People like Pete Hamill

Pete Hamill (born William Peter Hamill; June 24, 1935 – August 5, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and editor. During his career as a New York City journalist, he was described as "the author of columns that sought to capture the particular flavors of New York City's politics and sports and the particular pathos of its crime." Hamill was a columnist and editor for the New York Post and the New York Daily News.

The eldest of seven children of Catholic immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland, Pete Hamill was born in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. His father, Billy Hamill, lost a leg as the result of an injury during a semi-professional soccer game in Brooklyn. Hamill's mother, Anne Devlin Hamill, a high school graduate, arrived in New York on the day the stock market crashed in 1929. Billy Hamill was introduced to Anne Devlin in 1933 and they married the following year. Billy Hamill had jobs as a grocery clerk, in a war plant, and later in a factory producing lighting fixtures. Anne Hamill was employed in Wanamaker's department store, and she also worked as a domestic, a nurses' aide, and a cashier in the RKO movie chain. Hamill's younger brother, Denis, also became a columnist for the Daily News.