Columnist Phil Reisman looked back on the “Year of Absurdity,” giving a “Golden Typo” Award to Harrison’s Laura Steins, a single mom who claimed she was struggling to live on $300,000 a year during the recession. Golden Typo winners are bestowed upon “the hapless and ham-handed whose outrageous forays into the local news pages inspired us to apply for New Zealand citizenship, or at least consider moving to Connecticut,” Reisman writes.
Steins was featured in August in a front-page Washington Post story, titled “Squeaking by on $300,000,” which drew outrage and sympathy from locals in Rye and Harrison.
Ted Carroll, a private-equity investor and lifelong Rye resident, said the story wrongly generalized locals as “elitist” and “shallow.”
“I was offended that this stereotype was selected by a national newspaper to represent Rye, N.Y.,” he told The Journal News at the time.
Others were less hesitant to draw conclusions.
“I think it depends on how you choose to live,” said Marie Altmeyer, a retired teacher and 40-year Rye resident. “I can’t feel sorry for her for living on $300,000, but I can’t judge her, either.”
(Washington Post photo by Linda Davidson)
