Centerfolds and Covers | Catlife Photography | Deirdre Drohan Forbes

GOING UNDERCOVER IN A CULT

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:59:50 -0500

In 1979, the Daily News was running an expose of a group called the Church of Bible Understanding that made its living soliciting for dirty rugs to clean while engaging in aggressive street-corner prostelitizing. I was asked to see if I could gain the confidence of the leaders in order to document the inculcation of the young children in the cult's beliefs, which escape me now. I did, and the paper took the extraordinary step of running a special copyright line next to my byline, which was larger and bolder than usual. I also got a nice memo of congratulations from the executive editor, Mike O'Neill, and I soon forgot just how nervous I had been when I first walked in the door of the group.

The group was still around a few years ago, and still controversial, according to this story in the Scranton Times-Tribune.

FIRE IN THE BRONX

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:32:41 -0500

This fire was caused by a gas main rupture in the heart of the Bronx, Fordham Road and Sedgwick Ave., in July 1982. Flames were five stories high, and the fire erupted next to a playground, but no one was injured. As was sometimes the case in those days, a photographer could grab the entire centerfold with good spot news photographs.

HAIRRIED PETS

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:25:31 -0500

You knew, of course, that somehow I'd sneak in a picture story that involved pets. This one is about the New York School of Dog Grooming, which is still operating in Manhattan today. That fellow on the lower right looks like he's on the rack, but I assure you that no animal was harmed in the creation of this story. He's just getting a shampoo. The headline is evidence that I also wrote the text, although the puns are so excessive that I can probably blame my husband for some unsolicited help.

MIDWIFERY AT ROOSEVELT HOSPITAL

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:44:36 -0500

I caught wind of an innovative midwifery program at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan and talked to the woman who had started it, Barbara Brennan. By 1980, she had already delivered more than 7,000 babies. She found a couple willing to be photographed during their child's birth and early one morning, i got a call that the woman was in labor. I also got the okay to write the text—something that had become standard practice at some smaller, innovative newspapers but was not done often, if at all, at the Daily News.

I was so impressed with the experience that four years later we choose the Roosevelt midwives to deliver our own daughter, Carrick.