Hed let me take pics of him & the pledge giveaways. We're at the big drop - 85 feet. Im heartbroken., Richard Hake felt like a member of the family, not just for, , but for NYC. BETH FERTIG, BYLINE: If you listen to Richard on the air, as professional and serious as he could be with the news, he could also just adjust his tone for whatever the situation was. Hake's station, WNYC, said the 51-year-old anchor died Friday at his Manhattan apartment, where he'd been working in recent weeks as the coronavirus crisis kept station personnel from their office. Last month, as coronavirus cases surged in the city and officials told office workers to stay home, Hake set up a makeshift studio in his one-bedroom apartment, complete with an art deco on air light and various microphone flags bearing the stations logos over the years. Wow. He was so wry, and knowledgeable, and made you feel like you were the most important person in the world. Richard Hake, a longtime radio reporter and host for member station WNYC, died on Friday at the age of 51. Please click here to update your account with a username and password. During a fundraising campaign about a decade ago, the station gave out coffee mugs featuring Hakes mug a drawing of him reading the news. One of his colleagues said hed rent a house out in Fire Island every summer with 20 friends. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Really, r39? Hed approve the pics first, but he didnt have tohe was a beautiful man, inside & out., Every morning like so many of our @WNYC listeners I woke up to the warm voice of Richard Hake. It was a heart attack. I already do, she tweeted. Richard Hake Mickey Mouse Club star Tiffini Hale dead If his family is saying natural causes, he couldve had cancer that he never revealed or a different medical condition that he didnt feel the need to tell the world. It does not mean died of old age or that anyone thinks dying at 51 is normal. I will miss him horribly. A heart attack is considered "natural causes". Elections. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site MARTIN: At WNYC, he was among those who carried the city through 9/11 and the Great Recession. John Ritter died that wayhe had an aortic aneurysm that he didn't know about. It's now celebrating its 70th birthday. The son of a former Bronx police detective, Hake graduated from broadcast journalism powerhouse Fordham University in 1991 and got a glimpse of his future as a morning drive newscaster and reporter at the campus radio station, WFUV FM.