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New York Legend Gabe Pressman Dead at 93

The local broadcast icon, fondly known as "the reporter's reporter," called NBC 4 New York home for half a century

Gabe Pressman, an intrepid, Emmy-winning journalist who still relished going to work at the age of 93, died Friday morning in Manhattan. Sue Simmons reports.

What to Know

  • Gabe Pressman, a pioneering local broadcast reporter who called NBC 4 New York home for half a century, has died at the age of 93
  • He is recognized in the broadcast journalism community as the "reporter's reporter" and credited with being the first TV reporter in NY
  • Born in the Bronx, Pressman attended Morris High School and worked as a cub reporter for the Peekskill Evening Star during summer vacations

NBC 4 New York senior correspondent Gabe Pressman, a New York icon and pioneering reporter whose local broadcast career spanned more than six decades, died Friday at the age of 93. 

Credited with being the first television reporter in New York, Pressman called NBC 4 New York home for more than half a century. He is survived by his wife, four children, eight grandchildren and his great grandson.

Chuck Scarborough worked with Gabe Pressman for 37 years. He remembers what Pressman meant to him as a colleague and a pioneering journalist in the field. “I’ve lost a friend and mentor,” Scarborough said. “But I’m part of his legacy, as are so many others who benefited from knowing Gabe. He taught us well. New York is a better city...

"This is an incredibly sad day for the WNBC family. Gabe Pressman was a television icon who served our viewers for more than 50 years," Eric Lerner, WNBC president and general manager, said in a statement. "He was truly one of a kind and represented the very best in television news reporting. Gabe was still coming to work and thinking about the next story. He was a treasured colleague and friend to all of us and he will be missed. We extend our deepest condolences to the Pressman family during this difficult time."

Colleagues remember a legend of New York journalism, Gabe Pressman. Roseanne Colletti reports.

New Yorkers embraced Pressman over his 60-plus years on television, and the public outpouring of memories and condolences was immediate and heartfelt. Mayor de Blasio tweeted condolences, calling Pressman "a New York City treasure" who mentored "countless reporters." 

During his time with NBC 4 New York, Pressman compiled a peerless record of investigative reporting in politics and social issues. Having invented the craft of street reporting, Pressman is recognized by the viewing audience, political and community leaders, and his NBC colleagues, as one of New York's most respected journalists. 

Legendary journalist Gabe Pressman was also a mentor to a number of young interns starting out in news. Past interns share some of the impressions Pressman left on them.

Steve Scott, president of the New York Press Club, issued a statement calling Pressman "a tenacious seeker of truth" who fought "ferociously for journalists' rights" and tirelessly defended the First Amendment of the Constitution.

"Gabe's contributions to the field of journalism extended far beyond what his viewers saw on television. It was his hard work behind the scenes that kept the cameras rolling when some would have preferred they be turn off; he kept public meetings open, when some would have preferred they be closed," Scott said. "When he delivered his annual Freedom of the Press message at the Press Club's Journalism Awards dinner on June 5, he was crystal clear: The First Amendment is under attack, and we can't let our guard down. We can't give up. We have to keep fighting for our rights as journalists." 

Pressman dedicated his life to it. In 1947, upon graduating from the Columbia School of Journalism, Pressman worked briefly as a reporter for the Newark Evening News. He was then awarded a Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship from Columbia, which enabled him to travel throughout Europe for 15 months and to freelance feature stories for the Overseas News Agency. 

Gabe Pressman touched countless lives, and even at 93 years old, he never stopped working. Sue Simmons joins Stefan Holt and Natalie Pasquarella to pay tribute to the legendary New York journalist — who, up until last week, was showing up in the NBC New York newsroom.

While in Hungary, he covered the famous trial of Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty for The New York Times and for Edward R. Murrow's radio news program. The trial marked the first time that a Primate of the Roman Catholic Church had been tried for treason in modern times.

In 1949, Pressman joined the staff of the New York World Telegram and Sun as a City Hall reporter. During his years at the paper, he covered the administrations of William O'Dwyer, Vincent Impellitteri and Robert Wagner. 

NBC 4 NY
Growing up in the Bronx, Gabe Pressman started a newspaper for his family at 8 or 9 years old, with headlines like "Cousin Teddy's First Tooth" and "Grandma's Spongecake Made With Real Sponges."
NBC 4 NY
Gabe Pressman grew up in the Bronx; he would later profile his home borough, tracking its evolution over his lifetime.
Gabe Pressman
Gabe Pressman was a combat naval officer in WWII and fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. Pressman, who was 20 years old at the time, called it "the most dramatic moment of World War II."
Gabe Pressman
Gabe Pressman, seen here in the Bronx with his mother, Lena Pressman, in 1943. At the time he was a 19-year-old apprentice seaman for the U.S. Navy.
NBC/NBC NewsWire
After the war, Pressman graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1947. Pressman, pictured here at NBC News in New York City on April 2, 1956, is credited with being the first television reporter in New York.
NBC/NBC NewsWire
He covered major stories including the sinking of the Andrea Doria and the Weinberger kidnapping on Long Island. In this file photo, NBC News' Pressman during a Chase Manhattan Bank sponsored newsreel on October 15, 1958 .
Gabe Pressman, at left, recalled of interviewing Marilyn Monroe in New York, "She was effervescent. She was beautiful and she transfixed the reporters who interviewed her. I was one of them." He recalls his interview with her here.
NBC 4 NY
Gabe Pressman recalled visiting Martin Luther King Jr.'s hospital room early in his career, just after King had been stabbed by a woman after a book signing in Harlem: "What an honor to have met this man. I look back at my long career in the business of journalism and consider myself so fortunate to have exchanged just a few words with Dr. King a half century ago."
NBC 4 NY
Gabe Pressman covered the plane crash over Park Slope, Brooklyn, in 1960. He would later write, "In those early days of my career, I always struggled to maintain an indifference to the tragedies I covered. I thought it was important to be objective all all times. But the news that Stephen [an 11-year-old boy who had been blown out of the plane] had died shattered me."
NBC 4 NY
Gabe Pressman at JFK Airport when the Beatles arrived in the U.S. for the first time in February 1964.
NBC News/NBCU Photo Bank
Gabe Pressman, third from left, anchors WNBC' "Sixth Hour News" in 1971 with colleagues, (L-R) Kyle Rote, Norma Quarles, Pressman and Sander Vanocur.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Nov. 8, 1977, file photo, Gabe Pressman moderates a televised New York mayoral debate. From left: Edward Koch, the Democratic candidate, Barry Farber, running as a Conservative, moderator Gabe Pressman, Cuomo, running as a Liberal, and Republican candidate Roy Goodman.
Gabe Pressman, second from left, was covering a tugboat accident in Long Island Sound when President John F. Kennedy was shot. Pressman said he rushed back to Midtown Manhattan with the news crew and parked on 49th Street. Crowds gathered around their car to listen to news of the presidents assassination on the radio.
NBC News/NBCU Photo Bank
Gabe Pressman anchors WNBC' "Sixth Hour" in 1971.
Associated Press
First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, fields questions from WNBC television reporter Gabe Pressman, left, concerning her position on the FALN clemency issue, in front of the Virgil I. Grissom Junior High School 226, in the Queens borough of New York, Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999.
Getty Images
Vera Pressman and Gabe Pressman pose at Sony Pictures Classic's screening of "The Lives of Others" at the Sony Screening Room on February 1, 2007 in New York City.
Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
(L-R) Vera Pressman, Gabe Pressman and Senator Barack Obama attend Conversations on the Circle with then Senator Barack Obama And Dick Parsons at Time Warner Headquarters on July 24, 2007 in New York City.
NBC 4 New York
Pressman has covered over a dozen presidential elections. In this Oct. 17, 2012, file photo, Pressman is in Daytona Beach, to take a look at the Florida electorate and examines how political divisions run deep in families.
NBC 4 New York
Gabe Pressman has covered the St. Patrick's Day Parade every year for over 60 years, always speaking with the politicians and the people. Here he is covering the parade just this past March.
NBC 4 NY
Gabe Pressman loved going into the neighborhoods and talking to the people; that would manifest in his series of neighborhood profiles of New York City. They included Astoria, Alphabet City, Boerum Hill, Richmond Hill, St. George, Sunset Park, Crown Heights, Forest Hills, Bayside, Port Morris, Little Italy, Jackson Heights, Greenpoint, Koreatown and so many more.
Gabe Pressman/Facebook
Gabe Pressman interviewed Eli Wiesel several times. He reflected on his Facebook page on Holocaust Memorial Day back in April that Wiesel "had the air of an Old Testament prophet. And I felt his warmth, his concern for my welfare, maybe because he remembered his own journalistic career, which began some years after he came out of death camps. Whatever it was, we had a chemistry."

He covered major stories including the sinking of the Andrea Doria and the Weinberger kidnapping on Long Island. During that year, Pressman also anchored WRCA-TV's "The Shell Oil News," a five-minute local evening newscast in which he provided the metropolitan area's first major television news reporting. 

The program subsequently expanded to a 10-minute format when Bill Ryan and Ray Owen were added as reporters. As a reaction to the great newspaper strike of 1963, the station expanded to a full half-hour evening newscast titled "The Pressman-Ryan Report." 

Broadcasting icon Gabe Pressman produced a series exploring the diverse neighborhoods of his beloved New York City. Here's a collection of those stories.

Amid the tumult of the late 60s, Pressman covered major stories like the New York City blackout, the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968, civil strife in Newark and New York, the mayoral campaigns for Abraham Beame, William F. Buckley, John Lindsay, and the entrance of Robert F. Kennedy into New York politics.

In July 1972, Pressman moved to WNEW-TV (now WNYW-TV) as a general assignment reporter. During his eight years there he wrote and hosted many specials and series, including "The War On Cancer" (an investigation of the activities of the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society focusing on the politics of cancer), and "The Mood of America" (a report on the 1976 presidential election). 

NBC 4 New York senior correspondent Gabe Pressman talks about the neighborhood he grew up in the Bronx.

Since rejoining NBC 4 New York in 1980, Pressman had been responsible for numerous award-winning programs and multi-part series including: The Homeless: Shame Of A City; The Hungry; Asylum In The Streets; To Bear Witness (a half-hour special on the gathering of holocaust survivors in Jerusalem in the summer of 1981); A Crisis Of Conscience (chronicled the 1982 turmoil within Israel over the massacre in the Lebanese refugee camps); the 1985 Democratic Presidential Primary Debate; Ask The Governors (an open forum with Cuomo, Kean and O'Neill telecast live in July 1983); the New Jersey and Long Island Town Meetings; multiple overseas reports from Israel; and timely coverage of key political issues on "News Forum." 

WNBC Senior Correspondent Gabe Pressman remembers Freedom Summer, when America was shaken by civil rights abuses in the South.

Pressman was a combat naval officer in WWII and served as a communications officer on the submarine chaser "PC 470" in the South Pacific, which participated in two invasions of the Philippines. After the war, he was a public relations officer under Admiral John Towers, Commander-In-Chief of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Pressman won many major awards throughout his career including: 11 Emmy Awards; the 1989 Edward R. Murrow Award; the New York Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences 1986 Governors' Award; a 1985 Olive Award for Excellence in Broadcasting; a Peabody Award in 1984 for “Asylum In The Streets”; a Unity award from Lincoln University in 1981 for "Blacks And The Mayor: How Far Apart?"; the New York Press Club's Feature Award for "The Homeless" in 1982; the UPI New York State Broadcasters' Award for Best Feature News Story "The Homeless" in 1982; the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association Award for Excellence in Individual Reporting in 1982; the New York Chapter Of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi's Deadline Club Award for "The Hungry" in 1983; and two New York area Emmy Awards in 1983 for "The Homeless." 

Born in the Bronx, Pressman attended Morris High School, worked as a cub reporter for the Peekskill Evening Star during summer vacations and graduated from New York University with a bachelor's degree in history and government.

In a statement, Gov. Cuomo said Pressman spent his career asking tough questions that New Yorkers wanted answered.

"As people increasingly turned to TV for news, it was Gabe who became the most important and trusted face on New York City airwaves. Gabe was the first TV reporter to bring a film crew into the street to cover news where it was happening," Cuomo said. "I am deeply saddened by Gabe's passing, but know all New Yorkers will continue to benefit from the contributions he made over a lifetime that spoke truth to power." 

In the summer of 1969, hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in a cow pasture in Bethel for a rock festival known as Woodstock. Our senior correspondent Gabe Pressman was there. And this year, on the festival’s 45th anniversary, we take a look back at the legendary event.
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