Bob Rosenthal was Allen Ginsberg's secretary for twenty years until Ginsberg's death, and currently is a chief adviser to the Ginsberg estate. A poet and writer, he is currently working on a chronicle of the business of Ginsberg. He taught English language and literature at a high school in New York City for many years.
“A deeply humane, often hilarious and ultimately moving little treatise on intimacy.” —Sadie Stein, The New York Times Book Review “I first read Cleaning Up New York when it was published in the 1970s and I’ve been recommending it to people ever since. It’s one of those great, rare works the style of which—immaculate, with unexpected descriptor glints, and funny, low-key frankness—perfectly embodies its subject, namely the revelation of soft shine in humble corners of New York. it’s a miracle and you don’t have to be clean to appreciate it.” —Richard Hell “Bob Rosenthal’s Cleaning Up New York is a perfect little gem of a book. There is not one wasted or misplaced word in this chronicle, which manages to contain an awful lot of the world in its few pages. It’s not only about the city and its range of denizens, but also about the art of living, the satisfaction of humble work, the way poetry arises from daily experience. and if that weren’t enough, it also includes really useful advice about cleaning!” —Lucy Sante “[Cleaning Up New York] is one of the great neglected books of the 1970s, a classic short essay...it’s brilliant and playful...and eminently practical, too.”—The Endless Bookshelf blog Praise for Straight Around Allen “Bob Rosenthal’s unique, remarkable, and candid recollections of two decades working as secretary for Allen...are, quite frankly, essential reading.”—The Allen Ginsberg Project blog