Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

In this new kind of interview show, Randy Cohen talks to guests about a person, a place, and a thing they feel strongly about. The result: surprising stories from great talkers. Learn more at http://personplacething.org/

Janine Barchas, Mary Crawford 01/10/2026

Janine Barchas, Mary Crawford These Jane Austen scholars note that she long had a diverse readership, but in post-war America that changed. “Publishers pushed her to women specifically. Just like they made pink Cadillacs, they made pink Janes.” (Caution: do not read and drive.) Produced with the Grolier Club. Music: Reid Jenkins. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39682250

Paola Antonelli 01/03/2026

Paola Antonelli The Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA enjoys work that surprises, up to a point. “I don’t like gigantic provocations, I like small provocations, the ones that sneak up on you.” Jolted awake, not pummeled into submission. Presented with the Viñoly Foundation. Music: Ethel—Ralph Farris, Kip Jones, Corin Lee, Dorothy Lawson. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39599070

James Carpenter 12/27/2025

James Carpenter Celebrated for his use of light, this architect is moved by that from distant stars: “Those photons are around us—we can’t see them—but they are fundamentally carrying the history of the universe.” We spoke at 7 World Trade Center, a building he worked on, through the generosity of Silverstein Properties. Music: Valerie and Ben Turner, DBA Piedmont Bluz. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39541395

Jonathan Bank 12/20/2025

Jonathan Bank The heirs of deceased playwrights can be finicky about new productions—Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller—but the head of the Mint Theater has a different experience. “What I tend to run into from estates is, ‘Really? You’re interested in that old play? Great!’” How to revive neglected plays. Music: Sean Hagerty /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39480855

Alan Fausel 12/13/2025

Alan Fausel The curator and executive director of the AKC Museum of the Dog recalls one owned by Charles Dickens. “It was a Maltese that was so flea-ridden, they regularly had to shave him and bathe him to get rid of all the fleas.” The dog, not Dickens. I think. Dogs in art, ethics, and history. Music: Dorian’s Room—Jonathan Stutz, Madeline Nickerson, Fae Hartt. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39394725

Peggy Gavan 12/06/2025

Peggy Gavan We tweaked our format to Cat Cat Cat for the author of The Cat Men of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendship in Old New York. “A lot of my stories I get from going to the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in Westchester County.” She also leads historic cat walking tours in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan—about cats not for cats. Although . . . /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39306320

Ydanis Rodriguez 11/29/2025

Ydanis Rodriguez The head of New York City’s Department of Transportation sees his task as building an egalitarian city. “Transportation is a human right, but in the past most of the investment in transportation didn’t go to the working class.” Cars, bikes, and social justice. Presented with the Department of Records and Information Services. Music: Hubby Jenkins. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39203870

ChatGPT 11/22/2025

ChatGPT A conversation with the basic, free, web version, using its default voice. Like my human guests, it chose the three topics, and I did just the usual light editing. Good news: it says, “I’m on your side, not on any destructive path.” Bad news: this is what the space aliens say in every sci-fi movie just before they try to destroy the earth. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39133255

Brian Kelley 11/15/2025

Brian Kelley We tweaked our format to Tree Tree Tree for this arboreal photographer, who specializes in the immense and the ancient—2,000 years old, 3,000 years old—many of which he’s archived at the . The big and the beautiful. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/39043945

Ron Brown, Arcell Cabuag 11/08/2025

Ron Brown, Arcell Cabuag Brown, the founder of Evidence, a dance company, says, “You’ll see yourself on stage.” I hope he’s speaking figuratively. Cabuag, its associate artistic director agrees. Presumably. How else has the company flourished for forty years? A conversation at the Billie Holiday Theatre, where they’ll perform on November 14 and 15. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38959360

Santo Loquasto 11/01/2025

Santo Loquasto This set and costume designer worked on 80 Broadway shows, 30 films, several operas, and innumerable dance works. Here’s a tip he gleaned collaborating with Paul Taylor: “Give a man 17 chairs and see what he comes up with.” Good advice for any part of life. Presented with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38872760

Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto 10/25/2025

Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto For decades after graduating, these architects avoided Cooper Union. “We would detour three or four blocks or else the PTSD would kick in.” Apparently it used to be like The Paper Chase or Whiplash but with less compassion. Presented with The National Academy of Design. Music: Karl Schwarz. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38777570

Anthony Wood 10/18/2025

Anthony Wood This preservationist, a wily veteran of decades of urban campaigns, is happy in his work: “I’ve never regretted being involved in saving a landmark. I’ve only regretted the ones I couldn’t save.” I envy his serenity. I regret nearly everything. Presented with the New York Preservation Archive Project. Music: Adrian Untermyer. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38630530

Will Power 10/11/2025

Will Power When this playwright’s grandfather faced a tough decision, “He sought the advice of Paul Robeson.” Of course he did. Who wouldn’t? And it all worked out fine. Fine-ish. A writer, his family, his community. Presented with the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Music: Emery Mason, Melissa Mosley. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38549750

Nilka Martell 10/04/2025

Nilka Martell She and her neighbors—untrained, uncredentialed—revived the Bronx River and are taking on the hideous Cross Bronx Expressway. “We’re just a group of Bronxites with ambitious ideas.” Presented with the Architectural League, in conjunction with the exhibition Cross Bronx/Living Legend at the Bronx River Art Center. Music: Jeremy Bosch, Román Lajara. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38465180

Steve Clay and M. C. Kinniburgh 09/28/2025

Steve Clay and M. C. Kinniburgh “The least interesting thing about a book is its contents, assert the curators of the recent Grolier Club exhibition After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960-2025. Now my head hurts. Seldom have I felt older or enjoyed a conversation more. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38381285

Luca Vignelli 09/20/2025

Luca Vignelli In 1972, his parents, Massimo and Lella, designed a map of the New York subway system. Many people hated it. I loved it. (I have one framed on my living room wall.) The MTA soon withdrew it. Now it’s back, slightly revised. Good news in bleak times. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38292125

Janis Siegel 09/13/2025

Janis Siegel As a member of Manhattan Transfer, she won ten Grammy awards, but “I was not going to be a singer at all, actually; I was going to be a nurse.” Medicine’s loss, music’s gain. Guitar: Sean Harkness. Presented with The Village Trip. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38207145

Jamie Bernstein 09/06/2025

Jamie Bernstein Her father, Leonard Bernstein, thought “that if he could write a good enough song, maybe he could stop war.” Not insane, aspiring. “It’s ridiculously idealistic, but that was his impetus.” Tales of a famous father. Music: Amy Burton, accompanied by John Musto. Presented with , whose annual festival begins September 19. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/38113590

Jonathan Capehart 07/26/2025

Jonathan Capehart He’s a member of The Washington Post’s editorial board, a commentator on the PBS NewsHour, anchor of The Weekend on MSNBC, author of Yet Here I Am. He is liberal in his politics, conservative in his dress. “Absolutely. I love a good, wild outfit, on someone else.” /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/37562325

Bobby Sanabria 07/19/2025

Bobby Sanabria When this drummer was a kid, his father introduced him to an array of music, from Tito Puente to Dobie Gray. “He bought himself a La-Z-Boy chair. He would sit there after dinner, smoke a cigarette, and zone out listening to music.” Bad for the lungs, great for the soul. The making of a musician. Presented with the Bronx Music Hall. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/37466025

Katty Kay 07/12/2025

Katty Kay She’s a special correspondent for BBC Studios, a regular contributor to MSNBC, and co-host, with Anthony Scaramucci, of the podcast The Rest Is Politics. “People call journalists curious; I think it’s just nosiness.” A higher form of nosiness! /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/37384340

Jonathan Brent 07/05/2025

Jonathan Brent The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research makes many of the 24 million items in its archive available online, but there’s an “electric moment of actually touching a document,” says its executive director. “My first was when Lenin’s party card was put in my hand.” (Patrons are urged not to touch the documents. This is not some sort of scholarly petting zoo.) Music: Jardena Gertler-Jaffe, Bethany Pietroniro. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/37288765

Andrea Patterson 06/28/2025

Andrea Patterson This Obie-winning actor created the role of Helen in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Memnon. “It is definitely under-utilized. Underappreciated.” Greek mythology in modern theater? That too, but here she refers to the peanut in American cooking. See her in Marcus Garvey Park throughout July. Working. Not just lounging around. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/37201655

David Levering Lewis 06/21/2025

David Levering Lewis Decades ago, he shook hands with W. E. B. Du Bois, born in 1868. It seems impossible, but then again Einstein was a contemporary of Billy the Kid. Lewis went on to write a Pultzer-Prize winning biography of Du Bois. Einstein went on to be Einstein. Presented with the Maysles Documentary Center. Music: Henrique Prince. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/37097485

Amale Andraos, Dan Wood 06/14/2025

Amale Andraos, Dan Wood These principals of the architectural firm WORKac found it challenging to design their own home. The psychological complexity of domestic life? The culmination of years of thought? “The hardest thing about designing our house was that we just haven’t designed a lot of houses.” Produced with the Center for Architecture. Music: Rashad Brown. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/37009600

Michael Novak 06/07/2025

Michael Novak The artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company summarizes his aesthetic: “The curtain goes up, twenty minutes happen, the curtain comes down, and it is transformative.” Easy to say, brilliant to achieve. And they do. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/36900515

Mitch Epstein 05/31/2025

Mitch Epstein He’s worked from Hanoi to Berlin to America’s old-growth forests. “As a photographer, it’s only in getting lost that you move forward.” As a civilian, when I get lost, I pretty much just get lost. Another reason to admire him. Produced with the National Academy of Design. Music: Stephanie Jenkins. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/36798775

Gregory Mosher 05/24/2025

Gregory Mosher He led the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and pretty much created theater at Lincoln Center. “The happiest moments of my life have been in rehearsal rooms.” Well, yeah. In there with him? David Mamet, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett. Sequentially not simultaneously. Presented with Hunter College. /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/36697580

Michael Sparer 05/17/2025

Michael Sparer This lawyer works on health policy at Columbia’s Mailman School: “Public health in a certain sense is about balancing, the rights we have as individuals with the needs of society to preserve, protect, and promote the health of the population.” Not a bad approach to democracy in general. Music: Caitlin Warbelow /episode/index/show/personplacething/id/36601605

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

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