Jimmy Breslin (1928â2017) was a Pulitzer Prizeâwinning journalist and one of most prominent columnists in the United States. Born in Queens, New York, Breslin started working in New York City newsrooms in the 1940s. He began as a columnist in 1963, when he won national attention by covering John F. Kennedyâs assassination from the emergency room in the Dallas Hospital and, later, from the point of view of the Presidentâs gravedigger at Arlington Cemetery. He ran for citywide office on a secessionist platform, befriended and was beaten up by mobsters, and received letters from the Son of Sam during the serial killerâs infamous 1977 spree. Known as one of the best-informed journalists in the city, Breslinâs years of insightful reporting won him a Pulitzer in 1986, awarded for âcolumns which consistently champion ordinary citizens.â Although he stopped writing his weekly column for Newsday in 2004, Breslin continued to write books, having produced nearly two dozen in his lifetime. He passed away in 2017 at the age of eighty-eight.