By Tom Deignan

It was news that rocked the world of New York journalism.

Early this month, Jimmy Breslin announced that he would be writing his last regular column for New York Newsday. After over 40 years of tight deadlines and hard-hitting columns about the people who make New York City great, Breslin was going to stop writing his three-times-a-week column. 

But make no mistake about it: Jimmy Breslin is not going away.

“I’m still working, there’s no difference in my life,” Breslin told the Irish Voice this week.

Indeed, Breslin is still up at 4 a.m. everyday.

“It’s a horrible f**king habit, but that’s the one I get into, the gravelly-voiced columnist said.

In recent weeks, however, rather than banging out his regular column, Breslin now has more time to dedicate to a number of other projects.

For one thing, he is working on a short biography of Branch Rickey, the Queens native who worked for the Brooklyn Dodgers and brought Jackie Robinson into baseball in 1947. Almost two decades before Martin Luther King and millions of others were marching in the streets for civil rights, Breslin notes, Rickey had begun changing America. Breslin also says he is planning to make a TV special about his most recent book, the very controversial Church That Forgot Christ. In the book, Breslin traveled across the U.S. and the world chronicling the sexual abuse scandals, which have consumed the Catholic Church. The book gained lots of attention, equally positive and negative. Either way, it showed that Breslin could still touch a nerve. The book also marked a major personal turning point for Breslin. For decades, he disagreed with the Catholic Church about many things. But Breslin continued to attend mass every Sunday. Now, Breslin has ended even that practice. Breslin also says he is planning to write another novel as well as a play.

Breslin’s decision to stop writing a regular column was the result of a number of factors. True, there was the simple truth that his latest contract with Newsday has expired.

But there were other, more unfortunate factors.

“Well, there was a death in family,” Breslin says, alluding to his daughter Rosemary’s death earlier this year. Clearly, Breslin and his family (including wife Ronnie Eldrige, a former New York City Councilwoman) are still coping with this tragedy. Breslin’s daughter died after a long battle with a blood disease.

“Everybody’s alright, nobody’s alright,” Breslin says.

The upcoming holidays will be particularly tough for Breslin.

“They’re not going to be easy for me. I wish they wouldn’t come,” Breslin admits.

The combination of his daughter’s death, a desire to do bigger projects, and his contract’s expiration ultimately led Breslin to believe this was the time to stop the regular column.

There is also an unavoidable fact about doing a column for 40 years.

“There ain’t one column I haven’t done,” Breslin says, his voice rising in righteous indignation, as it often does.

A native of Ozone Park, Queens, Breslin has said that his Dad went out for a pack of cigarettes one night, when Jimmy was just 6, and never came back. Many say Breslin’s passion for the underdog is rooted in his Mom’s early struggles.

Breslin later attended St. Benedict Joseph Labre grammar school and John Adams High School. Breslin won a Pulitzer Prize at the Daily News in 1986 and has also written a dozen books, including the novel Table Money, a brilliant look at life among Queens Irish union men. His 1973 novel World Without End, Amen chronicled the civil rights movements in both America and Northern Ireland.

In the mid-1990s, Breslin wrote I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me, which explored the columnist’s terrifying brain surgery operation.

In 2001 published the unforgettable The Short, Sweet Life of Eduardo Guttierez, a brilliant look at the dark sides of Mexican immigration and New York politics.

These days, Breslin says his health is fine. So, don’t believe Jimmy Breslin is going away anytime soon.

Contact Sidewalks at tdeignan@irishvoice.com.