He created hoopla around art made in prison first in the early 2000s, with himself as the artist, then 20 years later with the scammer Anna Sorokin. An obituary by Alex Traub for The New York Times. Alfredo Martinez lived on New York City’s margins, a squatter who shook off one eviction after another.…
A North Carolina hog farmer and a Democrat-turned-Republican, he helped strip Mayor Marion Barry of his fiscal powers as Washington’s deficits swelled in the late ’90s.
Violent crime dropped under his sometimes contentious, sometimes innovative watch. But his response to the fatal police shootings of Black men drew criticism.