Joan Lebow

Returning home to Manhattan a few years after college, I ignored the prevailing advice that the only way to get a newspaper journalism job would be to forsake New York City for a smaller town. I’d roamed the world solo from the Himalayas to the Nile. Now I was happy to be off the long hippie trail and back on the subway.

Instead of heading to a local daily in Somewhere, USA, I found work on New York’s fashion trade papers and set out on intrepid reporting assignments like asking men in Rockefeller Center how much they spend on their underwear.

Talking to strangers feels natural to me. So does gathering facts and finding fresh angles that make a great story.

On the style beat, I was determined to follow social issues and cultural trends, not just describe products. So, even at Women’s Wear Daily, I wrote about rent pressures in New York’s Garment District and the spread of sweatshops in Chinatown.

That led to covering real estate for The Wall Street Journal, writing business news and my Page One “A-head” on luxury hotels: “What’s That Thing-a-ma-jig in the John?” that considered the benefits of a bidet.

Perhaps I flushed my journalism career away too soon, but I beat the rush and was happy to move into PR and Corporate Communications, where I direct press strategy, messaging and content.

I’ve represented hospitals, schools, mission-driven non-profits, mayors and other elected officials. Typically, I’m speaking for others — marketing their strengths, or providing sensitive statements and guidance when bad things happen to (mostly) good companies. Or with taxpayers’ money.

What stands out? Watching surgeons transplant half of a healthy man’s liver to save his sick friend, a case that appeared as a Best Doctors issue cover story in US News. Seeing someone (else) give birth for a women’s magazine feature on pregnancy. Managing New York’s tabloid media and navigating local politics, after cops shot and killed a young father in a public housing hallway.

Now I’m making time for some of my own stories too, in words and photos that embrace life’s idiosyncrasies. Like an essay I initially wrote for my two sons, published as a New York Times “Rites of Passage” column. Or captioned street shots taken in Brooklyn, and on the road where my global wanderlust still beckons, often.

There’s certainly more home-life details to convey that would round out this swift work-life rundown. Everything’s ready for story-mining, as media lingo goes. For me that would be the maddening mash-up of career, marriage and motherhood; confronting widowhood, enduring loss, and single parenting; the solace of smart, sweet sons; new jobs and a lack of them; moving from city to suburbs and back again, meeting a man online and making it work.

These days, the south Brooklyn apartment I share with my partner has a wide harbor view and the comfort of the Manhattan skyline a short ferry ride away. My EZ Pass bill is insane, mostly from crossing the Verrazzano Bridge back to the New Jersey towns where I raised my kids.

Of course, I continue to talk to random people on city streets — nearby in Bay Ridge and Tribeca; or in places like Santiago and Mexico City. Or Hanoi, Cape Town and Buenos Aires. Also Pittsburgh and Palm Springs, each among many stops on recent road trips. Maybe it’s to capture someone’s image. Or to find the best coffee, and hear travel advice, if not to report on their fashion spending habits. I don’t need boxer shorts as an ice-breaker, just curiosity.