111-year-old in New York City becomes world’s oldest man

The world’s oldest man is now Alexander Imich, a 111-year-old living on New York City’s Upper West Side, the New York Times reported.

According to the Gerontology Research Group of Torrance, California, Imich claimed the title of oldest man after the previous recipient died on April 24 at 111 years and 357 days old.

Imich was born in Poland on February 4, 1903. He can remember the first car in his hometown and calls the airplane the greatest invention of his lifetime. He fought in the Polish-Soviet War, escaped the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States in 1951.

Imich holds a doctorate in chemistry from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, but later become a scholar of the occult. At the age of 92, Imich published a book on the paranormal.

Imich told the New York Times he attributes his longevity to good genes, athletics and a sparse diet. Though he used to smoke, he gave it up long ago, and said he never drinks alcohol. He also suspects the decision not to have children might have helped him reach such an old age.

When asked by the Times what it was like to be the oldest man on Earth, Imich replied, “Not like it’s the Nobel Prize.”

Though Imich may be the oldest man in the world, he is far from the oldest person. Sixty-six women throughout the world are older than him; his female counterpart, Misao Okawa, of Japan, is 116.