ArcaMax

As the new year begins, the media roll out their annual tributes to the rich and famous who’ve passed on.

But I’d rather tell you about one of the wealthiest fellows I ever met — John Swiatek, who died in 2009 just shy of his 84th birthday.

John was born in 1925, the only son in a family with five daughters. His family lived in a row ...Read more

I was so determined to hit Jimmy Miller in the shins with my toboggan that I didn’t notice the pond.

Maybe I’d better explain.

Winter is upon us. When the snow falls, there's only one place a kid should be: out in the elements riding sleds down slippery slopes.

Too few children do that anymore.

That’s why they're suffering from Nature ...Read more

Note to editors: A version of this column was distributed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2025.

He helped pave the way for Martin Luther King Jr. and others to end Jim Crow — but few know his name.

So respected was this civil rights pioneer that, at his funeral in 1961, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall served as a pallbearer,...Read more

I drove my 89-year-old mother through our old Pittsburgh neighborhood last Sunday.

It was like many suburban neighborhoods that sprouted up across America in the 1960s and ’70s.

Many of the people who moved there grew up in the city. They wanted more spacious houses for their growing families — and big yards where kids could play.

Many ...Read more

When I was a kid in the 1970s, no words broadcast on KDKA radio were sweeter than: “Bethel Park School District — closed.”

The moment we heard them, we threw on our snow gear and headed for the sled slopes, determined to squeeze every free second out of a stolen weekday break.

Most kids in New York City will never know this rite of ...Read more