Ah, the New Yorker!

Issue #1

The New Yorker, the magazine, is celebrating its first hundred years in 2025. Few publications I enjoyed when I was young are still around; this one taught me how to be a grown-up.

I was twelve and had a regular Saturday night gig babysitting for a family who had moved to Cleveland from the east coast. They brought with them a subscription to The New Yorker, delivered weekly then as now. After the kids were safely stowed away in bed I plunked myself down in the living room, which I can still picture in all its faux-1955-Colonial glory: an upholstered wing chair facing the fireplace with a reading lamp and magazine rack by its side. 

Every week there appeared on that rack a new copy of The New Yorker, and every week I went through it page by page. Did I read any articles? No. I did look at every cartoon and enjoyed the completely unrelated illustrations that decorated pages of text.

What caught my attention week after week were the ads. The companies never changed. Maybe Brooks Brothers had a different jacket or that week were advertising shirts, but there was always a Brooks Brothers ad, and it always looked the same. There were many, many tiny ads—for basket bags from Nantucket, pure Scottish cashmere argyle socks, hickory walking sticks from Maine, etc.—a plethora of goods that were never advertised or seemingly needed in Ohio. The focus of goods seemed necessary for the lifestyle of New Yorkers. I assumed they took a lot of vacations.

I soon realized that New York City was THE place to be. In another year I would have decided to move there myself as soon as possible, although college in NYC was a dream that never materialized. I had no idea what I was going to do in Manhattan, but I assumed when I arrived I would need my family tartan kilt, or at least a gold safety pin, and a handmade fishing creel, and Belgian shoes (whatever they were) and anything else that was continuously advertised in the New Yorker. 

In reality, when I really did become a New Yorker, I rarely bought the magazine. If I looked at a copy in a waiting room it was still for the cartoons or to read one of their pithy short movie reviews. The New York Times had become my source for all things New York (and still is). 

Exhibit at the New York Public Library

There was more, much more to it than the magazine itself. The New Yorker has a mystique and a history that has filled many books. What seems like a terrific exhibit at the New York Public Library celebrates The New Yorker in all its aspects. Wish I could click my feet together and take it in, and I might do that. It will be up until February 2026.

Just for fun I got a copy of the current issue. The cover price: $9.99, 78 pages, almost all solid text. No little postage stamp-sized ads. Hardly any ads at all. One for a hotel or apartment in Dubai (didn't say which), a couple ads for New Yorker related items, two institutional ads (NAACP and a benefit for God's Love We Deliver). The only other ads: Loro Piana, the Wall Street Journal Wine Club and Skechers. The New Yorker is still teaching us how to be New Yorkers after all.