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T. J. English Discusses the Irish Mob.

Author and Journalist T.J. English. His new book is "The Westies: Inside the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob." From the 1960's to the 1980's the mob led by James Coonan terrorized Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. Testimony from a former hitman of the gang, Mickey Featherstone, eventually broke up the gang. English's book has been called, "a grotesque chronicle" of the gang and "reminiscent of Poe and Dostoyevsky in subject and character," by New York Newsday. English's book is published by Putnam.

22:43
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Other segments from the episode on March 21, 1990

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, March 21, 1990: Interview with T. J. English; Interview with Dave McKenna; Interview with Heberto Padilla; Commentary on Californian accents.
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11:23

Heberto Padilla on his Life as an Exile.

Cuban-born poet Heberto Padilla (air-BARE-toe puh-DEE-uh). He was a friend of Castro and an early supporter of the revolution in Cuba. But later he became disillusioned and was imprisoned by Castro as a counter-revolutionary in 1971. He left Cuba in 1980 and has been living and teaching in the U.S. He has a new memoir, "Self Portrait of the Other," published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

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03:39

The Californian Accent(s).

Language commentator Geoffrey Nunberg has some thoughts on the different accents you'll find in California. Not all of them are as distinctive as those of a "Valley Girl." (originally broadcast 3/9/88).

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18:20

Irish Film Director Jim Sheridan

His best-known films include My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. His new film, In America, is based in part on his own experience immigrating to the United States with a family of four. They moved to Hell's Kitchen in New York, flat broke in the midst of the summer heat.

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Daughter of Warhol star looks back on a bohemian childhood in the Chelsea Hotel

Alexandra Auder's mother, Viva, was one of Andy Warhol's muses. Growing up in Warhol's orbit meant Auder's childhood was an unusual one. For several years, Viva, Auder and Auder's younger half-sister, Gaby Hoffmann, lived in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan. It was was famous for having been home to Leonard Cohen, Dylan Thomas, Virgil Thomson, and Bob Dylan, among others.

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This Romanian film about immigration and vanishing jobs hits close to home

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