Legendary Newspaper Columnist Jimmy Breslin Dies At 88

Pulitzer-Prize winning New York City newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin died Sunday morning from complications of pneumonia. He was 88 years old, and his death was confirmed by his physician, William Cole.

Breslin was the tabloid voice of the little guy, famous for celebrating gritty New York City characters in newspaper columns, as well as several books of fiction and non-fiction, Often these characters lived in the less glamorous boroughs outside Manhattan. But Breslin was also a character in his own right.

Breslin was old school. He began his career as a copy boy working his way up to a hard -bitten reporter.

"At 5:00 at night at you couldn't see from one end of the city room to the other because of the smoke," Breslin said in a 2004 interview. "Tremendous scene. Looked like an old fight club. And the noise of the typewriters was loud, like subway train running through. And out of all this noise and smoke came nervous energy. Words in a newspaper are made of nervous energy."