A Conversation with Buddy Stein, Pulitzer winning Editor of Riverdale Press

From 1978 until he joined the Hunter College faculty in 2005, Bernard Stein served as editor of The Riverdale Press. He remained its co-publisher until he and his brother sold The Press in 2008. Throughout that time, The Press crusaded to preserve the character of the community, safeguard green space, and give residents a voice in the decisions that affected their lives.

It was an unusually adventurous tenure.

The Press’s investigative reporting led to a grand jury probe and the passage of legislation aimed at corrupt practices in the public schools. It played a significant role in exposing the wrongdoing that led to the jailing of virtually the entire leadership of the Bronx Democratic Party in the mid-1980s and the dismantling of the largest medical waste incinerator in the state 10 years later.

In 1989, terrorists firebombed the Press office to retaliate for an editorial defending the right to read Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

In 1998, Bernard Stein won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for what the Pulitzer board called “his gracefully-written editorials on politics and other issues affecting New York City residents”; It was the third time he had been a finalist for the prize.

Stein will look back at the outsized impact of a little newspaper in a talk sponsored by the Kingsbridge Historical Society on Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. The presentation will be via Zoom. There are a limited number of registrations available but a recording of the presentation will be made available shortly thereafter.