For more than thirty years, the story goes, the writer Joseph Mitchell went to his office at The New Yorker on West Forty-Third Street, worked behind a closed door, and never published another story. Amid the demolished buildings of his beloved and changing New York City, he felt like a stranger to himself. The mystery of Mitchell’s so-called silent years is an untold story—until now.

For more than thirty years, the story goes, the writer Joseph Mitchell went to his office at The New Yorker on West Forty-Third Street, worked behind a closed door, and never published another story. Amid the demolished buildings of his beloved and changing New York City, he felt like a stranger to himself. The mystery of Mitchell’s so-called silent years is an untold story—until now.