Past Editor Has Big Win at Academy Awards

mark boal, the editor of our town from march 1997 to march 1998, won an oscar for his screenplay for the hurt locker, a low-budget film about the iraq war that he created with director kathryn bigelow. the film, which also netted "best picture," among other honors, made bigelow the first woman to win an oscar for directing.

boal, who was a co-producer for the film, based his fictional screenplay on reporting he did in 2004 while embedded with a military unit that defuses bombs in iraq.

in the 1980s and 1990s, however, he was a new york city kid who lived on york avenue and attended bronx high school of science, graduating with the class of 1991.

"i remember he had a great sense of humor and he always enjoyed working with fellow students," said joanne strauss, a math teacher at bronx science who taught boal.

he was an "average math student," she said, but she remembers him excelling on the school's debate team.

boal attended oberlin college where he majored in philosophy. in 1997, he accepted an offer to become editor at our town.

michael rothfeld, now a reporter at the los angeles times, edited our town's sister publication, manhattan spirit (now west side spirit), while boal was with the company. he remembers boal coming in on the first day wearing a suit, while the rest of the staff was wearing jeans.

"then he pretty much blended in with the rest of us," rothfeld said.

even then, rothfeld saw a talent for storytelling.

"mark always had a really good sense for stories, particularly ones that involved adventure and that kind of theme, like the hurt locker."

boal pursued a freelance career after leaving our town, rothfeld said, even venturing to iraq on his own to dig up stories.

"he's a sweet guy. he really cared about what he was doing, worked really hard to succeed and i'm just happy for him," rothfeld said.

the suits may have gone out the door after boal's first day on the job, but lincoln anderson, now managing editor of the villager downtown, remembers boal wearing black leather pants and tight shirts to the office. it was a contrast with the otherwise schlubby newsroom.

anderson, then a reporter at our town, said boal had a knack for picking up on a good story. anderson remembers an item he had for the police blotter, about a pizza place that was selling cocaine; boal suggested they blow it up into a cover piece.

"i liked the cover that he did, which was a pizza pie. and he got a photographer to dump a pile of flour on it and it looked like a pile of coke," anderson said.

a few years ago, anderson was with his girlfriend watching in the valley of elah, another film centered on iraq for which boal wrote the story. he glanced at the credits and thought he recognized his former editor's name.

"i could tell he was an ambitious guy when one day he said, 'you're all just pawns in my game,'" anderson said. "i couldn't tell if he was serious or being tongue in cheek."

during his tenure at our town, boal wrote or edited a number of groundbreaking pieces, including a series of exposés on teen smoking, a look behind the scenes at the city's department of investigations and a series of articles on the shrinking supply of affordable housing in manhattan. in one piece, he detailed the unhappy process of investigating child abuse allegations through the case of an east side girl and her divorcing parents.

emily wax, now india bureau chief for the washington post, was another manhattan spirit editor who crossed paths with boal.

"mark boal was a wonder reporter, writer and friend. he had a deep understanding-even in his early twenties-of the human condition and storytelling. i am so proud of him and lucky we worked together at our town and manhattan spirit," she wrote in an email.

tom allon, president and ceo of manhattan media, our town's parent company, also looks back on boal's time at the paper with pride.

"mark boal exhibited star potential the very first day he waked into our town's office in march 1997 and took over as our editor," allon said. "he immediately transformed the paper into a tough, hard-driving investigative publication. his brave and impressive articles about a bomb defusing unit in iraq, which led to the screenplay for the hurt locker, and his oscar award this week is a testament that great journalism can still sometimes lead to great art. we are proud of mark and his amazing achievement and we are lucky that he was one of our colleagues when he began his career in journalism."