T heodore L. Kazimiroff, Jr. was born July 18, 1941 in New York City, son of Theodore Kazimiroff—a dentist and avid amateur archeologist and historian who was the official historian of Bronx County, New York when he died—and Emelia Kazimiroff, a lawyer and teacher. Kazimiroff served in the U.S. Army from 1959-1963; part of this time he served in Germany while the Berlin Wall was being built. He is a member of Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. He attended Herbert Lehman College (now Hunter College) from 1963-1965, Columbia University in 1966, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1980, and received a master's degree in teaching gifted and talented children from Long Island University in 1986.

At the time The Last Algonquin was published, Kazimiroff was a teacher in New York City and an author of local-interest articles...