Early life Levy was born in 1950, and is the son of Celia "Cyl" and Saul S. Levy. He has a sister Mara Kahn. He grew up in
Valley Stream, New York. He is married to Freda Wagner, and has two sons, David and Sam. As of 2009, he lived in
Huntington, New York. He attended
Boston University's School of Communication (B.S. 1972), where Levy majored in Journalism, Film & English Literature. Levy was a starting pitcher on the school baseball team.
Career Levy worked as a reporter, chief political columnist, and senior editorial writer at
Newsday from 1977 to 2007. He has also served as the host of "Face-Off", a weekly public affairs show on
WLIW. In 1999, he was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, for his writing that was key in prompting reform of the inequities in
Long Island's system of property assessment. He has written guest posts for
CNN and
The New York Times, and written a regular column on politics for the
Albany Times Union.
Innovation Hub,
WNYC, and others. Levy is a member of a
Brookings Institution advisory panel. In 2008, he was named 47th on the 6th Annual Power List of the
Long Island Press. In 2023 Levy was inducted into the Long Island Journalism Hall of Fame. He is an expert on suburban politics. ==References==