Hearne: Pitch Staffer Reflects on 30th, Bumpy Early Days

Hold the party hats and favors…

If ever a 30th birthday celebration rang hollow, the Pitch “Three Decades of Free,” 30th anniversary issue is it. A handful of minor rehashes – celebrating the good, old days during the Pitch’s infancy as little more than a record store rag – were a somewhat interesting. But predictable, formulaic and lacking in any edge whatsoever. Insiders such as myself aside, would anybody really find these lightly-treated schmooze pieces at all compelling?

I think not.

That said, there are stories to be told. And by sheer happenstance, my path crossed today with a woman who former Pitch main man Hal Brody told me over cocktails in 1991, was the sole reason that he did not fold the paper.

Her name is Kathleen Kraushaar and I hired her in 1988 to sell advertising and put together promotions for the Pitch. It was a monumental task that Kathleen, a former stockbroker down to waitressing on the Plaza, was more than up to. She rode her bicycle over to the Pitch’s first actual office, I had opened near (Pitch parent)