Albert Ellenberg

Ellenberg’s career at The Post spanned three ownerships. He joined the newspaper as a reporter in 1959 and later became assistant managing editor, a title that didn’t reflect his full influence in the city room of what was then the Big Apple’s only surviving afternoon paper.

While directing much of The Post’s news coverage — “sometimes from the Lion’s Head,” a legendary Greenwich Village journalists’ watering hole, a colleague said — he also oversaw an ambitious biographical series on Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, written by Ralph Blumenfeld, that won several awards and was later published as a book.

After Rupert Murdoch bought The Post from Dorothy Schiff in late 1976, Ellenberg left to become editor-in-chief of the Soho Weekly News, where he also filed a weekly horse-race column called “Big Al.” He later moved on to be executive editor of New York magazine.

He returned to The Post under Murdoch in 1985 and became metropolitan editor in 1986, a job he held until after Peter Kalikow bought the paper in 1988. Ellenberg led reporting teams that first revealed the cause of the space shuttle Challenger disaster — a leaking solid-fuel tank — and exposed Leona Helmsley’s tax fraud, which resulted in her conviction and imprisonment.

He will always be remembered for his wit, wisdom, and for being a driving force in NYC journalism.

Albert was the beloved father of Luke Goldberg and Sholom Ellenberg. And leaves behind his wife Nora Sheehan and his grandsons Benjamin Ellenberg and Marty Goldberg.

Albert is survived by his Sister Dorothy Leibowitz.