Michael Hechtman, a beloved and short-tempered New York Post editor-in-chief who worked for the tabloid for more than 40 years, died Friday of lymphoma. He was 82 years old.
The veteran newspaper reporter died in his sleep at the Methodist Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility in the Bronx, said longtime friend Shelagh Masline.
Mr. Hechtman, a nighttime editor with a penchant for gallows humor and belting out Sondheim songs, mentored generations of reporters at the Post and led several He is said to have given the young journalist his first break.
“If it wasn't for Mike, I wouldn't be anything. I wouldn't have been a reporter,” said Jennifer Firmino, a former Post reporter.
Hechtman infamously taught child reporters how to write for the tabloids by having them sit next to his desk, where he would tear their stories to shreds.
“One of the first things he would do was create a huge gap of six or seven spaces between your byline and your signature,” said former Post reporter and Metro editor Eric Lenkowitz. “Because you're going to start all over again.''
Hechtman added that the paper “has been tested on everyone.”
Michael Jay Hechtman was born in Brooklyn on April 5, 1942, to Henry Hechtman, a hat factory owner in the Garment District, and Rose Sass, a housewife. His family soon moved to Rego Park in Queens, where he ended up living for decades in a one-room apartment without a stove.
He studied journalism at Brooklyn College, where he wrote for the school newspaper, and then earned a graduate degree at the University of Michigan, according to Massline.
He served in the U.S. Army Reserve, writing press releases at Fort Dix, New Jersey, said copy editor Milton Goldstein. He was honorably discharged in 1971.
After stints as a reporter at the Hartford Courant and the Associated Press, Mr. Hechtman joined the Post as a reporter in 1974 and quickly established himself as a “super rewrite man,” handling the hasty notes of street reporters. Translated into seamless prose.
“That night [Yankees catcher] Thurman Munson died in a plane crash in the late 70s. [Post Publisher Rupert] “Mr. Murdoch said he wanted the best person for this story,” recalled former City Editor Dick Belsky. “We gave it to Hechtman without hesitation.”
As a night editor, Hechtman became famous for his penchant for waking up reporters at 2 a.m. to answer questions about stories without hesitation. He also had an uncanny ability to trim overwritten stories to fit the essence of the tabloid.
“He could turn a 20-paragraph story into a haiku. That's how good he was,” recalls former Post reporter Cynthia Fagen.
His newsroom antics included regular announcements in the bathroom.
“His routine was to go to the bathroom at night and announce, “If Madonna calls me, I'll be in the middle seat,'' or “If the Pope calls me, I'll be in the middle seat.'' 'It was a middle stall,' Belsky recalled.
Mr. Firmino recalled that Mr. Hechtman kept a collection of headlines that were “too disrespectful” to be printed in the newspaper. And he once rewrote the lyrics to “Oklahoma!” It's the Jewish New Year. “Rosh Hashanah, where the wind blows across the plains / And the matzoh balls stand proudly / We know we belong to the shul / And we belong Surreal is cool / And when we do, say bay, oy bay oy bay oy bay.”
Hechtman was passionate about New York City's transit system and cats. Over the years, his many feline companions include the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Authority's “BMT'' and “Metro-North.''
Masline said a trip to the South Pacific led him to get his pilot's license around 1979, and for 10 years he flew friends and colleagues on vacations to Newport and Martha's Vineyard in a twin-engine Cessna. He said he was enjoying it.
After retiring in 2014, Hechtman returned to editing the Post part-time, writing the column “Weird But True.”
“Mike was New York City,” said former Post reporter Linda Massarella. “The five boroughs were like his fingerprints. He knew every nook and cranny. As a new reporter, I navigated the city knowing I had the best editor on the planet at my back. It was great to walk around.”
Hechtman, who has been battling dementia for the past five years, has no living relatives, but is survived by Masline, her daughter Keiltin and her daughter's fiancé, Eddie Wooden, Masline said. Ta.
In a 2007 letter to Massline, he asked her to tell the Post editor not to publish an obituary when he died.
“If they do that, I'll come back and haunt them,” he warned.
