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Storyteller from the Big Apple
Ken Jackson on what makes New York a different place
by Vivian Ducat
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 According to Memphis native Ken Jackson, urban historian and editor of one of the most successful reference guides to everything anyone ever wanted to know about The Big Apple, people's attitudes toward New York City are just a little bit arbitrary. "It's like some people like to fish and some people like liver. Some people like different things, but I believe some people just are naturally attracted to the confusion and hurley-burley of a great city."
Jackson loves the hurley-burley. And he loves to share his enthusiasm with a phalanx of cyclists who take to the city's streets one evening a year, for his legendary all-night tour, complete with ambulance and repair van back-up. Jackson acknowledges that not everyone comes along for the history lesson. Several couples have begun flirtations that have ended in marriage. Jackson proudly recommends his tour as one of New York's great social experiences.
Now, Jackson is extending his outreach beyond the darkened streets of Manhattan, to include the primetime PBS audience. He will appear as a frequent on-camera commentator in public television's fall blockbuster series, "New York" directed by Ric Burns, (one of the legendary documentary Burns brothers whose previous claims to fame include a the 1990 "Civil War" series.) The series will air, in nightly two-hour installments, for five consecutive nights beginning November 14.
According to Jackson, although some Americans think that the age of computers and email will make the city obsolete, Ken Jackson disagrees.
Next page | Some people like fish and some people like liver
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Meet urban historian Ken Jackson in this video clip!
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Kenneth Jackson
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