New York Magazine | The New York Observer

No New Owner for New York

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:38:39 -0400

Owner Bruce Wasserstein may have died last week, but New York magazine won't be sold. Ad Age reports that an internal memo circulated yesterday informed employees there would be "no change" in ownership and that a Wasserstein family trust would continue to control New York Media.

The magazine's fate was in question after Wasserstein's death. And while it seems settled for now, this is not a good time for any sort of upheaval:

"This is a...

After Wasserstein's Death, What Will Happen to New York?

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:17:27 -0400

In light of the sudden death of Bruce Wasserstein, what is going to happen to New York Magazine?

The magazine is owned by a family trust, not by Lazard or any of Mr. Wasserstein’s other holding companies. Mr. Wasserstein's children, according to reports, include Ben, Pam, Scoop, Jack and Dash.

Could one of them potentially assume the job of owning New York?

If so, two of Mr. Wasserstein's children seem the most likely picks: Ben Wasserstein, a...

Lazard CEO and New York Owner Bruce Wasserstein Dies

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:41:45 -0400

Bruce Wasserstein--hostile-takeover artist, chief of Lazard, owner of New York magazine, Harvard benefactor, brother of playwright Wendy Wasserstein--has died at 61. He was hospitalized last weekend for heart trouble.

Here's some reaction from former associates.

Carl Icahn: "It’s sad, it’s a sad thing. He was a good friend and he was one of the few real bright guys on Wall Street. I always respected his views."

Eric Gleacher: “Bruce had been a good...

New York Mag's MenuPages Go International

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:19:13 -0400

New York magazine's general manager of digital media Michael Silberman told the Observer last month that New York Media's online restaurant and menu listings site, MenuPages.com, was likely expand to more cities soon. Today, MenuPages.com announced site launches for London and Paris--their first overseas projects.

MenuPages already has menus listings for restaurants in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Fransisco, South Florida and Washington D.C., with 3,000 to 5,000...

The Big Crackup: It's Vertical Vertigo!

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:00:53 -0400

This past weekend, Arianna Huffington was in San Francisco for a little tech tour. On Friday, she visited Twitter’s home base, where she noshed on tacos and vegan cheese with co-founder Biz Stone. Later, she palled around with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at the social network’s Palo Alto headquarters and discussed HuffPo Social News, a new feature on her “Internet newspaper” that allows users to connect with Facebook friends and see which HuffPo articles...

Fisting 'New York' Since October 1968:Remembering Covers with Visual Impact

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:41:11 -0400

Last week, The Observer took a look at New York magazine's covers, specifically, their tendency to whisper. This week, we were struck (ouch!) by the image of a fist, which was used to illustrate "The Rage of the Rich". (How far we've come since November 22, 2004's "Filthy Stinking Rich" cover showed a man literally bathing in cash.)

Talk about impact!

New York has long relied on the fist trope, which we can see in...

Character Builder: Adam Moss Touts Tiny Type!

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:56:24 -0400

There’s something you can’t help but notice about New York’s cover lines these days.

Take last week’s issue. In a big, bold, screaming headline, you found the cover line: “THE FACEBOOK REVOLT” over a shot of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But then there’s all sorts of tiny type all over the place! Right above the headline, there’s a red starburst with a word that says “Fraud.” It’s readable, but small. The words surrounding it on...

Adam Moss's First (or Second) New York

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:43:23 -0400

In this week's Observer, New York Magazine editor Adam Moss talked to John Koblin about his use of coverlines, telling him, "A piece of music can’t all be big moments. It needs big moments and small moments."

And sometimes, it even rhymes.

This week's New York features a cover package called My First New York, that starts with a curtain-raising essay by Adam Sternbergh about his first memories of New York ("murder, mayhem, killer...

Abrams Research To Launch Media Blog: Writers From Gawker, New York, and Others Approached

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:44:15 -0400

Dan Abrams wants in on the media blogging and aggregation business.

For the past several months, Mr. Abrams—the chief legal analyst for NBC News and head of the nascent media strategy firm Abrams Research—has been meeting with various New York-based media reporters, editors, and bloggers about the potential editorial venture.

To date, nobody has signed on for the job.

"I think it’s very possible that I will pursue an on-line Web property that will...

Bernie Madoff Pleads Guilty; Heads Off to Prison

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:04:33 -0400

As you probably already know, Bernard Madoff is heading to jail.

The New York Times' Diana B. Henriques and Jack Healy report that Mr. Madoff pleaded guilty to Judge Denny Chin this morning at United States District Court in Manhattan. Taking "breaking news" to new heights, The Wall Street Journal and its News Corp. sister channel, Fox Business, is streaming live video from outside the courthouse. The New York Daily News—whose owner, Mort Zuckerman lost...

The Time of Our Times

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:29:12 -0500

Lots of people seem to be thinking about The New York Times today. Or is it just us?

The future of the country's leading newspaper—which as recently as early January was called into doubt by The Atlantic's Michael Hirschorn—is touched on in this week's Time magazine cover story by Walter Isaacson, which was updated online after it appeared late last week with following:

Currently a few newspapers, most notably the Wall Street Journal, charge...

Unnamed Times 'Metro' Reporter: 'We’ve Grown a Pair of Balls'

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:57:00 -0500

In this week's New York Magazine, Chris Smith tackles the implosion of Caroline Kennedy's effort for the Senate and while picking apart what went wrong, he points to the disastrous interview that she did with the Times back in December.

That interview, and the weeks of tough coverage in The Times, was apparently a rallying cry for Joe Sexton's 'Metro' crew. Writes Mr. Smith:

Kennedy also smacked headlong into a newly emboldened Times...

At Magazines, It's 2.0 Steps Forward, 1.0 Step Back

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:08:40 -0500

Soon after Lehman Brothers fell, and New York business writers found themselves smack in the middle of the biggest story of their careers, Fortune’s managing editor, Andy Serwer, convened a staff meeting on the second floor of their Sixth Avenue home.

He wanted to say thank you! Not only did the magazine have a series of timely covers—Hank Paulson was on one, and they had a profile...

The Week In Trends

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:39:45 -0500

- Christmas Is Canceled!: "In this chilly economic climate, some companies are dumping holiday fetes—but others are still partying like it's 2007," by Elizabeth Gallagher, Page Six Magazine.

- Gender Bender: "More women are drinking, and the women who drink are drinking more, in some cases matching their male peers. This is the kind of equality nobody was fighting for," by Alex Morris, New York Magazine.

- Childless for 50 yrs,...

Google's Back Pages: Search Engine Opens Virtual Newsstand [Update]

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:23:57 -0500

Lifehacker's Gina Trapani brings word that Google has given magazine nerds an early Christmas present in the form of searchable magazine archives. (The announcement originally appeared on Google's official blog.)

What can you find? At the moment, it only includes New York, Popular Science, and Ebony, but it's still got a lot of great stuff.

Update, 5:05 p.m.: A Google rep emailed Media Mob (how do they keep track of everything online—oh, right) to...

Garden & Gun Goes Full Ventral: Will Turtle Junk Score 2009 Cover of The Year?

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:12:25 -0500

As part of its year-end 'Top 10 Everything of 2008' package, Time Magazine's Arthur Hochstein recently compiled the Top 10 Magazine Covers of the year.

The New Yorker's austere post-Election cover featuring the Lincoln Memorial with a new 'O' moon was number one. Rolling Stone's wordless Barack Obama cover made the list at number 3, and Entertainment Weekly's attention-grabbing Barry Blitt/New Yorker parody cover featuring Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart was tapped at...

Flashback Friday: Gael Greene, Dismissed Insatiable Critic for New York, Was Once Pitchwoman for Magazine

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:15:29 -0500

On the eve of Thanksgiving, The New York Times' Glenn Collins sat down with Gael Greene, New York Magazine's dismissed "Insatiable Critic."

Mr. Collins called Ms. Greene, "The priestess of radicchio, beurre blanc and arugula," but also noted that the critic had "become an attenuating natural resource at New York since giving up her weekly chief reviewer’s role eight years ago."

It wasn't always so. Ms. Greene was once so closely associated...

Report: Gael Greene, New York's Insatiable Critic, Let Go

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:25:10 -0500

The FeedBag's Josh Ozersky is reporting that Gael Greene has been let go by New York Magazine. Ms. Greene, a fixture at the magazine since its founding—she contributed a story to the magazine's 40th anniversary issue that chronicled her quest for The Single Best Meal I Ever Had In 18,814 tries and the magazine ran an excerpt from her memoir in 2006—sent out a release in which said, "I describe it as cutting off...

Resolved: Malcolm Gladwell Has Interesting Hair

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:40:21 -0500

- "Gladwell is pale skinned but famously Afro-haired."—Tim Adams, The Guardian, November 16, 2008.

- "Gladwell, who is slight of build, with an exuberance of hair and an oddly diffident manner..." Jerry Adler, Newsweek, November 15, 2008.

- "Slender, with elfin cheekbones and a distinctive bloom of spirally brown hair, Gladwell is one of those clever people who actually looks clever."— Lev Grossman, Time Magazine, November 13, 2008.

- "Gladwell was...

Breaking: Some Parents Want Kids To Learn Mandarin

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:32:34 -0500

Stop us if you've heard this one before... According to Page Six The Magazine, some Manhattan parents are so desperate to give their children a leg-up on their peers, they're sending them to Mandarin classes! (And Hindi! And French! And German!)

Page Six's Jennifer Rose quotes a parent named Brett Hauser, who pays $395 for his 6-month-old son to take 10 sessions at The Language Workshop for Children saying, "Mandarin is...

Malcolm Gladwell Calls Google 'The Answer to The Problem We Didn't Have'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:38:21 -0500

Remember when Nicholas Carr asked in The Atlantic, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (Sure you don't: That was way back in July/August and we've all been using Google too much.)

If the planet-devouring search engine is bringing about the dumbening of mankind, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell might just be the last intelligent man, according to New York's profile of him by Jason Zengerle.

Writes Mr. Zengerle in this week's Geek Pop...

Television and Book Critic John Leonard Dies; Prolific Writer Was 69

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:21:27 -0500

New York Magazine's Vulture blog is reporting that the magazine's television critic, John Leonard, has died.

In addition to writing weekly for that magazine (last week he wrote about returning dramas), Mr. Leonard, who was 69-years-old, wrote a monthly books column for Harper's. He also served as a contributing editor for The Nation, contributed to The New York Review of Books and wrote regularly for The New York Times Book Review, where he had...

CNN's Soledad O'Brien Has Huge Bathtub, Bigger Apartment

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:29:03 -0400

Curious to see how CNN's Soledad O'Brien lives? New York magazine's S. Jhoanna Robledo took of tour of the newswoman's $4.6 million, three-bedroom, three-bathroom loft in Chelsea and brought along videographer, Jonah Green, so you can see it for yourself. (Before you make the joke, the apartment contains no Situation Room.)

At one point, the brokers show Ms. Robledo Ms. O'Brien's bathtub, teeing up the quip, "That tub can fit an entire...

Meet the Young Heirs to The Times

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:16:36 -0400

In this week's New York, Joe Hagan writes a portrait of the 27 members of the fifth-generation of Sulzberger-Ochs family, the part of the family who will someday run The New York Times.

The stakes are high, and these kids started the family business from an early age. Mr. Hagan writes:

Sulzberger has said that his clan starts going to family meetings when they’re 10 years old and by 15 they understand their roles...

New York's Sulzberger Profile Will Be Published on Monday

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:33:29 -0400

New York just sent out its weekly release previewing stories. Next week's issue will feature "Bleeding 'Times' Blood." Sub-hed: "Has the prestige (and profitability) of owning The New York Times finally sunk below the level required to keep the interest of the Sulzberger clan?"

The story is written by Joe Hagan.

Both New York and Portfolio have been working on profiles simultaneously, but neither wound up scoring an on-the-record interview with New York Times...

New York Looks Back, Forward, For Fortieth Anniversary Cover

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:17:00 -0400

Earlier this month at a panel discussion at FIT, New York Magazine Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss fretted about the magazine's upcoming 40th Anniversary Issue cover. Referring to Esquire's 75th Anniversary publicity stunt-cum-new-new thing digital cover, Mr. Moss said:

It made us a little crazy... Because we have a fortieth anniversary issue coming out a week after Esquire's. We don't have an electronic cover. It just sits...

Howard Stern Employees Prank CNN, Blogs

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:47:38 -0400

Looks like CNN got taken by two of Howard Stern's employees this morning. Rather than the usual call-in taunt of "Baba-booey!" two Stern Show regulars, Richard Christy and Sal "The Stockbroker" Governale, went down to Lehman Brothers headquarters and pretended to make out with each other behind a CNN standup report by Allan Chernoff.

So far, the clip has made its way around the blogosphere: VH1's Best Week Ever started it; then Videogum...

Morsels From New York Magazine's Publishing Article

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:41:25 -0400

This week's issue of New York contains the big "state of publishing" piece that the magazine's book man, Boris Kachka, has been working on for the past few months. Mr. Kachka leads with a charming scene in the HarperStudio office, where publisher Bob Miller and his staff are watching a video of unused books getting mulched in a shredder. Mr. Miller calls it "depressing"; marketing director Sarah Burningham says it it reminds her of...

Adam Moss, Milton Glaser Discuss 40 Years of New York's Art Direction

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:40:25 -0400

"The secret of all activities is that talent attracts talent."

That was the legendary art director and co-founder of New York magazine, Milton Glaser, speaking last night at The Society of Publication Designer's futuristically named SPD@FIT panel on New York's 40th Anniversary.

Above Mr. Glaser's head was a rotating slideshow of iconic New York covers. Most were from the magazine's heyday in the 70's—a fake newspaper featuring Tom Wolfe heralding "The New...

Details Discovers Masturbation

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:31:01 -0400

Add another trend piece to the ever-growing 'Internet Porn Addiction Ruins Relationships' canon. This month, Details' Em & Lo offer Jerking Off Is the New Infidelity (subhed: "Is your secret habit causing your marriage to slip through your fingers?"), in which we learn that, "While some guys store everyday images and encounters to fuel their imaginations, many go straight for the porn."

Sadly, the article was released too prematurely (tee-hee) to include this month's...

New York's Tips for Freelancers: 'Try to Listen When Your Interviewee is Talking'

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:43:42 -0400

Last month, Gawker's Sheila McClear had some fun with an email New York's Jada Yuan sent out to freelancer asking them to stop using the magazine to gain entry to events they weren't explicitly assigned to cover.

Now, Andrew M. Goldstein, whom Media Mob was told is filling in for Ms. Yuan at the magazine, has sent out an email to about two dozen freelancers and staffers explaining how to not only to...

Resolved: There Is Only One Way to Portray Office Life

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:12:11 -0400

Let's say you're a magazine editor and you need to illustrate a special issue about office life: What do you do for art? If you're the editor of Businessweek and you're compiling a special Business @ Work issue in collaboration with readers (a first, according to the magazine's Web site), you just do what New York did in April 2007 with its "Office Life" package and slap Rainn Wilson of NBC's The Office on...

New York, Los Angeles: What's The Difference, Really?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:21:33 -0400

Los Angeles Magazine's August 2008 issue: New York's July 28, 2008...

Clay Felker: Made New York Into A Magazine

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:25:14 -0400

After Clay Felker passed away Tuesday morning in Manhattan, The Observer spoke to some who knew him well.

Robert Benton

The first time I ever screamed “fuck” in front of a room full of women was when I got mad at Clay at the Esquire offices. We were having this argument that went up and down the hall and I reached my wits end; I just said,...

Never Hold Your Best Stuff

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:21:57 -0400

When I think of Clay Felker, which is often, it’s at the Peacock Alley in the Waldorf Astoria. I had just come to The Observer in 1994 and I was scared and sweating. Clay offered to meet with me once a week and kick around story ideas. I used to bring a stack of napkins. They were, by the end of breakfast, black with scrawl: call David Garth, Milton Glaser, Mrs. Astor; water, Moynihan,...

The Big Man

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:13:24 -0400

“The secret of a magazine is passion.”

So said Clay Felker, a giant of journalism who died Tuesday morning in Manhattan at age 82. And the passion which most animated Clay was New York, the city he loved and understood so much that he founded a magazine by that name and mentored more than one generation of the city’s best writers. And while the names he minted—Tom Wolfe, Gloria Steinem,...

Founder of New York Magazine, Clay Felker, Dies [Update]

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:06:55 -0400

Clay Felker, the editor who created New York magazine and sat atop the mastheads of The Village Voice, Esquire, Manhattan, inc., M., and New West, has died.

As far back as 2006, Forbes' James Brady was reporting that the legendary editor was ailing and had been moved to a nursing home. That same year, Mr. Felker's wife, the writer Gail Sheehy, wrote an article for Tango magazine wrote about their life together.

...

Re-Crossing Delancey

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:14:09 -0400

In a signed editorial by Francis X. Clines in today's New York Times, we learn that gentrification is changing the Lower East Side. While Mr. Clines concedes that this is an old story—"Hasn’t that been the case ever since this sliver of Manhattan was laid bare more than a century ago as the crammed tenement haven for immigrants?" he asks—he does seem to feel that the changes in the neighborhood are once again a...

Deadspin's Will Leitch Joins New York

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:15:26 -0400

Will Leitch, editor of Gawker Media's popular sports blog, Deadspin, is joining New York Magazine as a contributing editor. In a farewell post, Mr. Leitch writes:

It is with heavy heart — yet mirthful disposition! — that we announce that our time as Deadspin editor is about to draw to a close. After almost three years of plugging away around here, we are leaving as editor of Deadspin on Friday, June 27. We have accepted...

New York: No Comment

Mon, 26 May 2008 11:06:09 -0400

"Brownstoner’s posts tend to read like the reportage of a particularly smart and opinionated community paper. The comment section, by contrast, has become a rolling transcript of the borough’s new anxieties, shameful prejudices, and secret fears. For a long time, those anxieties centered on being left out or pushed out—hopeful buyers or displaced renters thwarted by prices rising out of control."–The What You Are Afraid Of, Adam Sternbergh, New York Magazine, May 25, 2008.

...

New York Times Magazine Blog Article Tears Media Blogosphere Asunder

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:04:24 -0400

Emily Gould's New York Times Magazine cover story hasn't even landed with a thud on front porches and newsstands yet, but it's already garnering a ton of criticism online.

Some of the critical outlets weren't surprising.

Like Gawker, for example, since Ms. Gould's article is in many ways a rebuke of the site.

Gawker's first post officially linked to Ms. Gould's Times Magazine story received 9,133 views and 170 comments.

A follow-up...

New York Times Magazine Exposes Readers to Blogger [Update]

Wed, 21 May 2008 16:57:32 -0400

A "Make Ready" of this week's New York Times Magazine just arrived, featuring the much buzzed about cover story by former Gawker editor Emily Gould. The story is headlined Exposed and features three photos of Ms. Gould excluding the cover. (One photo shows just her hands at a laptop, an Instant Message window and a web page on the screen.)

The article is heavily diaristic; for a magazine that exists to explain "The...

King Thong! The Best of the Jason Giambi Headlines

Mon, 19 May 2008 07:16:42 -0400

Yankees slugger Jason Giambi admitted to Portfolio's Franz Lidz that when he goes into a slump he wears a lucky thong. Not a jockstrap. A thong. Sometimes when other Yankees go into slumps—like Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Johnny Damon, Robinson Cano and Robin Ventura—they've worn his tiger-striped thong too.

And here's how the papers and blogs headlined it over the weekend:

GIAMBI SINGS NEW THONG, New York Post
FRONT PAGE: BOMBER GOES LONG IN A...

Ancient Order of Magazine People in Not-So-Secret Celebration

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:40:16 -0400

A little after 6 p.m. at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Condé Nast president Richard Beckman was sharing a drink—vodka, olives—with Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend. The two were discussing the same thing everyone in the lobby of Jazz at Lincoln Center at the Time Warner Center was talking about: What the National Magazine Awards can do, or not do, for a magazine.

"I can't honestly say there is a direct link with being nominated...

Kelefa Sanneh, Ariel Levy Join New Yorker

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 07:35:02 -0500

New York Times music critic Kelefa Sanneh is leaving the newspaper to become a staff writer at The New Yorker, according to an internal memo distributed yesterday. (Radar had reported a rumor to this effect.)

Also heading over to 4 Times Square is New York Magazine contributing editor and writer Ariel Levy, who has already posted the news to her personal web site.

David Remnick wrote in an email to Media Mob that they are both...

The Editor Who Loved To Paint

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:47:59 -0500

Byron Dobell, one of the most respected and accomplished editors in New York magazine publishing history, is also a painter, and his seventh solo show, “Recent Works,” is currently on view at Chelsea’s First Street Gallery (526 West 26th Street). Mr. Dobell, who’s 80 (but doesn’t look a day over 65!), worked as an editor at many important magazines in the city, including Time, Esquire, New York and American Heritage, and edited writers like...

Andersen: Ailes Threatened to Stalk (and Photo) My Children

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:32:50 -0500

How did this go unnoticed for so long?

In Kurt Andersen's New York magazine column, published Monday, he casually spills the beans on Roger Ailes' preferred method of press control. Mr. Andersen writes that the Fox News chief "once threatened to send a camera crew to stalk my 3- and 5-year-old children in preemptive retaliation for a magazine story I was writing about his man Rush Limbaugh."

Thanks to Gawker for reading to the...

Rather Interesting

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:58:27 -0500

Because here at Media Mob we never miss a trick on the Rather beat...here are a couple of the best revelations from former Observer reporter Joe Hagan's New York magazine piece about the Category-5 newsman's $70 million lawsuit against his former bosses at CBS, and what he hopes to get out of it:

Most notably, Mr. Hagan reports that within months of leaving CBS, Mr. Rather hired a team of three investigators to try...

New York Magazine Party: High-School Math, But Few Bold-Faced Names

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:12:19 -0500

Adam Moss stood with a glass in champagne in one corner, Look Book's Amy Larocca was in another, and social princess Ally Hilfiger was sitting on a plush couch catching up with old high school friends ("We took retarded math!" exclaimed one. "Like, we did decimals" she replied). But as for familiar editorial faces, there was only a handful last night at the Bowery Hotel, as Mr. Moss' New York magazine celebrated its newly...