Manhattan brings the investigation of Harvey Weinstein into close physical proximity with the power it is trying to expose. In Tribeca, Jodi Kantor meets a nervous company insider; elsewhere in the city, Megan Twohey confronts a board member with evidence of a complaint; and, seven months after the first story appeared, the reporters watch Weinstein enter a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs. The city’s settings trace a passage from confidential reporting to institutional scrutiny and criminal proceedings.

Tribeca: A Meeting Near Weinstein’s World

On Monday night, September 18, Jodi Kantor went to Little Park, a stylish restaurant in Tribeca, to meet Irwin Reiter, a longtime Weinstein company insider. Reiter had specified the time and terms: 9:30 p.m. at the bar behind the restaurant; he would ask the questions, could leave after five minutes, and would pay. The choice of venue surprised Kantor. Tribeca had been transformed by the rise of Miramax after Harvey Weinstein moved the company’s offices there decades earlier, and The Weinstein Company’s office was only six blocks from Little Park. Reiter had chosen to meet in Weinstein’s orbit, not at a safe remove from it.

Kantor entered the busy restaurant looking around to ensure that she would not run into an acquaintance who might interrupt. She continued to a sparsely occupied, nearly hidden bar in the back, where couches and wing chairs were spaced for private conversation. At first she wondered whether Reiter might be watching her on Weinstein’s behalf. The man waiting in an armchair appeared instead to be a nervous fiftysomething, glancing over his shoulder and joking darkly about the goons he imagined Weinstein might employ.

As Kantor asked about financial details of older settlements, Reiter seemed puzzled by her attention to the past. He redirected the conversation toward more recent alleged offenses against Weinstein’s own employees. The meeting shifted the investigation’s focus: the settlements mattered, but the company’s treatment of its staff offered a more immediate way to investigate how misconduct had been handled inside the organization.

From Evidence to the Board

The reporters’ next step was to contact Lance Maerov, a member of The Weinstein Company board. Megan Twohey called him as he entered his Park Avenue office building carrying coffee. She explained that The New York Times was preparing a story about allegations spanning decades, read him an excerpt from Lauren O’Connor’s memo, and asked what he had done about it. The cup slipped from Maerov’s hands, spilling hot coffee as he realized the reporters had obtained the document.

Only hours later, Twohey met Maerov in Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. He said he had been concerned about Weinstein’s treatment of women, particularly after the New York Police Department investigation. He described the board’s approval of a code of conduct intended to curb misconduct and said that, after learning of O’Connor’s memo, he had wanted an outside lawyer to investigate. But he told Twohey that David Boies had informed him within a day or two that the matter was resolved because the complaint had been withdrawn. Maerov had let the issue go. The movement from a call outside an office building to a meeting in the park brought a board member’s account of that decision into the reporters’ investigation.

The Courtroom

Seven months after their first story on Weinstein’s alleged misconduct was published, Kantor and Twohey sat in a Manhattan courtroom awaiting his arrival. Weinstein had spent the morning at a nearby precinct house being booked, fingerprinted, and photographed. He had already lost his job and reputation; the court appearance marked the beginning of criminal proceedings against him.

The courtroom setting sharply reversed the public pageantry associated with Weinstein’s former career. Outside, cameras waited in lines reminiscent of a red carpet. Inside, Weinstein entered with his arms restrained behind him by three sets of handcuffs and was led by two detectives. The prosecutor announced charges concerning two separate alleged forcible assaults: rape of one woman and forcing another to perform oral sex. Weinstein surrendered his passport and was released on one million dollars’ bail. In Manhattan, the investigation’s work of assembling and testing accounts had reached a public legal threshold, though the charges themselves remained allegations at that stage.