Soho was a very different place then, less a luxury shopping mall and more of a neighborhood, the kind of place a kid could go to school on his own in the morning without fear of being kidnapped. Or so we thought. (My son is 10 and I still walk him to school every day.)

I had a lot of trepidation about calling the Patz family as I worked on the story, imagining their distress at the intrusion of a local reporter poking around. I talked to them in their loft, two cops off to the side tending to their business. When children disappear, the first suspects are the parents and, admittedly, I remember looking at them suspiciously, wondering if they were hiding anything. Later I went out with a couple of cops who were searching the neighborhood looking for anything that might connect them to the missing boy. We canvassed an empty lot on the west side, kicking cans and picking through scraps of clothing we bagged for later examination.

No meaningful evidence turned up that day, and hadn't since, until the case was revived last week. The ex-wife of Othniel Miller, a neighborhood handyman with a basement workshop at 127 Prince Street in SoHo at the time of Patz's disappearance, said Miller had raped his 10-year-old niece. The niece corroborated the story, and Prince Street was closed to traffic over the weekend as the FBI conducted an investigation, ripping up the basement floor where a cadaver dog had sniffed something. Network TV mobile units poised ready to deliver the news, photographers camping out on their fold-out chairs, the Patz family still living in the same building down the street from the investigation. But yesterday the FBI announced they had concluded the investigation after finding no immediate evidence of human remains (though the Post reports some recovered materials were sent to be tested in an FBI lab). The prime suspect in the case has long-been Jose Ramos, a drifter who dated a woman hired to walk neighborhood kids, including Patz, home from school during a bus strike. He was never charged, however, and is currently in prison in Pennsylvania on child molestation charges.

Every few years, the story pops up again, a cold hand on my shoulder reminding me of the evil that exists in this world. For years after Etan's disappearance, I'd occasionally run into Etan's parents in Soho on my way to a meeting, meal or opening, barely glancing their way, not knowing what to say. My story made it to the cover of the Soho Weekly News and I remember hoping that it would make a difference, that someone would see it and Etan Patz would be found. But that was not to be. Maybe the time has finally come.

Joshua David: People would pretend that they discovered the High Line when they were going to art galleries, but it was really when they were going to gay dance parties at Twilo, the Tunnel or the Roxy.

Robert Hammond: Gayness ultimately became an identifying characteristic of the organization and to some degree, of the park itself."

David Hershkovits: Who would you have liked to interview for the book who is either dead or wouldn't cooperate?

Will Hermes: I wish I'd been able to speak with the late Joey Ramone, as much to just chat as for any research purpose. I gather he was a real sweetheart. And Lester Bowie, who was the most acute and amusing voice to come through the loft jazz scene.

DH: In Love Goes to Buildings on Fire the sections pertaining to CBGB and the punk scene you chronicle a significant amount of drug use among people like Tom Verlaine, Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell et al. But there's none of that in the sections about Philip Glass, Steve Reich et al. Was that because there was none? Or were they reluctant to talk about it?

WH: It wasn't really part of their scene -- though their audiences were often pretty high, it seems! Those guys were extremely work-focused. Kurt Munkacsi, who was an integral part of Glass' ensemble, told me "Drop acid and try to do a Philip Glass performance? You couldn't possibly. The music was too complicated. The most anybody did was maybe have a glass of wine or smoke a joint." On the other hand, drugs were a big part of the scene around composer La Monte Young, as you might imagine for a guy whose performances, such as they were, literally lasted for days.

DH: You place Bruce Springsteen in the downtown scene with Patti Smith. Though I was aware of their collaborations, I never thought of him in those terms. Was that a stretch for you? Or was he really there?

WH: He didn't hang at CBGBs. But he played shows at Max's Kansas City in '72 -- I have some videos posted at lovegoestobuildingsonfire.com He told me about opening for the New York Dolls, which I write about. He also recorded his albums in New York, bought British punk singles at Bleecker Bob's, went to shows and after-parties. And in a sense, he and Patti Smith were coming from the same place: Kids from Nowheresville, New Jersey, who were besotted by Dylan's poetry and wanted to yank rock 'n' roll back to basics, back to street level. There was definitely a mutual admiration society. And the song they wrote together, "Because The Night," may be the best pop song either of them ever did. They played it together live for the first time in 1977 at the short-lived CBGBs theater on 2nd Avenue, where apparently they also played the Who's "My Generation." If anyone has a bootleg recording of that show, please let me know!

DH: What were your favorite parts that you were forced to cut?

WH: Pretty much all the good stuff is in there. I could have geeked out more talking about records, certainly. But I was more interested in telling the stories of these young musicians coming up in New York City. I wanted to make a narrative that would be a fun read, not just a reference volume or a book of criticism. 

DH: What did you learn that you didn't know before? Whose music do you care about now that you hadn't before?

WH: I knew very little about the salsa scene going in, but came to love the music deeply. The best records -- Eddie Palmieri's The Sun of Latin Music, Willie Colon's Crime Pays, and especially Concepts in Unity by Grupo Folklorico Y Experimental Nuevayorquino -- are as good as anything that came out during that era. I thought I knew a fair amount about the loft jazz scene, but I learned a great deal more. That era was never given its due by jazz scholars, in part because its importance was brushed aside by Wynton Marsalis and other gatekeepers. But that's changing. A lot of young players are exploring and extending that loft spirit of invention.

DH: Looking around the scene today, do you think a similar approach might be taken on the subject in 25 years or so?

WH: Oh, sure. All the hybrid scenes that have been growing in Brooklyn over the past decade or so -- rock, jazz, composition rooted in European and other traditions -- are producing remarkable work. It's been kinda slow for New York hip-hop and dance music lately, in terms of innovation; those scenes seem to have become more virtual, less regional. But I'm sure there's something coming around the corner. In New York City, there always is. That's why people come to here.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is out now.

There are good reasons to cooperate from both the police and the protestors perspectives.

If the goals of the protestors are merely to disrupt and agitate, pushing the police and getting arrested is all that's needed. Strategically, it's worked thus far, helping to attract the media and set off a wave of copy cat protests around the country. But to be taken seriously as a political force, a la the Tea Party for example, OWS will have to shed its troublemaker image in favor of a more balanced approach that will enable them to leverage their position for the coming elections.

And the police, well if they aren't careful they're going to lose the PR war and come off looking like brutes beating up good Americans. By responding with force to political protest, they are helping to make the protestor's case and hurting their own cause, looking like patsies of the powers that be rather than defenders of the people's rights.

During the '60s when mass marches were taking place all around the country, the police would routinely consult with group leaders to establish ground rules for the protests. With people being human and cops being cops, the rules weren't always strictly followed but it helped, especially in enlightened cities like New York. It would also help if our patrician leader Mayor Bloomberg would get off his high horse as fellow Republican Mayor Lindsay once did walking into Harlem and Bed-Stuy at the height of racial turmoil, mingling with the people and asking for calm. His unsympathetic comments thus far show just how much he identifies with the ruling class.

Anyone who has followed the news out of the Middle East over the last six months knows that strong-arm tactics only serves to bring out more protestors outraged by the government's response to their demands. Judging by my Facebook news feed, this is exactly what appears to be happening.

There are early signs that the democrats are seeing the potential for aligning with the OWS movement. To his credit, President Obama has sympathized with the protestors right to speak out and meet en masse. If he has not quite felt their pain, he has at least seen the poll numbers.

Above: Photographs from Atisha Paulson taken at Occupy Wall Street this week.

But here at PAPER we are most grateful to him for the innovation of desktop publishing. We started our magazine in 1984, the same year as the famous "1984" ad that formally introduced the Apple computer to the world. Soon after, we realized that the arcane, laborious and expensive system of producing a magazine were instantly passé. We were now able to write, design, select type, make corrections, size and crop photos, essentially create the entire magazine in one place, the computer. What had once required outsourcing to numerous service providers could now be done in-house. We could now afford to continue publishing for less, a lesson that has been embraced by every publisher since. Thank you, Steve Jobs!

Even in the dark days when Apple computers had less than five percent of the market share, the creative community -- the art directors, designers, musicians, artists et al. --  were all working on Apple computers, willing to pay the premium in exchange for the intuitive interface, flawless operating system and sleek design. Left-brained people couldn't relate to the clunky PC operating system made by Microsoft until it basically copied Apple's interface. Even people who have never bought an Apple product benefited from Job's innovations and obsessive attention to details. The now ubiquitous computer touch screen, Samsung's tablet, Android-powered phones are just a few examples of how his work has impacted the technology industry. By nurturing an environment for app development, he also pioneered what many believe will be the future of computing, driven by apps a la the iPad as opposed to operating systems. When experts questioned his strategy of opening Apple stores, Jobs confidently predicted that there would be many stores, not just a few. And they, too, have set a standard for excellence that is influencing everything else coming in its wake.

I remember when we landed Apple as an advertiser and how proud we all were that a company that valued content and excellence in design had accepted PAPER into its orbit. With news that the publication of Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs has been pushed up to November and the Public Theater's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs in previews, it's certain that the myth-making will continue. In this case, deservedly so.

Above: One of PAPER's first Apple IIs. Kim keeps it on display in her office. 

And then the season ended with Vince going into rehab.

Enter season 8, the worst yet. The "good" Vince comes out of rehab and proceeds to fix everything for his pals and for himself, turning a bitchy Conde Nast reporter into his wife. He fixes things for E with his girlfriend and hires a private plane so they can go off and honeymoon. He saves Turtle by not selling his shares in the vodka company he helped launch, thus making his homeboy a millionaire. He buys off a producer so his brother Johnny can star in a movie. Except for the scene where the director blows his head off on a coke binge while Vince tries to talk him down, it's all goody goody.

Improbably, the one person who figures things out on his own, is Ari the agent who manages to save his marriage by giving up his job and moving to Europe, though an epilogue leaves us wondering if he'll reconsider and return for a bigger job.

After all, we've been promised a movie so we need some hook to keep us interested.

I'm there.

Richard Florida is walking through the Modern, Danny Meyer's new restaurant at the MoMA, wondering why its patrons have transformed from business-y and middle-aged to a casual crowd in its 30s in the few hours we've been there. That's the kind of thing he gets paid to think about as an author, professor and now something of a brand ambassador for the Le Meridien Hotels. Tall and genial, Florida was recently named a member of the LM100, a collective of artists, writers and creative-types, that has been assembled by Le Meridien Hotels and its cultural curator Jerome Sans, to help burnish the image of the brand that was bought by hotel group Starwood in 2005. As stated in the beautifully produced materials distributed at the luncheon for about 20 at the Modern, the goal is to "transform Le Meridien Hotels into creative hubs and deliver new perspectives to the creative guests."

Florida is well-chosen for this group. As the author The Rise of the Creative Class, a data-driven study of the migration habits of young people, he has charted the arrival of a powerful new urban demographic that would be most likely to enjoy the library he's helping to curate for Le Meridien hotels as well as the other artistic-driven amenities they are rolling out. He's also signed a deal with The Atlantic to write for the magazine as well as a website they're launching in September. We grabbed the opportunity to talk with him.

David Hershkovits: Do you see a lot of change in New York?

Richard Florida: I once asked Jane Jacobs [the urbanist writer and activist] what she thought about gentrification, especially downtown and Soho. Jane said, 'You know when a place gets boring even the rich people leave.'

DH: Are you worried about New York then?

RF: No, there's Queens and Brooklyn. I think New York is fine and wrote an article in The Atlantic that suggested that when the financial crises hit, the place that will come out the strongest is New York. I think my speculation has proven to be more accurate than people would believe. There are great returns now for very big, very open, very open-minded cities and New York, and maybe London as well, have distinguished themselves as the capitals of capitals. They're not just finance and banking capitals but media and culture empires, too. I do worry about affordability but I'm not too concerned about New York right now.

DH: Where is your current research taking you?

RF: I want to take a little time off writing books. I'm launching a new site called AtlanticCities which is going to be a way for people to talk about cities, and for myself to take a more editorial position and curate in my own space. And this summer I'm writing the 10th anniversary edition of The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited. I take on the debates the book has inspired among its acolytes and critics, try to report on trends that have emerged over the decade, the massive crises in capitalism and talk about where my ideas have changed.

And I want to write a book on music - how music has shaped our cities and shaped our cultures. My hunch is that if we look at start-up culture and we look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, a lot of their influence came form watching bands and bands are quintessential start-up companies. How musical scenes and clusters develop and why and what they say about the openness of a place to new ideas. My wife is from Detroit and we talk about how Detroit leadership never really embraced music -- we know Motown, we know rock, the MC5, electronic music, but city leaders mostly ignored that in favor of car production. The pride of a city and the soul of a city often comes from its music -- there's something to that that I'd like to explore more.

I've also been looking at the effect of cities on our health. Living in a denser city is not only ecologically better, but people are actually thinner, there's less obesity and there's less smoking. Additionally, I'm writing a piece now on why crime is down in cities. One reason is that they are more diverse. Demographic diversity has made it safer.