The morning microphone

As advertised, I spoke for about twenty minutes on WBAI’s morning news show, Wakeup Call. The topic was my imminent appearance at the Brooklyn Historical Society (Wednesday at 7 p.m., free admission) and my book, The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America’s First Superhighway. WBAI hasn’t yet posted a page for the day’s show, but the entire broadcast is available here in three installments. My segment is in the second stretch, the one that starts with host Mario Murillo saying it’s seven o’clock and time for “yet another hour” of Wakeup Call. Here’s the MP3 — I’m about two-thirds of the way into the broadcast.

It was a good chat, made even better by the almost surrealistic beauty of the morning. I did my usual drive to Hoboken, only this time in the pre-dawn dark, and the sun was coming up as I rolled up Observer Highway. Instead of descending into the sweaty PATH station, I took the ferry over to Pier 11 and went up to the open deck to enjoy the morning breezes off the Hudson. It was like sailing through one of Monet’s paintings of the Westminster Palace — clouds of blue, lavender and pink, all brightening and resolving as the sun rose. WBAI’s office is at 120 Wall, right at the end of The Street and a only a brief, pleasant walk from Pier 11. Off to the left, in the vicinity of Battery Park, the New York police were putting on a light show — security for the Iranian president’s visit, I expect.

What a morning. Boat ride to the radio station, spend a half hour wearing my Published Author mask, then back across the river to don my Dutiful Employee mask and hit the telephone, for a lot longer than a mere half hour. Maybe someday I’ll be able to adjust that ratio.