Second author with local ties dies today

In My Father's Footsteps:

When I tell Americans that my father is from Brooklyn they nod. It makes sense – that’s where New York Jews of his generation grew up, if not on the Lower East Side. When I tell them that he was raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, they laugh. It is a deeply improbable place for him to be from.

I didn't laugh, but I did go "huh!" Then again, my father grew up in Brownsville, so this resonates:

But friends of my father’s from later life who grew up in other areas have no memories of fleeing from tough Irish schoolboys for the simple reason, they told me, that they never crossed paths.

Because back in his day, you either fled from the tough Irish schoolboys or you formed your own gangs and fought back.