| Mazie Gordon-Phillips in 1946. Photograph: Todd Webb, courtesy of Evans Gallery and estate of Todd and Lucille Webb, Portland, Maine, USA |
My hero:
Mazie Gordon-Phillips
by Jami Attenberg
From the 1920s to the 1940s, the ‘Queen of the Bowery’ spent her nights walking alone in New York City handing out change to the homeless and helping the downtrodden
Saturday 13 June 2015
I
’ve lived in New York City for nearly two decades, and never have I seen it as slick and rich and indifferent as it is now. It has become a place where extremely affluent people merely rest their wealth, as if the city were an enormous velvet fainting couch. Often I find solace and inspiration thinking of a long-ago era, and a woman fiercely invested in her community, who loved her fellow citizens and these city streets with a passion, no matter their mutual crumbling state, or perhaps because of it: Ms Mazie Gordon-Phillips, known as the Queen of the Bowery.