The Times combed through Holocaust Memorial shooter James von Brunn’s artist profile on the website AskART.com and picked out the entirety of his history here in New York. He moved to the city in 1947, and was a student at two different art schools. He would have been a journalist, “but all doors were closed to conservatives,” he wrote in a bio. Then he worked at ad agencies Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (now BBDO Worldwide) and Benton & Bowles (subsumed by Publicis). He married nearby in Connecticut, and had a baby boy, James, who eventually went to Trinity Prep. During that period he claimed he was “asked to change his German name by several companies during his 20-years New York career.” He also reportedly got a copy of the anti-Semitic book Iron Curtain Over America that he said had a “tremendous” effect him.
The most recent time he’s on record living in this state is for five years from 1984 onward, when he served at the Ray Brook Federal Correctional Institution upstate for his attempt in 1981 to hold Federal Reserve officials hostage.
Museum Gunman’s Years in New York [City Room/NYT]
Earlier: Holocaust Museum Shooting Rekindles Old Debate
