Mark Mooney’s last byline

If you are reading this, that means that I am no longer here. The prostate cancer finished toying with me on October 6, 2017. I was 66 and glad to be done with the damn disease.

Len Richmond, 70, the whole of him dwarfed the sum of his parts

Len embraced his fascinating life as a compulsive buffet of smells and tastes, escapades and thrills, convictions and neuroses - once earning him the description of being "rather like a narcotic Tigger." He was hilarious, charming, fearless, brilliant, generous, loving, thoughtful, sweet, soulful, giving, entitled, demanding, intense, obsessive, self-centered and utterly exasperating. But Len never permitted his life to be lived on anything short of his own terms. At the end of the day, that's more than most of us ever get.

Jason Sheftell,46, well-loved New York City journalist

He walked fast, talked fast, did everything fast. Jason Sheftell was a human whirlwind, racing through each day at 100 mph, savoring every minute of his existence. People like that usually have time for no one. Yet, Jason had time for everyone. And that is why, after news spread of his passing on Monday, the outpouring of emotion on social media was so profound, the grief so deep. (H/T Peter Elikann)

"A typewriter-banging rewrite man"

Newspapering was ideal for Mr. Kaufman. He was an insatiable schmoozer, loved to travel and wrote fast against a deadline. In 40 years with The Times, he was a typewriter-banging rewrite man, a metropolitan reporter, the newspaper’s bureau chief in Africa, India, Canada and Poland, a deputy foreign editor, a correspondent in Albany and a columnist.

Read all about him here.