Julie Lobbia, unapologetically, was all up in my face the first time we met, one day in 1990. It sucks.” And it did, and it still does.
Her mother was at the dedication, and she turned to me and said how nice it was, and I, channeling Julie’s frankness and audacity, replied, “It’s nice, but it sucks.” Her mom, who had the same steadfast intelligence as her daughter, nodded. I like to think of her that way, speeding down the East River Drive, her beautiful auburn hair streaming behind her.Ī little more than a year and a half after she died, one of those commemorative street signs that grace corners in New York City was erected at Herald Square with her name on it. Just before she passed away, when she knew that the situation was hopeless, she went for a wild ride without her helmet. Julie was diagnosed just a few days after 9/11, which only went to prove that tragedy could strike big and small, that no horror is like any other and yet they are all alike in many ways. What she wanted was to do the most good for the most people in the shockingly short time she had on Earth. With my usual warmth and tact, I snarled, “Julie, you are not supposed to solve their problems yourself!” “I can do whatever I want!” she shouted back.
I remember seeing her coming out of Kmart once, her arms piled high with blankets and pillows she had just bought for an indigent family she had written about. She loved ribald songs-one in particular, which involved a faintly lascivious dance, still makes me laugh. She may have been saintly, but she was never sanctimonious. And she did occasionally let me take her shopping for new things. Which is not to say that Julie didn’t have her own style-she would often change in her office from her bike clothes into one of her trademark thrift store dresses. Though I was the head of the union and cared mightily about the rights of my fellow workers, I have always operated on the Lynnie, you deserve a present! principle to get me through the day. She was a serious investigative reporter on the housing beat, with many awards to her credit, dedicating her life to exposing corruption and venality. Julie was of the if-you-buy-something-you-have-to-give-something-away school of acquisition. I was the fashion editor of the Voice and I loved to shop.
She was a demon cyclist I was a clumsy oaf who hadn’t been on a bike since elementary school. On the surface, we didn’t have much in common. We made friends slowly, but like so many relationships that get off to a rocky start, our bond ended up being deep and profound, or at least I like to think so. She married Joe I didn’t go to the wedding, I am ashamed to say.
#LET ME SEE BENEATH YOUR BEAUTIFUL THE VOICE PLUS#
Plus she was tiny and exquisite, fearless and intrepid-and given all that, who wanted her around? She had caught the eye of my oldest and dearest friend at the Voice, Joe Jesselli, and despite whatever feminist principles I mouthed, I was jealous, and annoyed. So many of those who Julie wrote about and advocated for-the evicted, the homeless, the cheated-as well as the politicians and judges whom she questioned and challenged and demanded more of, along with those who worked with her in the Voice’s rabbit warren cubicles, have never forgotten her.īelow are a few testaments to a journalist who set a bar the rest of us still look up to. She died a bit more than two months later, on Thanksgiving, at age 43. Lobbia, who wrote the Towers & Tenements column detailing the immoral-when not outright criminal-dealings of crooked landlords and the politicians who enabled them, had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Contents page of the November 2021 Village Voice print edition Photo courtesy of Joseph Jesselliīack in the fall of 2001, the city was still reeling from the 9/11 attacks when workers at the Village Voice heard that one of our own was engaged in her own desperate struggle.
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