the New Yorker turns ninety

Living in Denver in the 80's, I was a little homesick for the East coast, so I decided to subscribe to the New Yorker. I guess I have been getting the New Yorker for over thirty years. It was always fun winding my way through it's pages of overlong articles, sometimes continuing from week to week. The old New Yorker had no photographs but always had the cartoons. Back then, the cost of a subscription was quite low, presumably since its reader demographics were so good.

Traditionally,  the typical New Yorker reader was a middle aged man, someone who wore a tweed jacket, perhaps an academic who lived on the upper west side of Manhattan in a cluttered rent controlled apartment. His couch was old and he had crumbs on his ancient breakfast table. He smoked a pipe. 

Back in the twenties the magazine serviced a more fashionable set, a reader who would frequent speakeasies with the occasional light lunch at the Algonquin. The literary celebrities of the day would write for the New Yorker and be seen at the hottest art openings and Broadway shows. 

Tina Brown updated the magazine. She brought in more news and, heaven forbid, introduced the magazine to the world of photography. Today the magazine is much more expensive. Who are the readers today? Perhaps they are wanna be academics who couldn't get jobs in a university or afford an apartment in New York. There they sit in the suburbs paying child support and working for a social service agency in Scranton. Still they have their New Yorker.

Editor's note: In my sixties blog, there is a new piece on the Von Steuben House.
whoo boy, the New Yorker just sent me a tote bag. I guess they liked the blog.