The Villager, NY
Downtown Express
Aug 19 2005
Soldier with a pen’ comes home to Village a last time
By Lincoln Anderson
Steven Vincent came back to the East Village from Iraq last week,
about the time he had been planning to.
Vincent, 49, had intended to come home to E. 11th St. this month to
work on a book on the historic city of Basra, from where he had been
reporting. But on Aug. 2 he was kidnapped and shot to death by masked
gunmen in that city, becoming the first American journalist to be
attacked and killed in the Iraq war. It’s believed his exposes on the
rise of Shiite fundamentalists and insurgents in Basra are what led
to his death.
Vincent was waked at Peter Jarema Funeral home on E. Seventh St. last
Saturday and Sunday, followed by a funeral Monday at Middle
Collegiate Church on Second Ave. The church was filled to capacity
with his friends and family.
As he lay in an open wooden coffin – the hole from the fatal bullet
covered over on his head by a mortician’s artifice – Vincent’s two
best friends spoke, recalling him as a man of great intellect and
provocative ideas with a thirst to always learn about life.
Jon Roth, who knew Vincent growing up in California from when they
were boys and who was his college roommate, said Vincent defied
categories.
“He was a soldier whose weapon was the pen,” he said. “Steve’s words
explored the murky ambiguity between conservative and liberal. He
often surprised or annoyed people when he went against their
perceived wisdom.”
Roth noted that Vincent, in everything he did, interacted with
people, whether it was hitchhiking to New York from the West Coast or
working as a late-night taxi driver or guard at the Met. He called
him a quintessential American – son of an Armenian mother and a
father who boasted U.S. Civil War veteran ancestors – in search of
the melting-pot dream.
Choking back emotion, his voice filled with rage, Roth turned to look
at Vincent and said, “The evil man who killed him could still his
voice – but not his vision, not his words.”
Verne Dertimanis, another college friend, recalled days at U.C.
Berkeley, road trips and digging the Clash, Pistols and Springsteen.
Ultimately, Vincent found the Bay Area “too confining” and left for
New York City.
“He was an American hero,” he said.
In the coffin with Vincent were mementoes to accompany him on his
final journey: Frank Sinatra CD’s, a cigar, Bombay Sapphire gin,
books by Nietzsche and Jung, a Spider-man comic, flash cards – like
the ones he had been using to work on his French, Arabic and Latin.
“Steven, like Jesus, was murdered doing what he thought necessary,”
said Jacqueline Lewis, Middle Collegiate Church’s senior minister.
She noted Vincent’s probing mind had kept her on her toes in theology
classes she led.
Lisa Ramaci, Vincent’s widow, his parents and sister gave him last
kisses goodbye before the coffin lid was closed.
Throughout the service, Ramaci clutched an American flag folded
military style into a triangle. Afterwards she said, no, it wasn’t
from the government, but from the funeral home.
“The government gave me nothing,” she said, “except his embalmed
body.”
The crowd was diverse, reflecting Vincent’s wide-ranging interests.
There were people from the art world, including from “Art and
Antiques” magazine, where he formerly worked, and from Sotheby’s,
where Ramaci worked. One of the twin hosts from “Antiques Roadshow”
was among them. There were the neighbors and community members and
former Councilmember Antonio Pagan whom Vincent worked with in the
early and mid-1990s to fight for cleaning up Tompkins Square Park and
making the streets safer. Vincent was one of Pagan’s most vocal
supporters. There were even some people from the fetish world, still
another interest of Vincent’s.
“Steven was my escort to many an event,” said one women wearing
tight, black latex and tall high heels, after the service.
When he was writing for the East Villager, helping Pagan and serving
briefly as a member of Community Board 3, Vincent had famously
sparred – once again, in words – with the East Village squatters and
anarchists over Tompkins Square Park, the homeless, the squats and
quality of life.
Last Monday morning, a police detail was posted in front of the
church. An officer said they were there not exactly at the request of
Ramaci, but that she had made a phone call, since there were “some
people that didn’t like” Vincent that she didn’t want to disrupt
things. But there were no disruptions.
Vincent was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His friends and
Ramaci plan to plant a tree for him and buy one of the paving stones
that are being used to raise funds for the park to be engraved for
him in Tompkins Square Park.