58A. [Yogi Berra or Joe DiMaggio] are both baseball greats that famously played for the New York Yankees. I went in that direction for a bit, looking for sports accomplishments they might have both achieved, but in this puzzle, the common element is that they are both ITALIAN AMERICAN.
1D/2D. This pair of geography trivia questions could be a little imposing at the start of the down entries, especially when they both run through three 15-letter acrosses. 1D, the [City that’s the “heart of Africa’s art scene,” per National Geographic], is ACCRA, the capital of Ghana. The [Capital and second-largest city of Minorca] at 2D is MAHON, which is rather obscure and has been in the New York Times Crossword only twice before. (It also partly echoes Mr. McMahon’s name, which could be a coincidence, but I noted it as cute anyway.)
25D. [Cry after a close shave] evoked a few possible answers, including “So short!,” which I entertained for a minute in case we had to take “close shave” at face value. I also considered “I am fine” and “I made it” before arriving at the correct entry: I’M ALIVE (which is a title for a lot of good and well-known music tracks; I had a Johnny Thunder song stuck in my head for days).
46D. For [Pipe material], I first thought of various metals, but the pipe in this clue is for smoking, and the answer is BRIAR. I genuinely thought this could be referring to rose bushes, as odd as that sounds, imagining a thicket. The material in a briar wood pipe is interesting, though; it’s the “burl,” a particular part of a tree’s anatomy that is known for its heat resistance and grain pattern.
Constructor Notes
Coming to you from Canton, Mich., I am beyond excited to make my New York Times Crossword debut!
My construction journey began back in high school nearly 20 years ago when, soon after getting into solving, I wondered, How difficult is it to construct a puzzle? Turns out, when you don’t use any construction software and instead resort to a graphing notebook and a million-word crossword answer book, it’s very difficult!
I got back into solving and constructing in 2019 after a long hiatus and soon discovered 1) the existence of construction software that eliminates the need to brute-force inane entries like “sewabear” to make a grid work, and 2) my love of themeless puzzles. I’ve written several themelesses in the last five-plus years, but none quite as challenging (or fulfilling) as today’s. Ultimately, it boiled down to a frustrating yet vindicating amount of trial and error to find entries that both fit the grid and met my own personal standards. As for the design, I was inspired to use triple stacks after a similarly designed puzzle that I solved back in 2023 lived rent-free in my head for weeks.
Thank you to all my friends and family who have tested and critiqued my grids over the past several years, and a huge thank-you to my wife, Leanne, for her support of this hobby (and bonus points for discerning a unique thinking face of mine specific to crosswords).
Finally, this puzzle also accomplishes a goal I’ve had in the puzzles I’ve submitted over the past two-plus years: to put a specific entry into a published grid. So here’s a special shoutout to the inspiration and seed entry of this puzzle, 33-Down, my daughter CATE.
Want to Submit Crosswords to ?
Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online.
For tips on how to get started, read our series, “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle.”
