Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen

They spent much of their professional lives as public defenders in the Bronx, working in an unjust system, and its flaws persist. Discouraged? Nah. “If you’re trying to solve a problem you can solve in your lifetime, you’re thinking too small.”

Poet, theologian, host of the On Being Studios podcast Poetry Unbound, he has a favorite pencil but is not a fanatic: “I use anything to get the idea down. I have written with pens and pencils; I have written on the back of sick bags on airplanes.” Computers. Cellphones. No crayon, but he’s not above it. Produced with Columbia University’s School of Nursing. Music: Jefferson Hamer.

The president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is proud that it is a treasure for the entire city and maybe even prouder of its ties to its local community: “The neighborhood is deep into us, and we’re deep into the neighborhood.” Like roots. Or vines. Or some other sort of metaphoric floral something. Music: Craig Harris

Music offers more than aesthetic pleasure, asserts this conductor: “Music has the power to transport its audiences to a time that no longer exists.” A gentler time, without covid or attack drones or Elon Musk. He’s founded a chamber orchestra, Parlando, on that belief.

Writer of “The Morning” newsletter for The New York Times and author of Ours Was the Shining Future, he admires A. Philip Randolph, who championed this idea: “Collective action around labor and workers is the most powerful vehicle for changing this country.” The echoes and implications of social class.

I’m against nose jobs for ordinary noses (like mine), but this journalist, who’s covered cosmetic surgery for decades, is less judgmental: “I believe everybody is free to do what they want with their body.” Incidentally, she’s just turned 96 and looks fabulous.

This former Manhattan borough historian admires the enormously accomplished, nearly forgotten, 19th-century New Yorker Andrew H. Green: “He is often compared to Robert Moses. In a favorable way.” To be fair, so is my cat, who’s destroyed only my sofa but no entire neighborhood.

As a young actor (Local Hero, Crossing Delancey, Animal House) he played Goldberg in The Birthday Party, overseen by Harold Pinter himself. One speech was particularly opaque. “I had no idea what it meant, but to say these words was to be Isaac Stern on the violin.” Learning to trust the writer. Produced with the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

This interior designer is celebrated for her work on low-income housing projects, but not universally celebrated. Sometimes a client resists: “You’re making it too nice for these people; these people will tear it up.” Bringing good design to “these people.” Music: Mireya Ramos, Sinhue Padilla. Presented with the Van Alen Institute.

This Israeli-American architect likes buildings, of course, but it’s the spaces between buildings that he loves. “It’s a blur between public and private, it’s a stage, it’s sort of an in-between territory, a threshold to the city, a place of in-between.” Produced with the Center for Architecture. Music: Liz Hanley