When I first moved to New York and was a lowly assistant at HarperCollins, I had the good fortune to find my cubicle right outside the office of David Rakoff.  In those early days of knowing David, I thought, “This is why I moved toNew York– to be exposed to this kind of wit and quirk and brilliance.” I didn’t realize that I would never again be exposed to that kind of wit and quirk and brilliance. It was once in a lifetime, just as David was one in a million.  I am so sorry today to hear of his death.

From Publishers Marketplace:  Humorist/essayist David Rakoff, 47, died Thursday night inManhattan after a three-year battle with cancer. A frequent contributor to This American Life, Rakoff authored the essay collections FRAUD (2001)DON’TGETTOO COMFORTABLE (2005) and HALF-EMPTY (2010). In a statement Rakoff’s longtime editor at Doubleday, svp, publisher Bill Thomas, said: “The world is a little less kind and a little less beautiful today. There were hundreds of reasons to love David. He was of course incredibly charming, witty and learned, a brilliant raconteur with the quickest mind imaginable, but most of all he was a generous soul. Though his life was cut infuriatingly short, it was rich beyond measure.”

Here’s David on the state of NYC, as interviewed by Gothamistin 2007:

“All my dreams are incredibly naive. I have a child’s understanding of market forces and real estate, but I’ve been despondent over the city’s extreme affluence. I understand how hospitable New York can be to the aspiring hedge funder, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how young people with dreams of making art are even managing to come here any more. And without them, the city will become like everywhere else. More subways, fewer cars, maybe? Affordable housing, blah blah, perhaps a more mindful approach before we efface the neighborhoods and districts that provided specific services and made the city unique and perfect and replace them with open-plan loft condos all sporting the same Wenge-cabinetry kitchens, for god’s sake. New York is breaking my heart. I’ve often said that it’s like having a really interesting boyfriend suddenly becoming really, really into wine, and having to have endless conversations about it.”