Remembering Peter Haley, a chronicler of the revival of Brownstone Brooklyn

I pretty much learned the local newspaper business at the Brooklyn Phoenix, a neighborhood paper run by Michael Armstrong from the early 70’s to the late 90’s. One of the good friends that I made during the ten years I worked there was Peter Haley, who before I got there sold ads, and while I was there was a political and general news reporter.

Afterwards, we stayed in touch. I always invited him to my Thanksgiving parties, and he and his wife Marilyn were one of the few people who reciprocated as they also held occasional gatherings of friends in their Bay Ridge home.

I once ran into him at the Cobble Hill Cinema at a showing of Taking Woodstock. Afterwards we all went out to dinner where he regaled us with his own Woodstock recollections (no place to pee, etc).

He passed away last month and I asked fellow Phoenix alumna Jon Ciner and Irene Van Slyke for their own recollections.

Irene: Peter joined the Phoenix in the early 1970s as a reporter and so was I. He loved the City that was so different from where he grew up — rural Watertown close to the Canadian border.

He was laid back, did not get excited  except when he talked about New York City— not about Saturday Night Fever — so  ubiquitous  then — but more like the raucous CBGBs. Peter , Marilyn and friends spent long nights roaming the East Village and Williamsburg to find that new band  — joined by one of my nieces once until 5 a.m. At the same time, as a reporter he was perceptive in evaluating the political landscape that made his “Off The Record”so fun to read.

When Peter wrote about Republican US Senator Howard Baker of Watergate fame coming to Brooklyn to look for support for a presidential run, Peter found the Senator tended to drone on.  Surprisingly he found a GOP faithful who said that he was “an exciting  guy to listen to” but Peter countered that it does not translate into an exciting guy to vote for.

Jon: I first met Peter in 1976. I was a reporter at the Phoenix. He had worked with Nedda Allbray at The Williamsburg Advocate, a short-lived weekly that Mike Armstrong had started in the early 1970’s. As a suburban kid, I thought it was cool living in Prospect Heights, but Peter, an upstater, actually lived in Williamsburg! and spoke Spanish!  Wow!

We both covered land-use issues, always breaking news in downtown Brooklyn (remember Ex-LAX?); planning boards—he Board 2, me Board 6; and local politics: that meant the bitter Reform vs. Regular clashes in South Brooklyn and Park Slope, featuring the likes of Meade Esposito, Carol Bellamy, Jimmy Mangano, Marty Conner (was he reform or regular?), Vander Beatty, Mike Pesce, Abe Gerges, Joe Ferris, Fred Richmond (the richest member of Congress), and even Harvey Strelzin.

Eventually, Peter took over “Off the Record”, a must-read political gossip column that Armstrong started under the byline Harry Hopkinson.

We both left the paper because we each had to make a real living. We remained friends over the years and in 2019 we had a memorable lunch with Armstrong on Montague Street, a few months before Mike died from COVID.

In his reporting and in his opinions, Peter always provided a fresh and often humorously cynical perspective on what is happening— not just in local politics but in everything.

Over the past few years I was able to get a few stories from Peter into the pages of the Star-Revue, the one I remember most was one about Ketamine being used therapeuticially. I thought that was some sort of a nutty idea, but a few months later ketamine was all over the place.

Peter and Marilyn had a great son, Dan, who has become a successful entertainment lawyer, and the light of their eyes. I’m glad I have a chance to get Peter into a local Brooklyn paper again, and I guess I’ll see you upstairs.