Passing of Michael Wallace

TO:                  John Jay College Community
FROM:           Keisha Pottinger-Moore, Director of Human Resources Operations
DATE:            July 7, 2026
RE:                 Passing of Michael Wallace, Distinguished Professor Emeritus

 It is with sadness that I share the news that Michael (Mike) Wallace (1942-2026) died on Sunday, July 5. Professor Wallace was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the History Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the City University of New York. Mike was a member of the John Jay community for 49 years.

The below excerpt was taken from the Gotham Center:

Mike Wallace taught the history of New York and crime in the city to police officers and others for nearly half a century. He was born and raised in Queens and Long Island, and got his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Columbia University, studying with the Pulitzer-winning historian Richard Hofstadter, with whom he collaborated on American Violence: A Documentary History (1970). He helped found and for thirty years helped publish and edit the Radical History Review, now affiliated with Duke University Press. In 1997, he published Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory, a series of essays that explore the ways history is used and abused in American popular culture, including pieces on Disney World, Colonial Williamsburg, the Enola Gay controversy at the Smithsonian and historic preservation. His 2002 book A New Deal for New York considered the future of post-9/11 New York in the light of its past.

Always dedicated to making the best new scholarship accessible to non-specialists, Wallace worked with a number of radio producers, novelists, and others, serving as a senior consultant for Ric Burns's New York: A Documentary Film, and advising many local museums, notably the New York Historical and the Museum of the City of New York. He also lectured in many parts of the country and the world.

After winning the Pulitzer for his co-authored history of New York City to 1898, Gotham (1999), Wallace continued the project alone. The second volume, Greater Gotham (2017), carried the story through the end of World War I. A third volume, Gotham at War (2025), completed the series.

He was married to Carmen Boullosa, one of Mexico's most acclaimed novelists, essayists, poets, and playwrights, a winner of five New York Emmys for her CUNY-TV show Nueva York, and a regular columnist for Mexico City's El Universal. The pair co-authored A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the "Mexican Drug War" ​in 2015.

You can click here for a New York Times article about Mike.

Our thoughts are with Mike's family, friends, former colleagues, and the many students whose lives he touched. As we mourn his passing, let us also celebrate his remarkable life, his dedicated service to John Jay College, and the lasting legacy he leaves behind.