes’s 1993 story about Catholic parents confronting a sex-abuse scandal in their small Massachusetts parish.

Noon. The hammering sun softens, the morning turns around, darkening fast, and a hard wind shears the dunes. Cindy sits up on her towel, suddenly shocked; …

David Freeman talks to the director about the making of his best-known film, starring Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, on the eve of the London première of “Sunset Boulevard” the musical, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and starring Patti LuPone as Norma Desmond.

Ken Auletta’s 1993 piece on Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.,’s successorship at the New York Times, and the young publisher’s endeavor to change the power structures of America’s biggest family-owned newspaper.

PROFILE of former NYPD detective lieutenant David Durk, 57, & his 22-year crusade against police corruption. In December of 1971, he appeared before the …

PROFILE of former NYPD Detective Lieutenant David Durk, 57, and his 22-year crusade against police corruption. After becoming unpopular as a whistle-blower…

Edward Conlon’s 1993 report on the city’s unknown dead—held at Potter’s Field, on Hart Island, in the Bronx—and the detectives and anthropologists working to identify them.

Joan Didion on Lakewood, California, a once idyllic postwar town that fell under the sway of a teen-age gang.

Comment on George Steinbrenner's desire to move the Yankees out of the Bronx. New Yorkers still mourn the departure of the Dodgers, in 1957, and wear …

ANNALS OF DISASTER about the flooding of the Mississippi, especially in the area around Quincy, Illinois. On Wednesday, June 30th, at about 10 p.m., as …

Joan Acocella on The New Yorker’s former book critic, and the gift for fiction that she nursed under the cover of her acerbic wit.

Comment about the nineties. There is an unavoidably pallid, anodyne quality to the triumphs of political pragmatism, something that's reflected even in…

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the business dealings of Bush associates in Kuwait after the Gulf War. Tells how Bush was accompanied to Kuwait on a triumphal …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about American tobacco companies invading Asian markets. In Shanghai, every day from noon to 1 p.m., Marlboro cigarettes sponsors a …

Arthur Lubow describes Wolfe’s attempt to restore charismatic leadership to the Public Theatre following Joseph Papp’s death, in 1991.

The Supreme Court Justice is still fuming about his tumultuous confirmation, Jeffrey Toobin writes. In an unprecedented step, he is going public with his grievances—and lashing out in his votes.

PROFILE of Benazir Bhutto, woman Pakistani politician. Tells about her life, her arranged marriage, and her political difficulties. Describes the Pakistani…

Comment about televising Supreme Court sessions. There are only so many ways to study the 8 Republicans and one Democrat who constitute the U.S. Supreme …

Comment about the evolution of democracy in Russia, and the recent failed coup there... When Andrei Sakharov died, on December 14, 1989, the movement for …

A reëvaluation of Allen’s comic opus as a writer, filmmaker, and monologuist shows that a clash between the humorist and his culture was an artistic inevitability, Adam Gopnik writes.

John Lahr writes about the acerbic comedian Bill Hicks, whom CBS censored from a 1993 episode of the David Letterman show.

PROFILE of Breyten Breytenbach, exiled South African poet and painter. Describes his early life, growing up in South Africa, his love of the Afrikaner …

The Nazis tried to destroy their death camps so that there would be no evidence of their atrocities. Fifty years later, Auschwitz and the terrible relics …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the three surviving sons of Rev. Jim Jones, who committed suicide along with 900-odd of his followers in Guyana. The entire …

Adam Gopnik’s 1993 Profile of Steve Martin at work on his first play, “Picasso at the Lapin Agile”—the story of an imaginary encounter between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein.

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the massacre of the inhabitants of El Mozote, El Salvador, by Salvadoran Army troops of the Atlacatl companies, trained in the …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the downing of KAL 007 by the Soviets. Writer reveals the series of steps which led to the shooting down of the airliner, …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about cattle rustling in Nevada. Writer interviews brand inspector Chris Collis. Chris introduces a rancher they meet on the road as …