Pete Hamill, the Brooklyn-born bard of the five boroughs and eloquent voice of his beloved hometown as both newspaper columnist and best-selling author, died Wednesday morning. He was 85.
Hamill passed away in New York-Presbyterian/Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he was taken after a Saturday fall that fractured his right hip, said his brother and fellow ex-Daily News columnist Denis Hamill. His elder sibling underwent emergency surgery, but his heart and kidneys failed four days later in the intensive care unit, said Denis Hamill.
“The truly great Pete Hamill died this morning,” tweeted Dan Barry, columnist at The New York Times. “Newspaperman, novelist, mentor to so many, citizen of the world. I once wrote that if the pavement of New York City could talk, it would sound like Pete Hamill. Now that city weeps.”
Legendary journalist and writer Pete Hamill dead at 85 after fall