'U' alumnus savors Pulitzer book honor

By Nika Schulte
Daily News Editor

During his last two years as a University student, Ted Burrows spent late nights taking history notes in order to study for his classes.

After graduating in 1964, Burrows devoted 20 more years of evenings and weekends plowing through texts in order to complete "Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898," which won a Pulitzer Prize last month.

Burrows joins more than 18 other authors who either attended or graduated from the University and have been awarded with the prize.

While he started at the University with an interest in astrophysics, he decided to switch his major during his junior year when he realized he was more interested in classes that explored topics such as medieval history.

Burrows, a history professor at Brooklyn College, said finding the time to write the 1,350 page book with Mike Wallace, a history professor at John Jay College in New York, was challenging.

"It was really tough," Burrows said. "I had papers and dissertations to read and students to meet."

Burrows said although the length of the process made his friends tire of asking about the book's progress, he was motivated to continue because he felt the historical texts on New York were lacking.

"There wasn't anything that had been written that was worth a damn," Burrows said, explaining that the texts he had seen were addressed to scholars instead of a general audience and failed to incorporate certain social issues such as racism.

A second volume of the book is being produced, but Burrows said his work on the project will be limited since he specializes on the 17th and 18th centuries. Burrows said he intends to work on projects concerning the history of corruption in American cities before 1800.

Despite his accomplishment, Burrows said his success still hasn't sunk in.

"I pinch myself, it's still hard to believe," Burrows said.

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