Hugh Ryan

Freelance writer

A Tiffany Gem, Restored to Glory

First published on The New York Times, December 21, 2012. Read the original here.
IRVINGTON, N.Y. — Painted in gold leaf, the words “Knowledge is Power” adorn the entrance to the reading room in the Town Hall of Irvington. The lettering is elaborate, the phrase itself like an incantation. As a child, I [...]

Excerpt from The Postmodern Memoir

First published in The Writer’s Chronicle, March/April 2012. Purchase the original here.
As the literary descendent of biography and journalism, it is no wonder that memoir (as a genre), has a rocky relationship to the truth. Like the artistic child born to scientific parents, it defies expectations. On the one hand, it is reportage, expected to [...]

Who Says Machines Must Be Useful?

First published in The New York Times on January 6, 2012. Read the original (with videos!) here.
ON the roof of a small row house in Brooklyn, a black powder fuse flared brightly against the gray sky. Hissing and sparking, it burned through a platform installed inside a repurposed Ikea bookshelf, sending four [...]

Schmekel, a Band Born as a Laugh

First published in The New York Times on November 25, 2011. Read the original here.
THE basement auditorium of the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side is a sincere space. Big, brown and bare, it suggests a school gym, a place for officially sanctioned fun — which made a recent concert by [...]

Where Novices and Artists Indulge the Quilter Within

First published in The New York Times on September 29, 2011. Read the original here.
THE stores are already stuffed with polar fleece, Gore-Tex and Thinsulate. But as temperatures dip, one unassuming shop in Midtown Manhattan has everything needed to weather an old-fashioned winter in the oldest of ways — though you should start sewing now. [...]

Is It Summer? Time to Party at the Museum

First published on The New York Times on July7, 2011. Read the original here.
THREE young girls zipped across the crowded dance floor, dresses fluttering, as a new D.J. took the stage. Their parents watched from beneath a small grove of plum and oak trees, drinking beers and discussing the exhibition of Ryan Trecartin videos. Nearby, [...]

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