Morgue keeper's clips fueled modern journalism research
Jeff Roth spent decades guarding the New York Times' legendary archive in a basement on West 41st Street and in doing so, quietly created the template for how journalists learn to report.
The Last Keeper of the Morgue In a nondescript tower three levels below the sidewalk on West 41st Street, past a janitor's closet, a rusted pump contraption, and a pair of metal doors, there is no computer. There is no Internet service. There is no cell reception. There are glue traps with belly-up cockroaches in the corner, and the filing cabinets some improperly secured, some two tons heavy are stacked so high that if a person were to die here, it would take days for anyone to find the body. This is the New York...
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