Happy Birthday, Linda Ellerbee!
Today we celebrate the birthday of journalist and Village resident Linda Ellerbee.
To people of my generation, Linda Ellerbee is best known for her work on “Nick News with Linda Ellerbee,” a children’s and teenagers’ news program, which ran from 1992-2015. This was an opportunity she treasures, as according to Ellerbee: “I was honored when I was named the host of Nick News. The show will be about kids and their everyday lives.” However, Linda Ellerbee was not just the host of Nick News, but has been working in the journalism field since the 1970’s, working on programs such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, and a host on NBC News Overnight. For her work, she has been awarded the NOW NYC’s Women of Power & Influence Award, a Peabody Award, and the Paul White Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Ellerbee released her autobiography, And So It Goes, in 1986, a second memoir, Move on: Adventures in the Real World, in 1991, and a third, Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table, in 2005. She even authored an eight-part series of Girl Reporter books for young people. For GVSHP, we are honored to have included a piece of her writing in our book, Greenwich Village Stories: A Collection of Memoirs. In Ellerbee’s section, she recalls her very first day in the Greenwich Village after she moved here in 1978.
“The very first day I moved to Greenwich Village (July 1978), a tourist stopped me on the street and asked me for directions to Washington Square. I thought to myself: I must look like a person who lives in Greenwich Village.”
And since that first encounter, Ellerbee has become that person, reflecting on an ever-changing neighborhood that always seems to hold onto its character and charm.
“But as there is no constant but change, it’s not surprising that my Greenwich Village refuses to stay fixed in any orbit. This is both pleasing to me, and sad, and confusing.”
Above all though, Ellerbee loves the Village because it is a neighborhood with a sense of camaraderie.
“It remains, in spite of everything, a neighborhood. We know or at least recognize each other, many of us. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we party. Often we take care of one another.”
If you would like to read more of Ellerbee’s Village story, and the other contributions to our book, you can pick up a copy of Greenwich Village Stories here.