Memories of New York Magazine (Part 1)

In the mid-1970s, I was taking classes in late afternoon and early evening at Columbia University for a graduate degree in English and working full time during the day as assistant arts editor at New York magazine. So, before I ever set foot in the front of a classroom I was sidetracked by journalism, in a job I looked forward to every single day. 

I was reminded of a conversation I had several years ago with Orlando Magic president Pat Williams, who, like me, had always held down jobs that he loved. Pat said that he used to tell his 19 children (14 by adoption), “Find something you would do for nothing, and then get paid for it.” It was advice I had passed along to my two children. As for me, as an editor, I had a job that paid me to read all day. It was the best of all possible worlds for as long as I had worked.

My responsibilities at New York were to work closely with the Lively Arts department, the magazine’s so-called “back of the book.” I would have first read, which included fact-checking and line editing, on all the reviews submitted by the magazine’s critics: Judith Crist (Film), John Simon (Theater), Alan Rich (Classical Music), Thomas B. Hess and later John Ashbery (Art), Gary Giddins (Jazz), Marcia B. Siegel (Dance), and Nik Cohn (Rock). Later on, Molly Haskell and David Denby wrote about film, Tom Bentkowski about recordings, and John Gabree about rock. 

In addition, Ruth Gilbert (Movies, Theater, and After Dark) and I (Concerts, Opera, Art Galleries—with a big assist from freelancer Holly Pinto—Dance, Museums, and Sports) compiled the weekly entertainment listings in the front of the magazine.

During my four-year term, a few of the arts beats changed. I arrived as Judith Crist, relieved of her post as film critic, was leaving. My first assignment was to edit her last column: a review of the re-release of The Hound of the Baskervilles. The following week, John Simon moved from covering theater to film. It was a dramatic shift in temperament, tone, and erudition. Crist was less a critic than a long-time reviewer for New York and TV Guide. She was, let’s say, less demanding and more accommodating in general to film—a movie fan—than the acerbic and brilliant Simon, a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard with an uncompromising ferocity for excellence. To be fair, it was John who reminded everyone that Judy pointed out in her review of the film that Krakatoa was west, not east, of Java.

One week after the transition, readers loyal to Crist wrote impassioned letters to editor-in-chief Clay Felker protesting her departure. Simon took great joy in reading aloud some of the more vitriolic objections that arrived in the mail. I remember one missive very clearly, thanks to the exuberant theatrical relish with which Simon read it: “Going from Judith Crist to John Simon is like going from Pollyanna to Martin Bormann.”

Later that year, in his review of Howard Zieff’s film Hearts of the West, Simon wrote, “And then, as Tater, there is Jeff Bridges, clearly the most—or should I say only?—gifted member of the acting Bridges clan, and getting better all the time.” Shortly after that appeared in print the magazine received a handwritten letter from Mrs. Lloyd Bridges in which she defended her husband and her older son, Beau, and disputed John’s assessment of their thespian efforts.

Alan Rich, the arts editor and music critic, presided over the beats coverage. Alan’s desk was alongside mine. Copy editor Deborah Harkins and Around Town editor Ruth Gilbert completed our foursome at the crossroads in New York’s city room layout. 

Typically, Alan would arrive sometime after 10 A.M., look over the day’s mail, catch up on whatever was happening in the office, and then sit down to type that week’s music review. His method was unlike any other writer’s I have ever known. Alan never wrote out anything in longhand, never worked from notes, never labored over drafts. He would insert his triple-sheet carbon set into his manual typewriter and the inspiration went directly from his brain to his fingers with barely a pause. 

Alan would pass his 750-word manuscript to me, wait patiently while I read it, and then answer whatever questions I had and discuss any corrections or changes that needed to be made in the copy. Having saved the program from the concert, recital, or opera he was reviewing, Alan would hand it over to me so that I could fact-check his review and verify the spelling of the performers’ names, their history, and any other relevant information about the performance.

As music critic, Alan received complimentary tickets to virtually every concert and recital in town. He kept the tickets in a small metal box on his desk, and made available to the staff whatever tickets he did not intend to use. I took advantage of that to attend the Mostly Mozart Festival, Metropolitan, New York City, and Light Opera productions, American Ballet Theater, and other musical events in and around the city.

Alan passed away in 2010 at age 85. The release each summer of the Mostly Mozart Festival schedule in Lincoln Center always reminds me of my friend and former boss. Mozart, you see, was Alan’s favorite composer, and it was Alan who instilled in me an appreciation for Mozart’s music. Every January, for many years, Alan would write his annual Mozart birthday article in New York. I miss that feature.

I also fondly recall New York executive editor Shelley Zelaznick from my own too-brief tenure. It was New York’s loss when Shelley resigned in 1977 after the magazine’s visionary founder and editor Clay Felker lost the property in a hostile takeover by Rupert Murdoch. Shelley was smart, tough, and gentlemanly. I admired him very much. Even on the hottest days he always seemed cool and regal. During intermission at the Ziegfeld Theater of the first pre-release screening of Stanley Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon in December 1975, my then-girlfriend and now-wife and I ran into Shelley and his wife in the lobby. “The temptation to leave is almost irresistible,” Shelley said of the ponderously dull film.

Alan had great respect for Shelley, whose company he enjoyed dating back to their days together as comrades at the Herald Tribune, from whose Sunday magazine New York had sprung. There was a time in the late 1970s when Alan briefly added theater critic to his duties (and Simon switched over to film). In reviewing a play (I can't remember the title), Alan referred to the actress in the leading role as “a female Angela Lansbury.” It was a self-consciously silly throwaway line that I, with first read on the review, would dutifully but regretfully have to throw away.

          

“Alan, you can't write that,” I told him.

         

Alan had an impish grin. “Show it to Shelley. See what he says,” Alan said. He was reluctant to give up quietly a line that he enjoyed so much.

So I walked up to the front of the office and gave the copy to Shelley, who dropped what he was doing and read it immediately. Minutes later he came back to discuss it with Alan, trying to suppress a smile. The scene played like a headmaster admonishing with a firm but proud hand a brilliantly mischievous student.  

The reading had the desired effect. Alan knew the phrase had no chance of making it into print, but he wanted to show Shelley what an amusing line it was and to make him laugh. And then it was O.K. to delete the sentence.

            

To be continued