February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Although his grandmother and mother were Bronx born, and his parents met at a St. Patrick’s Day Dance at our Lady of Solace Dance in 1928, Peter Quinn don’t have the privilege of being a Bronxite by birth. Due to parents caught by natal surprise while vacationing on Long Island, he and his twin brother didn’t arrive in the Bronx until they were a week old. Quinn made up for their carelessness by spending his entire educational career in Bronx Catholic classrooms (St. Raymond’s, Manhattan Prep, Manhattan College, Fordham University), marrying a girl from St. Angela Merici’s, and working as a court officer in Bronx Landlord & Tenant Court. He subsequently went on to other jobs (speechwriter, novelist, editor) and lived in lesser places (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester), but, he says, “no place has ever touched me more or means more to than the Bronx. I made my oldest friends there, learned to love and laugh there, was introduced to Yiddish, Spanish and Italian there. I felt, feel, will always feel more at more at home in the Bronx than any other place on earth. Eat your heart out, Ogden Nash – hell, what does a rube born in Rye know? – The Bronx, yes, thonx!”