(Photo courtesy medill.northwestern.edu. Graphic by Shane Snow.)

Once-prominent journalist Michael Anderson remains missing while the New York police continue to investigate his disappearance.

Michael Anderson worked as a assistant professor at Northwestern University and lectured at Columbia and Yale.

Anderson, a former editor at The New York Times Book Review, vanished on November 12 from his Inwood apartment and left nothing but a suicide note for friends, said Patricia Fieldsteel, a journalist living in France.

The note, sent as an automatic response on Anderson’s email account, is what friends sent to the NYPD to file a missing person’s report, police said. Police also said doctors had called in search of Anderson.

Anderson, whom Fieldsteel called “a brilliant writer and intellectual,” was named to Northwestern University’s Medill Hall of Achievement for his 17-year tenure at the Times, ending with his retirement in July 2005. He graduated from the Medill School with a bachelor’s degree in 1974 and a master’s in 1975, both in journalism.

He wrote for the Book Review’s now defunct “In Briefs” section which showcased 200-word reviews, said *Steve Coates, copy desk chief for the Review. Coats said he didn’t know Anderson well, but “he was always incredibly kind and considerate. A gentleman.”

Anderson had also worked as an editor at The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Sun-Times. He lectured at Columbia and Yale and taught as an assistant professor at Northwestern, where he had been editor of the Daily Northwestern.

“I knew him at Northwestern; even then he had a reputation of a very talented editor,” said Craig Matsuda, who was managing editor of the Daily Northwestern. “I had just started the job and one afternoon in rolled Mike Anderson who was a legendary figure.” Matsuda now works at the Los Angeles Times.

Anderson was also reportedly working on a biography on Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright who wrote “A Raisin in the Sun.”

A neighbor at 330 Haven Ave. where Anderson lived, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also remembers Anderson as a warm- hearted intellect who was always carrying a theater playbill or a book.

His neighbor said Anderson lived alone and Fieldsteel said he rarely spoke of family but on several occasions told her, “Families are bad news.”

Now his sudden disappearance has friends and neighbors shaken.
Officers searched his apartment complex, next to the Hudson, police said. A neighbor said he watched as police broke down Anderson’s door and scoured the grounds. Anderson was last seen on November 12 around 1 a.m.

“They woke me up at 3 a.m. last week and they asked me what I know about him,” Anderson’s neighbor said. “Now they’ve padlocked the door.”

A police spokesman, Detective Marc Nell, said police saw no signs of struggle in Anderson’s apartment but continue to look for clues.

*This story inaccurately reported an editor’s name and position. Steve Coates is the copy desk chief at The New York Times Book Review.

Michael Anderson, 57, vanished on November 12, neighbors said. Anderson, a tall black male, lived alone and kept to himself, said one neighbor who asked for anonymity.

Michael Anderson, 57, disappeared on November 12 and police have padlocked his apartment as they search for him. (Photo courtesy of DCPI)

Police at the 34 Precinct said they issued a missing person’s report for Anderson after his doctors called his apartment looking for him. Anderson also emailed a suicide letter to a friend, the neighbor said.

Officers searched the apartment complex at 330 Haven Avenue for Anderson, last seen on November 12 around 1 a.m., police said. They broke down his door and scoured the grounds, said neighbors, who watched.

“They woke me up at 3 a.m. last week and they asked me what I know about him,” Anderson’s neighbor said. “Now they’ve padlocked the door.”
At the precinct, Detective Marc Nell said police saw no signs of struggle in Anderson’s apartment, but continue to look for clues.

His neighbor, a 20-year resident of the complex, said he has known Anderson since he moved in nearly 15 years ago and described him as quiet, reserved and an lover of theater and art. “I would always see him with playbills and programs in his hand,” he said.

Although Anderson was introverted and kept to himself, he always greeted his neighbors, they said.
Now his disappearance distresses them as they pass his padlocked apartment and see his face on missing posters, his longtime neighbor said.

Mary Ann Preston gives students a counter-recruiting flier with information on career services. (Photo by Marvin Anderson)

Ann Smith couldn’t walk more than 50-feet to the front door of her son’s high school before counter-recruiting volunteers approached her.

With yellow and white fliers in hand, a volunteer walked backwards and quizzed Smith on new mandates restricting military recruiters while she headed to the school.

“Are you a parent of a student?” asked Mary Ann Preston, a volunteer with United for Peace’s counter-recruiting efforts. Smith nodded yes and mentioned her son, who attends the school for a law program.

“His information will be sent to military recruiters unless you sign the opt-out form,” the volunteer said.

But Smith already knew.

She filed forms with Louis Brandeis High at the beginning of the school year restricting the military recruiters from obtaining her son’s name, phone number and address; a privilege to which the armed services are entitled under the No Child Left Behind Act.

This school year is the first New York City schools have provided opt-out forms to forgo having student’s personal information sent to military recruiters. For years, counter-recruiters including the New York Civil Liberties Union, Grannies for Peace Brigade and other non-profits have galvanized uptown communities against military recruiters in schools.

Smith said she had heard about the forms from the school, but still felt a need for disseminating more information as military recruiters unfairly target minorities and youth in what they consider impoverished areas of uptown.

“They approach them first and talk about higher education,” she said. “That’s why I keep filling out the opt-out form.”

Juan Quiroz, a senior at Louis Brandeis High, reads a counter-recruiting flier at his school's parent-teacher night. (Photo by Marvin Anderson)

Military recruiters crossed boundaries as some began to pitch their services during classes and others began to call students more aggressively, Smith said, and that’s what caused people to speak out.

With the backing of local politicians, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein amended statutes to include the opt-out provision that restricted recruiter’s access to students in school and those who wanted privacy.

Although the statute was passed in May, organizations with United for Peace said that many high schools didn’t provide the opt-out forms to parents. The groups united and on Oct. 29, they attended parent-teacher nights at 45 New York City schools and delivered counter-recruiting pamphlets and information fliers about the new statute.

Louis Brandeis High was only one location of many where the organizations actively pushed counter-recruiting measures with Erica Braudy, a New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer as she spearheaded efforts early in the school year.

“We’re not against the Army and we’re not against the military,” she said of the continuing counter recruiting efforts. “It’s a good plan. But everything should be out in front.”

After delivering counter-recruiting information directly to high school students, Braudy said in years past numerous reports were filed stating that recruiters sponsored extracurricular activities to glamorize the armed forces.

The events, she said, were in addition to using class time to make pitches and using private information to aggressively pursue students.

“Our job is to make sure there are good policies in the school so the military doesn’t have free range,” Braudy said after she spoke with members of the Granny Peace Brigade and divided pamphlets.

The Granny Peace Brigade also participated in a protest outside the Harlem Recruiting Office on 125 Street and Lenox after organizing demonstrations with the Civil Liberties Union.

More than five counter-recruiting volunteers speak with students and as they wait for their parent-teacher night. (Photo by Marvin Anderson)

Protesters, behind an iron gate at the recruiting office, yelled into bull horns as they handed out fliers to passersby. But the recruiting office was empty.

“When we see protests, we just leave,” said one Army recruiter, Sgt. Eric Richardson. “It’s not that serious.”

Richardson said he was accustomed to protests and other demonstrations, some of which begin peacefully but escalate into riots where he’s been called a “pimp” and “flesh-peddler.”

Although organizations have increased their counter-recruiting efforts, he said, most of the Army’s recruits aren’t high school students. In the past two years, five recruits in the uptown area were from high schools, he said.

Many students who even show interest in the military can’t pass the standardized test to be considered and don’t meet strict physical standards, Richardson said.

“The intent is not just to recruit seniors but anyone we feel could benefit the Army,” he said.

But to strengthen a positive presence in the community and hopefully increase a number of qualified recruits, Richardson said the Army has created afterschool tutoring programs and websites for uptown high schools. The programs and websites aren’t just for military purposes, but to also increase test scores and aid education, Richardson said.

Alicia Henderson, parent of a freshman at Brandeis High, said she would allow her son, Nikai, to consider the military even after reading counter-recruiting documents but only after he graduates from high school.

Nikai said he’s not considering the military as an option but hasn’t seen any recruiters in his school or classrooms.

Still, Henderson said the military shouldn’t approach students while they’re in high school.

“That’s the parents’ decision,” she said as she accepted counter-recruiting pamphlets. “He’s a minor.”

Artists and community organizers view the renovated three-story tall mural. (Photo by Marvin Anderson)

Nature’s elements and an apartment building’s disintegrating bricks had hastened the demise of a 23-year-old mural, the last in New York City created by Eva Cockcroft, a global political activist and artist who died in 1999.

The three-story Harlem scene of lush green trees, river waves and clear blue skies, have turned grey and lack luster, said Jane Weissman of Heritage Preservation’s Rescue Public Murals project. But Janet Braun-Reinitz of Artmakers plans to save it.

Braun-Reinitz has assembled a team of artists who erected a scaffold on the side of the Washington apartment building on 142nd Street at Amsterdam Avenue to restore the fading “Homage to Seurat: La Grand Jatte In Harlem” in memory of Cockcroft; their mentor and friend.

With a $70,000 grant from the Friends of Heritage Preservation, the renovation became a moment for Cockcroft to deliver a final lesson, said Braun-Reinitz, who has painted more than 50 murals.

“I hear her voice sometimes when I’m up here,” she said pointing at the scaffold while holding a cigarette and wearing paint-stained green overalls and red high heel shoes. “It says don’t worry. Just paint.”

The mural, inspired by George Seurat’s famed “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” depicts African-Americans enjoying a day along the Hudson. It’s surrounded by a garden, secured by an iron gate and protected by local residents.

“I saw it go up and now I see them changing it,” said Robert Harris, a former urban developer who worked in the garden in 1970. “People have come and gone but, that was always here.”

Harris, 65, said the mural, unveiled last week, was an integral part of the Sugar Hill neighborhood. He never met Cockcroft, but said many remember her dedication and talent.

Community garden members commissioned Cockcroft in 1986, after they won a Parks Department contest to have an artist paint a mural in their honor, Reinitz said.

Cockcroft had just visited political murals in Chile and had created, in New York’s East Village, “La Lucha,” the city’s first multimural park; her work there called for better police and community relations, supported women’s rights and protested the U.S. intervention in Central America, apartheid in South Africa and racism.

Artist Janet Braun-Reinitz and apprentice Ariel Mercado mix paints for the restoration. (Photo by Marvin Anderson)

Cockcroft, who died of breast cancer, became an international figure, Braun-Reinitz said, as artists convened at her home in SoHo.

Timothy Drescher, public mural historian and former co-editor of Community Murals Magazine, said Cockcroft was “important to the mural movement as a contributor and as an inspiration.” She changed the art form in three ways, he said.

“Her works such as ‘Towards A People’s Art’ are still the best discussion of the first decade of the mural movement,” he said. She also started organizations in New York, including Artmakers, that supported aspiring artists.

“I’m sure she would never say she was my mentor because we were the same age and all that, but I felt she was someone from whom I constantly learned,” Braun-Reinitz said as embers from her cigarette, nearly a butt, fell to the garden’s brick stone.

Cockcroft’s legacy lives, Braun-Reinitz said, speaking of the team of artists she assembled including Cockcroft’s former students. Apprentices also worked alongside members of Artmakers, which Brain-Reinitz now serves as president.

*Artist Maria Dominguez, who also credited Cockcroft as an inspiration, was among the team of artists.

Artist Maria Dominguez retouches signatures on her mentor's mural. (Photo by Marvin Anderson)

“Even in her death she’s teaching me,” Dominguez said. “Look. She choose this wall out of all others.” Dominguez brushed the gritty wall and pointed out grooved mounds that protruded. Instead of sanding the thousands of “bumps” down, Dominguez said, Cockcroft integrated the texture into the mural, giving it a three-dimensional property.

“I never would have choosen this wall,” she said, noting the work is for the public, not the artist. “Selfish me.”

To begin the restoration, the artists coated the mural in a clear primer they repainted according to Cockcroft’s documents and pictures. But building repairs had damaged 20 percent of the mural, Braun-Reinitz said, and damage from weather left the crew with additional creative challenges.

“Eva was the one who looked at these walls and said, ‘What do you do with these textures?’” she said. “These boring, miserable, uneven walls.”

The finished mural will receive a protective gloss and varnish that Braun-Reinitz said will shield the mural from the sun’s rays but will aid in future restorations.

“This goes beyond a typical mural where someone puts up an image on a blank wall,” said Laurie Sheridan, another artist working on the restoration. “This helps maintain the flavor of the community when everything is changing so fast.”

She dipped her brush into more paint and stroked the now vibrant red, blue and green walls of the Washington.

“It’s not going away now.”

*Maria Dominguez and the three apprentices Janet Braun-Reinitz mentioned were paid. Dominguez was not a volunteer.