Hentoff (Nat) is born in Roxbury.

The son of Russian immigrants Simon and Lena (Katzenburg) Hentoff, Nat Hentoff grows up on Howland Street, graduates from Boston Latin School and Northeastern University, and works initially as a disc jockey for WMEX Radio (1945-53) then a correspondent for Down Beat magazine. He moves to New York City in 1953,* becomes editor of Jazz Review (1958-61), literary columnist for the Boston Globe, a staff writer for the New Yorker, and jazz critic and columnist for The Village Voice (1958-2017). Hentoff dies in his Greenwich Village apartment – while listening to Billie a Holiday recording – on January 7, 2017.