Leaving Story Avenue: My journey from the projects to the front page

Paul LaRosa was a clueless kid growing up in a Bronx housing project when he discovered there might be more to life. As the projects went from idyllic to dangerous, Paul made his way to The New York Daily News where he became a copyboy and later a reporter. The News was still the largest circulating newspaper in the country but it was in the last, outrageous and often hilarious, gasp of The Front Page Era. Reporters wallowed in a swirl of alcohol, hookers and bad behavior but none of it stopped them from delivering an electric and engaging paper every day. Paul, a naïf trapped in a Tabloid World, struggled to adapt. As a reporter, Paul had a front row seat to one of the most harrowing five year periods in New York’s history: the city’s brush with bankruptcy, the terror reign of Son of Sam, a riotous blackout and the murder of John Lennon. Thanks to The News, Paul was there every step of the way.