Beneath Grand Central, a Writer Found His Voice

Lee Stringer lived under Grand Central Station in New York City in the late 1980s. His memoir covers life on the street between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, a time when crack cocaine was widespread in the city. By the mid-1990s he was using it himself, according to the Literary Hub account by his friend and publisher Dan Simon, and the two later argued that Stringer first had to leave the street and the drug behind before he could write about that world.

The turn came through a treatment programme and, afterwards, two consecutive six-month stays at Project Renewal. He also found a place in print. He wrote for Street News, the newspaper sold by homeless vendors on the city's trains, with a column called Tales from the Rails and an advice section called Ask Homey. Simon first read his work in 1995, after buying a copy for a dollar on the number 1 train.

Stringer later became the paper's editor. For a time he slept under his desk in its offices near 43rd Street and Ninth Avenue.

His first book, Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street, was published by Seven Stories Press at the end of June 1998, with an introduction by Kurt Vonnegut. Simon calls it a near masterpiece and describes Stringer as arguably the most important formerly homeless American writer since Jack London. In 2023 the book reached its 25th anniversary.

Simon wrote the article to ask for help for his friend. Around mid-2021 Stringer was diagnosed with smoldering myeloma, a condition that cannot be cured. After treatment in Little Rock, Arkansas, that began in December 2021, he responded well and returned home in January 2022. By 2023 he was working on two book projects, could walk short distances, and a crowdfunding campaign had been launched to support him.