- Biography
- Teaching
- Research and Creative Activity
- Grants
- Honors and Awards
- Service
Ralph Blumenthal, a Distinguished Lecturer at Baruch College of the City University of New York, and summer journalism instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy, was an award-winning reporter for The New York Times from 1964 to 2009, and has written seven books on organized crime and cultural history. He led the Times metro team that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of the 1993 truck-bombing of the World Trade Center. In 2001, Blumenthal was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to research the progressive career and penal reforms of Warden Lewis E. Lawes, “the man who made Sing Sing sing.” The book on Warden Lawes, Miracle at Sing Sing, was published by St. Martin’s in June, 2004.
During the coronavirus pandemic he contributed articles to The Times and other publications, worked from home on his Baruch Archives blog, “An Adventure in Democracy”, and gave virtual talks on his 2021 book, “The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack.” In April, 2023 he published, with his wife, Deborah, a children's book writer, a nonfiction picture book, "UFOHS!: Mysteries in the Sky." In December, 2023, a Berlinica Publishing anthology on Berlin, "Our West Berlin: Storybook from the Island", included his chapter on visits to the city from before the Wall to 2015.
For more than 45 years, Blumenthal led an extensive and illustrious career at The Times as Texas correspondent and Southwest Bureau Chief (2003-8); arts and culture news reporter (1994-2003); investigative and crime reporter (1971-1994); foreign correspondent (West Germany, South Vietnam, Cambodia, 1968-1971); and metro and Westchester correspondent (1964-1968). He began his journalism career as reporter/columnist for The Grand Prairie Daily News Texan in 1963.
Blumenthal earned a Guggenheim Fellowship (2001), a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni Award (2001), and the Nieman Foundation’s Worth Bingham Prize for distinguished investigative reporting on USAir crashes. (1994.) He was named a Townsend Harris medalist of the City College Alumni Association in 2012 and inducted into the C.C.N.Y. Communications Alumni Hall of Fame in May 2010. Since 2010 he has taught journalism in the high school international summer program of Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., and in 2010 was named a Distinguished Lecturer at Baruch College where he taught journalism and currently oversees historic collections in the Newman Library Archives.
Career Narrative:Having edited my City College newspaper, The Campus, and gone on to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, I joined The New York Times as a news clerk in June 1964 and within months was promoted to the metro staff. In 1968, at 26, I was assigned as a foreign correspondent to the Bonn Bureau where I covered the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the rise of neo-Nazism and the West German economic miracle.
The following year The Times sent me to Saigon to cover the war and what became the spread of fighting to Cambodia.
Artifacts from my wartime assignments in South Vietnam and Cambodia (1969-71) on display in the Times building’s 15th floor museum (not now open to the public).
Assigned back to New York in 1971, I became an investigative reporter specializing in stories about foreign and American corruption and organized crime. My series on Nazi war criminals hiding in America helped pass a Congressional bill to bar persecutors from entering the country, the Holtzman Amendment. I was the American reporter who first got the tip on Kurt Waldheim’s secret Nazi past.
Another series, on corrupt dealings and cocaine use by Brooklyn Representative Fred Richmond, led to the Congressman’s guilty plea and resignation from the House. My articles on questionable financial dealings by the 1984 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro, and her husband, John Zaccaro, became a factor in the election. In 1987 I led the Times team that exposed the Tawana Brawley racial hoax and produced the series nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1988, my first book, Last Days of the Sicilians, on the FBI’s Pizza Connection drug case was published, and I was invited to the annual retreat of the judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to speak on electronic eavesdropping. In 1990, I collaborated with five other Times reporters on the book, Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax, based on our investigative articles.
In 1993, I led the team covering the World Trade Center truck-bombing, which won the paper a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage. The following year, I co-authored another series on the fatal crashes of USAir. It prompted new safety procedures, was nominated for a Pulitzer and won the Worth Bingham prize for investigative reporting, presented by President Bill Clinton at the White House Correspondents dinner. It was also a finalist for Harvard University’s Goldsmith’s Prize.
In 1994, I joined the culture news department as an arts reporter, where I shared, with co-writers, a Times Publisher’s Award for a series on the Sotheby’s and Christie’s antitrust scandal — one of some two dozen Times awards to me over the years. After Sept. 11, 2001, I briefly rejoined the investigative team covering terrorism. In 2003, I went to Texas to cover the Southwest where I reported on death penalty cases, President George W. Bush’s military record, and a polygamist cult. Upon my return to the Metro staff in 2008, I wrote news features and blogged on city issues. As a Times contributor after retiring as a staffer in 2009, I reported on the secret Pentagon unit investigating UFOs.
Meanwhile, I wrote two other non-fiction books: Once Through the Heart (1992), on a police narcotics detective’s struggle to rescue his own daughter from drugs; and Stork Club (2000), a history of the fabled nightspot, its renegade owner Sherman Billingsley, and the gangster era in Gotham. The book became the focus of an exhibit, “Stork Club,” at the New York Historical Society, which I curated and which ran from May-Oct., 2000. My next book, Miracle at Sing Sing (2004), was supported by a Guggenheim grant. I also compiled The Gotti Tapes (1992). My seventh book, The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack, was published by High Road Books of the University of New Mexico Press on March 15, 2021. I since published, with my wife, Deborah, the "UFOHS!" children's book and the chapter on Berlin in "Our West Berlin: Storybook From the Island."
My proudest achievements, however, are none of these. They are our daughters Anna and Sophie, alumnae of the University of Delaware and, respectively, a musician and a nutritionist; and Sophie's son, Rex, our first grandchild, for whom I gratefully share credit with my wife, Deborah, also a nutritionist, journalist, and author.
Education
M.S., Journalism, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism NYC
B.A., English, City College of New York NYC
| Semester | Course Prefix | Course Number | Course Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer 2014 | JRN | 5000 | Independent Study Journalism I |
| Spring 2014 | COM | 9653 | Investor Relations |
| Spring 2014 | JRN | 3050 | Journalistic Reporting and Wri |
| Fall 2013 | JRN | 2500 | Indvdl & News In The Info Age |
| Fall 2013 | JRN | 4220 | Century Of Muckrakng |
| Spring 2013 | JRN | 4750 | Investigative Reporting |
| Spring 2013 | COM | 9660 | Sel Topics/Corp Comm |
| Fall 2012 | PAF | 9199 | Selected Topics In PAF |
| Fall 2012 | JRN | 3050 | Journalistic Reporting and Wri |
| Spring 2012 | PUB | 1250 | Pub Adm In Mod Soc |
| Spring 2012 | JRN | 3900 | Topics in Journalism |
| Fall 2011 | PUB | 1250 | Pub Adm In Mod Soc |
| Fall 2011 | JRN | 4220 | Century Of Muckrakng |
| Spring 2011 | JRN | 3050 | Journalistic Reporting and Wri |
| Fall 2010 | JRN | 3050 | Journalistic Reporting and Wri |
Artistic and Creative Activities
Blumenthal, R. (2016). An Adventure in Democracy. Baruch College.
Blumenthal, R. (2000). Stork Club. New-York Historical Society.
Books
Blumenthal, R., & Blumenthal, D. (2023). UFOhs!: Mysteries in the Sky . Albuquerque, N.M., University of New Mexico Press.
Blumenthal, R. (2021). John E. Mack biography. Albuquerque, N.M. , USA, University of New Mexico Press. In Progress.
Blumenthal, R. (2004). Miracle at Sing Sing : how one man transformed the lives of America's most dangerous prisoners. New York, St. Martin's Press.
Blumenthal, R. (2000). Stork Club : America's most famous nightspot and the lost world of cafe´ society. Boston, Little, Brown & Co.
Blumenthal, R. (1992). Once Through the Heart: A police detective's triumphant struggle to rescue his daughter from drugs. New York, Simon & Schuster.
Blumenthal, R., McFadden, R. D., Farber, M., Strum, C., Shipp, E., & Wolff, C. (1990). Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax. New York, Bantam.
Blumenthal, R. (1988). Last Days of the Sicilians : At war with the Mafia : The FBI assault on the Pizza Connection. New York, Times Books/Random House.
Book Chapters
(2023). The First Brick in the Wall. Our West Berlin (p. 240). New York and Berlin. Berlinica.
Blumenthal, R. (2017). Preface. In Schweitzer, E. C. (Ed.), "Germany? Germany! The Kurt Tucholsky Reader" Berlin,Germany. Berlinica.
(2013). 85: The Last Years of Josef Mengele. 100 Great Stories: Celebrating a century of extraordinary journalism New York. Columbia Journalism School.
(2001). Chapters: City Island; Fire Island; West Point; Stokes Forest, N.J.; Pennsylvania farm; Mystic Seaport. The New York Times Guide to Unforgettable Weekends New York. Wiley.
(2000). The Sopranos: Season Two. The New York Times on The Sopranos New York. Pocket Books.
Media Contributions
Blumenthal, R. (2024). One Hope From Changes at thie Holocaust Museum: Fewer Nazi Selfies.
Holocaust museum outside Detroit redesigns exhibit to counter glorification of Nazism.
Blumenthal, R. (2023). The New York Times - Holocaust Memorial Day ceremonies.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the U.N. Hears of a Little-Known Killing Field
Blumenthal, R. (2023). Using the Wyeth Art She Revers to Rebuild a Lost Maine Waterfront.
Waterfront fire in Port Clyde, Maine, destroys imporat artworks by Wyeth cland of painters.
Blumenthal, R. (2023). Was This Washington Portrait Really by Charles Peale? Experts Took a Look., (New York Times, Feb. 19, 2023).
I wrrote an article in The New York Times on a disputed Peale portrait of George Washington.
Blumenthal, R. (2023). On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the U.N. Hears of a Little-Known Killing Field.
I covered the presentation, at the United Nations, about a little-known Nazi concentration camp and wrote the story for The New York Times.
Blumenthal, R., & Kean, L. (2022). House Panel to Holdd Public Hearing on Unexplained Aerial Sightings, (The New York Times).
Article on UFO hearings
Blumenthal, R. (2022). The New York Post.
Dutch Colonial homestead in Brooklyn from 1766, vandalized and for sale.
Blumenthal, R. (2022). One of Brooklyn’s oldest homes, asking $4M, faces a murky future, (The New York Post Dec. 6, 2022).
News story on fatre of historic Brooklyn colonial landmark, the Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead.
Blumenthal, R., & Genzlinger, N. (2022). The New York Times, obit of Peter Swales , (April 21, 2022).
Blumenthal, R. (2022). Ancient Aliens, interview on UFOs for TV series.
Blumenthal, R., & Kean, L. (2020). The New York Times: Do We Believe in UFOs? .
Blumenthal, R. (2019). From Crash to Scrip.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). The New York Times: Be All that You Can Be: Protect Artworks.
(2019). The New York Times .
(2019). The New York Times.
(2019). The New York Times .
(2019). The New York Times.
(2019). The New York Times .
(2019). The New York Times.
(2019). The New York Times.
(2019). The New York Times.
(2019). The New York Times.
(2019). The New York Times.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). The New York Times.
Blumenthal, R. (2018). Burt Reynolds Dies at 82.
(2018). The New York Times.
(2018). The New York Times .
(2018). The New York Times.
(2018). The New York Times .
(2018). The New York Times.
(2017). The New York Times.
Blumenthal, R. (2017). The New York Times: People are Seeing UFOs Everywhere..
(2017). The New York Times.
(2017). The New York Times.
(2017). The New York Times.
(2017). The New York Times.
(2017). The New York Times.
(2017). The New York Times.
(2016). Cuny TV.
Blumenthal, R. (2016). The Baltimore Sun: School Integration.
(2016). The New York Times.
(2016). The New York Times.
(2016). The New York Times.
(2016). The New York Times.
(2015). The New York Times.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). The New York Times: geo-mapping Victorian London..
(2015). The New York Times.
(2015). The New York Times.
(2015). The New York Times.
(2015). The New York Times.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). The Baltimore Sun: racism in Baltimore police..
Blumenthal, R. (2015). The Baltimore Sun: Integrating Baltimore's Police Force.
(2015). The New York Times.
(2015). The New York Times.
(2015). The New York Times.
(2015). The New York Times.
(2015). An Adventure in Democracy.
(2015). The New York Times.
(2014). The Wall Street Journal.
Blumenthal, R. (2014). Wall Street Journal: City Snow History Goes Deep.
Blumenthal, R. (2014). The New York Times: Rory Kennedy documentary on American evacuation from Vietnam.
Blumenthal, R. (2014). The New York Times: use of drones to protect antiquities in Peru.
(2014). The New York Times.
(2014). An Adventure in Democracy.
(2014). The New York Times .
Blumenthal, R. (2013). Stop Calling It Domestic Violence. It's Intimate Terrorism..
Blumenthal, R. (2013). Alien Nation: Have Humans Been Abducted by Extraterrestrials? .
Work in progress for John Mack biography.
(2013). Cosmopolitan.
(2013). Vanity Fair Online .
(2012). The New York Times.
Blumenthal, R. (2010). The Dangerous Rise In Untested Rape Kits.
(2010). Marie Claire.
Presentations
Blumenthal, R. (2024, March 13). Deutschland Über Alles: Jewish Fliers for Germany in the Great War. Sandra K. Wasserman Jewish Studies Center. Zoom event: Sandra K. Wasserman Jewish Studies Center. In Progress.
Blumenthal, R. “The ‘Abduction’ of John Mack: A Hero’s Journey into the Heart of Cosmic Darkness”. Exeter UFO Festival. Exeter, NH, Town Hall: Kiwanis Club.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, December 20). UNcovering The UFO Phenomenon. Mindshift Institute. New York Academy of Medicine: Mindshift Institute.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, December 20). The "Abduction" of John Mack . An Inquiry into Anomalous Experiences and The Phenomenon. Helen Mills Theater: James Landoli.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, November 20). From UFOs to UAP. The Next Step. New York Academy of Medicine: The Mindshift Institute.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, May 20). "The Believer". Santa Fe Public Library. Santa Fe, NM: Library, Santa Fe.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, April 20). Refuge in the Heights: The German Jews of Washington Heights. Leo Baeck Institute
Blumenthal, R. (2024, April 20). Gulick Collection in the Baruch Archives. Baruch Inaugural Cross-College Faculty research Symposium. Baruch: Provost's Office.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, April 20). German Patriots: Jewish Germans During World War I. Panel Discussion, zoom. Museum of the Jewish Heritage
Blumenthal, R. (2024, December 20). Anomalous Experiences. UFO Conference on Anomalous Experience. Helen Mills Theater NYC: UFO Conference on Anomalous Exxperience.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, September 20). FDR and the Supreme Court, with St. Johns Law Prof. John Q. Barrett. Roosevelt Library and Museum, Hyde Park, NY: Roosevelt Library and Museum.
Blumenthal, R. (2024, November 20). New York State Attorney General Letitia James interview. Stanley Feingold Lecture. City College of New York
Blumenthal, R. (2019, October 29). Crash! The Stock Market Collapse of 1929 and the Rise of Fake Money (Scrip). Stock Market Crash of 1929. 48 Wall Street: Museum of American Finance.
Wagner Webster, J. L., & Blumenthal, R. (2019, September 30). IPA and Luther Gulick Collections: The Digitization Project. Marxe Faculty Research Seminar. New York, NY: Marxe School, Baruch College.
Blumenthal, R. (2019, October 16). Gold in the Archives: A Journalist's Hunt for Buried Historical Treasure. Archivists Round Table. Newman Library Archives Reading Room: Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York.
Blumenthal, R. (2019, April 28). “Making Democracy Work: FDR’s Bitter Struggle to Modernize the Presidency”. “Making Democracy Work: FDR’s Bitter Struggle to Modernize the Presidency”. FDR Presidential Library and Home, Hyde Park, N.Y.: FDR Presidential Library and Home.
Blumenthal, R. (2019, June 6). Treasures of the Archives. CUNY TV program Urban U. Newman Library Archives: CUNY TV.
Blumenthal, R. (2018, May 17). What Did New Yorkers Know About the Holocaust?. Forum: What Did New Yorkers Know About the Holocaust?. Hunter College: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Blumenthal, R. (2017, September 13). How Did Ordinary Citizens Become Murderers?. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Washington D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Blumenthal, R., Calco, S., & Webster Wagner, J. (2016, October 17). Making Democracy Work. Treasures of the IPA Collection. Washington D.C.: The George Washington University.
Other Scholarly Works
Blumenthal, R. (2022). Processing blog of the Insititute of Public Administration collection.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). James R. Leavelle, Detective at Lee Harvey Oswald's Side, Dies at 99.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). The Army is Looking for a Few Good Art Expertst.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). "Project Blue Book" is Based on a True U.F.O. Story. Here It Is..
Blumenthal, R. (2019). A Visit to the Unfathomable Past of Auschwitz.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). The Horrors of Auschwitz at a Museum in New York.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). A South Carolina Judge Writes a Book about a Predecessor, an Unsung Giant of Civil Rights Law.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). Wow! What is That? Navy Pilots Report Unidentified Flying Object.
Blumenthal, R. (2019). An Improbable Relic of Auschwitz: A Shofar that Defied the Nazis.
Blumenthal, R. (2018). An Adventure in Democracy.
Blumenthal, R., & Roff, S. (2018). Attention 1916 Shoppers: The Doctor is In.
Blumenthal, R. (2018). He's 'Old School' -- and Has the Dunce Chair to Prove It.
Blumenthal, R. (2018). My decades on the Nazi Trail.
Blumenthal, R. (2018). Why Government?.
Blumenthal, R. (2018). Who said It: Trump Or Gotti?.
Cooper, H., & Kean, L. (2017). Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program.
Blumenthal, R. (2017). Courtroom Confidential. 1-3.
Blumenthal, R., & Mashberg, T. (2017). Expert Opinion or Elaborate Ruse? Scrutiny for Scholars’ Role in Art Sales.
Blumenthal, R., & Mashberg, T. (2017). A Year After Raids, Asia Week New York Returns to the Spotlight.
Cooper, H., Kean, L., & Blumenthal, R. (2017). 2 Navy Airmen and an Object That ‘Accelerated Like Nothing I’ve Ever Seen’.
Blumenthal, R. (2016). His Guardian Angel Was Packing.
Blumenthal, R. (2016). In Berlin, Unraveling a Family Mystery.
Blumenthal, R. (2016). An Adventure in Democracy (blog posts).
Blumenthal, R. (2016). View From Space Hints at a New Viking Site in North America.
Severo, R., & Blumenthal, R. (2015). Theodore Bikel, Master of Versatility in Songs, Roles and Activism, Dies at 91.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). A 'Fame' Screening in Central Park Draws Alumni Extras.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). Old Cell Block at Baruch College Is No Barrier to Learning.
Blumenthal, R., & Mashberg, T. (2015). TED Prize Goes to Archaeologist Who Combats Looting With Satellite Technology.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). NASA Adds to Evidence of Mysterious Anxient Earthworks.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). Stanford Literacy Lab Maps 'Emotions in Victorian London'.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). New York's Fluoridation Fuss, 50 Years Later.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). Jean-Claude Baker, 'Son' of Josephine Baker, Is Remembered.
Blumenthal, R. (2015). Police Killing of Unarmed Man Agitated New York...in the 1850s.
Blumenthal, R. (2014). Reconstruction Planned for Infamous Townhouse in Greenwich Village: New Life for Greenwich Village Site of Weatherman Bombing.
Blumenthal, R. (2014). Protection Sought for Vast and Ancient Incan Road.
Neuman, W., & Blumenthal, R. (2014). New to the Archaeologist's Tool Kit: The Drone.
Wagner Webster, J. L., & Blumenthal, R. (2014). An Adventure in Democracy.
Blumenthal, R. (2014). The Ones Who Were Left Behind: Ghosts of Vietnam in Rory Kennedy's Documentary.
Blumenthal, R. (2013). A Veteran Reporter Reflects on a Distant War.
Blumenthal, R. (2013). Images of the Vietman War That Defined an Era.
Blumenthal, R. (2013). Chronicler of War Nears 100, and Counting.
Blumenthal, R., & Mashberg, T. (2012). Officials Are Set to Seize Antiquity.
Blumenthal, R. (1992). The Gotti Tapes.
Research Currently in Progess
Blumenthal, R.(n.d.). An Adventure in Democracy. In Progress.
studying the IPA Collection in the Baruch Library and writing blogposts on our findings
Blumenthal, R.(n.d.). Leaving No Stone(s) Unturned. In Progress.
A family Holocaust history, with the laying of commemorative Stolpersteine (memorial stones) in Berlin in Nov., 2015, and future article in The New York Times
Blumenthal, R.(n.d.). The Believer. In Progress.
Biography of Harvard Professor John E. Mack, noted for his research into UFOs and the Alien Abduction Phenomenon.
| Honor / Award | Organization Sponsor | Date Received | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eppy Award finalist | Editor & Publisher | 2019 | Competition for best university website news or event <a href="//feature.niiU">feature.</a> "An Adventure in Democracy" was a finalist |
| Eppy Award finalist | Editor & Publisher | 2016 | Finalist for "An Adventure in Democracy" website as Best Innovation Project Under 1 Million Unique Monthly Visitors |
| Townsend Harris CCNY Alumni Award | City College of New York | 2012-11-07 | Award to alumni for distinguished achievement. |
| John Simon Guggenheim fellowship | Guggenheim | 2001-04-17 | Award to work on biography of Warden Lewis E. Lawes, "Miracle at Sing Sing" |
| Columbia Journalism Alumni Award | Columbia Journalism School | 2001 | annual award to leading alumni |
| Worth Bingham Prize | Harvard Nieman Foundation | 1994-04-23 | Prize awarded by President Clinton at the White House Correspondents dinner and shared with Douglas Frantz for our New York Times series on air safety dangers at US Air. |
| The Pulitzer Prize Spot News Reporting | Columbia University | 1994-04-13 | member of Metro news team that shared the award for reporting the truck-bombing of the World Trade Center, Feb, 26, 1993. |
Department
| Committee Name | Position Role | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helped reach out to N.Y. Times to publicize Library collections | 9/1/2014 | Present |
College
| Committee Name | Position Role | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reached out to N.Y. Times to publicize Baruch | Present | ||
| Helped reach out to N.Y. Times to publicize Library collections | Present | ||
| Served on jury for Newsies! high school journalism awards | 11/3/2017 | ||
| Newsies! | judge in high school journalism contest | 11/3/2016 | |
| CCI | Faculty Mentor | 5/31/2015 |
Professional
| Organization | Position Role | Organization State | Organization Country | Start Date | End Date | Audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Society of the Silurians | Officer, Other Officer | 9/1/2014 | 6/30/2016 | |||
| The Society of the Silurians, Governer | 1/1/2015 | 6/30/2016 |
Public
| Organization | Position Role | Organization State | Organization Country | Start Date | End Date | Audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baruch Newsies Awards | judge | 12/10/2015 | Present | Regional |