Thursday, August 28, 2008

Who's Who In Knickerbocker Village History: Joe Bruno

Joe lived in Knickerbocker from 1963-1996 and owned Bruno's parking lot on 31-35 Monroe Street from 1969-1996. He now resides in Sarasota, Florida. Joe's Amazon bio:
A Vietnam veteran with the Navy, Joe Bruno started out in the newspaper business in the mid 1970's as a sports columnist for the New York Tribune. During the same period, Bruno was associate editor for Boxing Illustrated and monthly contributor to Ring Magazine. In 1986, Bruno moved his sports columns to the Times Herald Record in Middletown, New York. His articles have also appeared in Penthouse Magazine, Boxing Today, Boxing World, International Boxing Digest, Referee Magazine and Inside Boxing. His peers elected Bruno vice president of the Boxing Writers of America from 1982-86, and vice president of the International Boxing Writers from 1980-89. In 1986, Bruno received an award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism from Ring#8, and in 1987 the Best Boxing Writer Award from the American Association For the Improvement of Boxing. From 1997-98 Bruno was sports director and on-air radio personality for WQSA 1220 in Sarasota, Florida. At present, Bruno's articles also appear at cyberboxingzone, TravelGolf.com, Zooba.com and Boxing World Magazine.

from an Amazon reviewer of his book, Angel Of Death:
By Jean Kilgallen (New York, NY (USA))
I know Mr. Bruno's writings from his boxing columns .... His boxing columns are always caustic and quite funny. In Angel of Death, Mr. Bruno writes about a serial killer loose in New York City. This killer is unique in the fact that the victims are all drug dealers. Bill Kelly, the detective in charge of finding the killer, has a daughter who's a drug addict and the implication here is that Detective Kelly may not try too hard to find the killer after all. That is, if Kelly isn't the killer serial himself. The brilliant cast of characters range from Kelly's mentor, Catholic priest Father O'Brien, a crusty old coot for sure, to NY City Police Commissioner Abraham Williams, a man obsessed with becoming the next mayor. The bad guy drug dealers may be the most interesting characters in the book. They including Willie Boy Walker, a stone killer from the island of Jamaica, to Lily Tang, a bisexual Asian beauty with a heart of stone. I highly recommend this book to mystery lovers, and the laughs Mr. Bruno injects throughout the book in no way takes away from the horror and the suspense.

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