I have raved about this guy before. Dan Barry is a features writer for The New York Times who has to have the best beat on any American newspaper. He goes around the country writing about things that catch his interest. Most reporters would kill for that gig. Unfortunately for them, few if any of them write like Dan Barry. For years he was a NYC metro reporter for the Times. I saw his byline many times but seldom read him because NYC metro news didn't hold much interest for me. What grabbed my attention was his sensational reporting from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Day after day he wrote great pieces on deadline. Since then I have read about everything with his byline on it.

This one ran on Sunday and is about a woman who was called Annie and who hung out around the Fulton Street Fish Market, selling odds and ends and entertaining the locals. That barely scratches the surface of who she was. IMO the headline in the printed edition was much better than the web headline -- "Who Was Annie?" What an interesting character. "There are a million stories in the Naked City and this is one of them...."

Enjoy!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/nyregion/17annie.html?_r=1