Alan Eysen, political columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner for Newsday, dies at 91

Alan Eysen, a former Newsday political reporter, editor, columnist and member of the newspaper's investigative team that won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing secret land deals and zoning manipulations in Suffolk, has died at 91.

Eysen, of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, died Wednesday of a pulmonary disease, his family said.

He worked at Newsday from 1961 through 1993, and was both well-sourced and respected, his former colleagues said.

“He really understood how political power was wielded and also abused on Long Island and on the state level,” said Howard Schneider, former editor of Newsday. “Sources talked to him because he was very careful and conscientious. They could trust him.”

During his three-decade career at Newsday, Eysen was part of a team under Investigative team chief Bob Greene that looked into the use of political and public office on Long Island for private gain. The three-year Newsday investigation led to a series of criminal convictions, firings and resignations among public and political officeholders. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1970.

Anthony Marro, former editor of Newsday who was also part of the team that won the 1970 Pulitzer, said Eysen was diligent in his reporting.

“In all the time I worked with him as a reporter or worked there as editor, I never heard a single complaint from anybody he covered about him being unfair, about him being irresponsible [or] about him having gotten anything wrong,” said Marro, who lives in Vermont and Rhode Island.

Bob Keeler, author of “Newsday: A Candid History of the Respectable Tabloid,” wrote one of the earliest events leading to the Newsday investigation was a 1964 announcement made by the then Islip Town Supervisor Thomas Harwood of the town’s plan to purchase a parcel of land.

Eysen checked into it and found the corporation that owned the parcel had the same address as the law firm of the town attorney. He also found out the corporation’s president was the brother of the town attorney's law partner. That led to his reporting revealing a pattern of well-connected politicians manipulating zoning for their own interest, according to Keeler’s book.

“He was in on the very start of Newsday's way of doing investigative reporting,” Keeler, of Stony Brook, said Sunday.

He added: “It’s doing the boring work of looking at zoning requests, going to find out who owned the company that had put in the zoning requests, finding the connection between the company that owned the land and the politicians who had the power to do the rezoning.”

Eysen had a reputation for being tough but fair, those who knew him said.

“When you were to interview with Alan, you stood up a little straighter and you paid very close attention to the questions,” said Ben Zwirn, former North Hempstead Town supervisor, of Patchogue. “He was a giant in his field.”

Later, Eysen became a political consultant for Democrats and Republicans, advising candidates on strategies and running some of their campaigns.

He was the campaign manager for Zwirn, a Democrat, in his unsuccessful bid for Nassau County executive in 1993. Two years later, John Powell, then Suffolk County's Republican chairman, hired Eysen as an adviser and spokesman, a job he had for nearly four years before leaving the post.

In 2003, he was a campaign adviser for Ed Romaine, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Suffolk County executive. “I think he worked with people that shunned ideology and instead went for pragmatism,” said Romaine, supervisor of Brookhaven Town.

In the early 2000s, Eysen moved to South Carolina to be closer to his son, Seth, and his grandchildren, his family said. After he turned 80, he began writing novels, his son said, adding that his father was also a private pilot.

He wrote a series of mystery novels called “The Martini Club Mystery” that featured characters who were retirees in a social club, including a former journalist, who found themselves embroiled in a murder plot.

Eysen was born on July 3, 1931, in Brooklyn to Joseph and Sophie Kalkstein Eysen. A graduate of Queens College, Eysen earned a master’s degree in journalism from UCLA. Later in his career, he taught journalism at local higher education institutions, including Stony Brook University and LIU Post, formerly known as the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University.

In addition to his son, he is survived by daughter Jodi Glasser, of Greenville, South Carolina, along with five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Rella Schwartz Eysen.

A graveside service was held Sunday at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina.

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.