Moss hired deputy editor Lindgren away from the NYT mag, where he "co-founded [god damn] 'The Way We Live Now section, one of the hallmarks of Mr. Moss' editorship there." Lindgren and Moss are soulmates, in other words. So the fact that he's been blogging just about every day lately is as good a sign as any that New York knows that its blogs are the future.

One problem: Lindgren's whole schtick in "The Downturnaround" is to show the bright side of the recession. Today, for example, he pulls one paragraph out of an Atlantic cover story to show "How the Financial Crisis is Good for New York"—namely, that all the I-bankers will go broke and stop buying all the best real estate. Which is nice and all, but hardly enough to make up for the fact that you're unemployed and real estate of any sort is a fantasy, because you sleep in the subway, as long as you can hop the turnstile, because you have no money for a fare card, but luckily the economic downturn means that there are no cops left to arrest you for fare-jumping, but the downside is you now have to fight off the armies of marauding subway mole-people all by yourself.

Why not let New York enjoy its pessimism in peace, Lindgren? [Pic: Flickr]

This is more than just the average, economic meltdown-induced spate of magazine cutbacks. Because New York magazine lives in its own, aspirational economy. Its readers are upwardly mobile, upper-middle class city types who feel like they could make it over the hump into official "Rich" territory if they could jussssst furnish their apartment with the proper designer doorknobs and boutique comforters and dine at the proper, overpriced new foodie establishments and occasionally foray into Bushwick for an avante-garde art show which would make for a scintillating story at their next dinner party, populated by others like them, who they hope to make jealous, thereby spurring an ever-escalating cycle of tasteful capitalist one-upmanship. The reason that New York is so quietly infuriating was best put into words by John Cook in a masterful 2007 hit piece in Radar. The magazine is just as bloodless as the audience it leads:

New York's most egregious sin is that it's aimed at such a narrow sliver of the city. It's become the bible of the ultra-entitled New Yorker, the kind of person who would actually spend $200 on a doorknob described in the magazine as a bargain. The Plate-U coffee table featured in the Strategist a few weeks ago, described with words "thriftiness can be elegant," can be had for $1,800, or the balance of a month's salary after taxes for a family that earns New York's median household income of $43,393. There's nothing wrong, of course, with pitching a magazine at ludicrously wealthy people desperately trying to fill the holes in their lives with grapefruit-and-vodka-pedicures. But New York is, after all, a city and not a colony of hedge-fund managers.

In 2007, this was just an observational lament. Today, it's a fun look at just how screwed New York's entire philosophy is. All that disposable income that fueled the magazine's most dedicated fans—not the truly rich, but those who felt that they could buy their way into that category through PRECISELY TARGETED PURCHASING. Always buying into the Cultural Moment was the key, and nobody could guide them down that treacherous commercial road better than New York. In the years between the start of the post-tech bubble resurgence and last fall's collapse of everything, Adam Moss and New York were the road signs leading a certain set of New Yorkers from juvenile Sex and the City lifestyle fantasies to a promised land of a tastefully wealthy playpen called Manhattan.

That's all dead, of course, and now New York has to figure out what to do. The magazine is privately held, and has been extraordinarily quiet about the cuts it's had to make so far. We hear the newest pay cuts were as much as 15%—higher cuts for those who were higher paid. No more 401k contributions either, we hear. New York can't continue on preaching the path to true wealth if it can't even get its own staffers there.

And the actually rich? They'll be fine. $450 meals at Masa are still selling at a healthy clip. It's just the upwardly mobile that need to worry. Say hello to a place you never wanted to find yourself: the middle class.

New York is owned by billionaire Bruce Wasserstein, the CEO of investment bank Lazard. Does he have money problems? Well, let's see:

Not so good! Like everyone else in the financial sector. And New York is not a cheap mag to own. Editor Adam Moss has been hiring top-notch talent at relatively high salaries for years now. It's not surprising they're trying to trim staff costs, and the fact is that a veteran restaurant reviewer is a cut that won't hurt as bad as lots of others might. Regardless of how talented she may be!

New York is a great magazine in its own way, but it's not a magazine that's set up to own the coverage of our new, post-financial-apocalypse society. New York is a magazine for the new rich. Watching them try to shift gears and tell us how to save money is like watching a country club try to recast itself as a sod farm.

So New York will make it through, with some shrinkage. Wasserstein will be rich, but not as rich. But New York won't really be back on its game until all of its readers can afford those holiday gift guide items once again.

Chris Partlow, the drug lord's enforcer in HBO's The Wire, will cut you. No, really. Here's actor Gbenga Akinnagbe, who plays the part; photographer Nikola forgot to request the scary assassin look.

Gaius Charles is "Smash" Williams in Friday Night Lights, an actor recently profiled in New York magazine. Why is such a cosmopolitan magazine taking a lowly-rated show about college football, and a fictional running back, under its wing? New York's Adam Moss explains: Friday Night Lights is "sports for gays and women". And Neel Shah.

James Truman, former editor director of Louise MacBain's luxury magazine hobby collection, has the inner peace of a yoga devotee, and a man who will never again have to cater to the French-Canadian divorcee's whims. (Related: MacBain's Culture & Travel.is running a three-year-old account of a trip to Myanmar by obnoxious fallen Star editor, Joe Dolce.)

Emily Gould, another former Gawker writer now lost to management, is now consulting on blogs to Jewcy, the site for hip jews. Emily is way too hip for Jewish traditions. Piglet. Yum!

Another unkosher combination: Emily Gould and (head at regulation tilt) Julia Allison. Says Gould: "What can I say? I like her."

A piglet, desecrated by New York's Jesse Oxfeld. Or vice versa. Whatever.

Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post, with her date, Raymond Roker of Urb magazine. They met at a Jewish retreat. The pork's better here.

Brits Eddie Izzard, Alan Cumming and Rachel Weisz watched fellow countryman, Daniel Day-Lewis, win the award for best actor. They're over the moon. Can't you tell? (Weisz, who won best supporting actress for her role in The Constant Gardener, was photographed later in the evening, at cabaret club The Box.)

To the right of Noelle Hancock from pagesix.com: Jessica Coen, overlady of New York magazine's blogs. The former Gawker writer looks like a sweet girl from the Midwest in this picture. Once, she was.

Hud Morgan of Men's Vogue learned how to wear scarves from his former boss at the New York Daily News, Lloyd Grove, seen here with New York's Carl Swanson (left).

Deborah Schoeneman, the former gossip columnist and Hamptons diarist, now writes TV scripts in Los Angeles. Does she miss New York? "In LA, writers actually make money; and they're happy." Smug bitch.

Waiting for Emily Gould.

It's gay Christmas. Public displays of affection between the gays are permitted only at The Cock and during the Oscars. New York's Carl Swanson and boyfriend cuddle around the telecast.

More rejoicing gays: New York's David Haskell and his boyfriend, Esteban Arboleda.

One straight couple, Noelle Hancock and New York Times reporter, Nick Confessore, didn't know the rules.

Curbed "lord" Lockhart Steele got name-checked in Page Six's party report. Jessica Coen, like aspiring starlets before her, is only with him for the reflected celebrity.

Photos by Nikola Tamindzic

(Photograph by Nikola Tamindzic)

The magazine is pretty, aesthetically as well as financially. It's like a T: Style magazine but for New York: a chance for advertisers to roam free through the pages like beautiful skinny bison on a wild glossy plain. According to Lauren Starke, the magazine has 70 ad pages to 180 editorial. That's strong and healthy! So healthy that it took us 50 ad pages to even reach the table of contents! [Correction: "I must have misspoke. It's actually 180 pages total." Ah. That makes more sense.]

Classic Mossian touches—short declarative sentence headlines, pressing ever onwards to the new, charts&mdash:are distributed betwixt the advertisements. "Hats are (almost) the new bags." "Legs are the New Cleavage." "The Basic Pump Is a Distant Memory."

Harriet Mays Powell, a longtime editor at New York magazine who got her start under the bespectacled grand dame of the Times' Carrie Donovan (and later Old Navy mascot), Look's fashion editor. She was wearing a wondrously strange dress and looks like Anne Bancroft. She described her style as "charmingly seductive." It was!

Simon Doonan, a small gay famous person from Redding Reading, England, pretended to eat her necklace. Cute.

Amy Larocca was wearing a dress with little creme dots on it. She wouldn't describe her Look. She also wrote most of what is in the magazine including a piece in which she basically calls Marc Jacobs a baby. Not in a cute way, in a critical way.

Around 8:30, the Bowery staff began to herd stragglers out of the bar. The after-party for the Dylan movie "I'm Not There" had booked the space and Heath Ledger was expected. As they were leaving, some models cast their eyes longingly back to the fireplace and gave it one last melancholy look.

This year's subject is Magabrands! What is a Magabrands!? Zinczenko's letter to the troops explains:

It's a magazine that's found a way to extend the power of its brand beyond the printed periodical—into realms like "old" media (books, newsstand specials, television, radio); "new" media (podcasts, webcasts, cellcasts, e-newsletters); even non-media (nightclubs, restaurants, tour operations, fashion lines, retail products, conventions, big-cause crusades, hotels and casinos).

A list of speakers include New York editor Adam Moss; Times guy David Carr, sure to be the most engaging speaker of the lot; John DeLucie, partner and chef of the Waverly Inn (THAT IS ODD); plastic chef Rocco DiSpirito; and Dan Rather. Also, editor and publisher of the Nation Katrina Vanden Heuvel, whose headshot is really an object lesson in how not to use the brightness/contrast tool in Photoshop. Book your tickets now at the Field and Stream Motel today!

We checked around to make sure it wouldn't be a total flop, and it turns out that a good chunk of the Golden Boa Ten are actually planning to attend!

That does not include Harper Collins CEO Jane Friedman, who had no idea what the hell we were talking about when we called. (Hey, she's busy.) New York Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet will also not make it.

But! It does include NPR cutie Adam Davidson, Craig's List non-hermit Craig Newmark, New York mag editrix Adam Moss, uberpublicst Ken Sunshine and designer and art director Luke Hayman, who all said they would attend.

And what about Stephen Colbert? Doesn't he go to everything? He must spend a lot of money on sitters.

We hope the winnders are also planning on bringing dollies of some kind, because we just really can't see Craig Newmark staggering home on the crosstown bus with a bronzed accessory under his arm. Adam Moss—well, he's used to that kind of thing.

On 5F, the contemporary fashion wing of Bergdorf's, Hall and Oates' Private Eyes was playing quietly over hidden speakers. Middle-aged women dressed in all black were passing around little falafel patties and the most stylish New Yorkers, at least in a Look Bookian terms, were schmoozing.

The idea was that all the Look Bookers would wear their original outfits. But some of the photographs are years old and fitting into the same dress, for many look bookers, proved an untenable position. But they were there all right. In one section, near a rack of blouses, Alex Kennedy-Grant, the self-proclaimed guitar virtuoso, was saddling up Andre J, the tall self-proclaimed muse. Their afros—one rouge the other noir—bobbed together like buoys above the sea of people. Alex, who it turns out doesn't live in Williamsburg (Prospect Heights, represent), is still unsigned but unflaggingly virtuosic. André tried to take off my shirt. That interaction was made even more awkward because Vanessa Grigoriadis, the New York mag writer who is working on the forthcoming "exposé" on Gawker, was standing right next to me as I struggled to keep André's hands away from my abdomen. Later she borrowed a page from my notebook to scrawl some cryptic notes that I'm sure read: "JDS shoved Andre's hand away. What is he hiding under there?" Dig, Vanessa, DIG!

Her boss, Adam Moss flitted briefly into throughout the room in a dapper striped suit.

By the signing table, Look Book queen Amy Larocca's family was hanging out. Her ma, Dale Larocca, a professor at the New York Institute of Technology, looked like she could have been in the book itself, but, "If you know Amy, there's no way you're getting in." Dale was talking to Joan Copeland, Arthur Miller's younger sister and a Larocca family friend. Turns out Jim Larocca, the author's father, was in state politics most of his life but later on, the silver-haired fox turned to regional theater. In this capacity he directed Ms. Copeland. "So you're an actress?" we asked. "Yes," said Mme. Copeland, "I'm very famous too!" And the funny thing is that she wasn't being arrogant at all. She is actually very famous!

In another tiny circle, Bobby Zarem, the PR macher, was chatting with Ben Widdicombe who was in a much better mood than he was at at Tenjune. Zarem, who sported a Hillary button, had just come from a Clinton fundraiser at the house of Paul Berne, where Bill spoke to much applause. "I had a better time there," said Zanem. "The people were easier to much easier to talk to."

In another small cluster, Nicole Brydson and Michael Calderone, the inseparable Observer duo, were chatting with Page Six's Corynne Steindler and Page Six magazine's Entertainment editor Rachel Syme. And was that former Gawker editor Doree Shafrir we saw with a special glow? It was. Why the glow? "I have a phone," she said excitedly. "And an office! And a computer! The other day, I actually took a source out to lunch!"

Whoa. She has sources now.

An old New York magazine ad sales lady was kind of hitting on Calderone who, it happens, has an avid interest in cougars. But later she caught us gently gently making fun of her inebriation. "Are you making fun of me?" she asked. We laughed like a bunch of guilty kids and I opened beer bottles with my teeth to try to distract her.

All:

Welcome to the new home of New York Media at 75 Varick St!

I know that we are looking forward to settling into our new workspace and getting back to work. We have had numerous challenges in the last several days which may affect many of you. PLEASE READ THIS!

At this time, the TOP priority for the IT team is providing working phone, email and Internet access for every workstation. Help Desk personnel will be visiting every single employee and working quickly to make sure everyone is online. If you have a problem, please DO NOT call [redacted] (remember 8 for an internal extension). The Help Desk team will be walking the building throughout the day to address the problems at each desktop.

In additional to the Help Desk crew, we will have several people here from Consultedge who will provide support for our new Avaya phone system. We will also post a schedule for training (if you miss it, we will have another set of training the following week after Labor Day).

PLEASE BE PATIENT! We will get through this together.

Known issues:

* Fax to the desktop is not working (however faxes are queueing up). If there is a critical fax to retrieve, pleaes let one of the Consultedge representatives know and we will retrieve them for you.

* Fax lines are installed and fax machines have been placed where they belong; however, if you are missing your fax machine or have the wrong number assigned to it, Consultedge will take care of port reassignments.

* In some areas, the data ports have been blocked by furniture, making it impossible to connect/test your workstations. In other areas, your phone extension may not yet have been programmed into your phone. We will have someone come up with a temporary solution until your problem can be addressed.

* In some cases, computers have been damaged during the move. These are rare (we have only identified 2 so far). We will work to find a temporary solution for you.

* Some computers were not properly updated for our new network settings. We will have to adjust these computers in order for them to get on the Internet and online.

* Remote access to 75 Varick is NOT enabled. Bloggers must be on-site to get to web resources such as Movable Type.

The first day will no doubt we challenging for many of us, and we know you just want things to work. Your patience and cooperation will help us get through this faster.

Thanks again for your patience, and welcome to your new office!

Joanne Lipman: Imperious, not quite sure how to run a magazine. But! Knows how to tell rich people what they should buy. Move her over to New York, a magazine whose only relevant section is The Strategist, your go-to guide when you need to know where to find $500 antique doorknobs. She's a natural fit. This, of course, would cause the exit of...

Adam Moss: An editor with the unique talent of turning every magazine he helms into some iteration of the late 7 Days. Whatever its faults, that title was always lively and exciting, unlike Vanity Fair, which feels a little flat these days. Send Moss to VF, where he can clean up the chaotic front of the book and still indulge his passion for stories about rich people. Sadly, the magazine would no longer require the services of...

Graydon Carter: This may sound like a counterintuitive move, but think about it: The man can't shut up about politics. Give him a perch at the New Republic and he'll be able to both fulminate his little heart out about the evil Republicans and liven up the book's incredibly soporific design. Sure, the world isn't crying out for an Annie Leibovitz photogallery of Al From, but it's miles better than the crappy illustrations the book currently offers. Unfortunately, this would result in plenty of spare time for...

Marty Peretz: Freed at last from his historic burden of being the lone voice in the media that keeps America's support of Israel strong, Peretz can bring his stilted prose and love of obscure words to Maxim, which would be a public service to the magazine's audience of mongoloids, who will be forced to use their other hand to open a dictionary. It'll be a series of monthly teachable moments! The one man who won't be around to learn anything, though, is...

Jimmy Jellinek: Let the Maxim editor take Greg Gutfeld's slot on Red Eye. Seriously, a monkey could do that job; Jimmy's at least two or three stages of evolution better than that. But what of The Gut?

Well! You know the one thing Tina Brown's Diana book was missing? A real man's appreciation of what a fox the late princess was. Greg's not afraid to be politically incorrect: We need his sharp insights concerning the tautness of Diana's thighs and the pendulousness of her cans. This book will sell like crazy! And then Greg can sit on his ass collecting royalty checks and waiting out Tina Brown's tenure at Portfolio. Everyone wins. Especially us!

Distressed Asset [TNR]

One of the great problems with New York magazine is its assumption of unwavering uniformity in its audience. Like Reader's Digest or the Playboy of the 1970's, New York caters repetitively to an intensely specific audience—one which, in reality, might not actually number more than a few dozen people. And for it, there are no other readers. As with any publication (or government, say!) so absolutely assured of its populace, it, and its agents, cannot understand why non-belonging entities and non-nationals might despise it. In their world, such a dislike is unfathomable, and therefore must be a joke, or a senseless riff. It doesn't compute.

Though probably someday, Adam Moss, the ultimate editor-as-publisher, will have his own personal Tiananmen.

Anyway. And so Serena Torrey came to this little item of ours, in which New York was described as a "crap" magazine and also as the "arbiter of cool to suburban orthodontists' wives throughout the tri-state area." She was moved to compose an underminer-esque email from vacation.

There! Now we're friends, right? After all, just because two former Gawker editors went to work at New York doesn't mean that's a mistake all the rest of us would ever want to make. —choire

Adam's Apple [Radar]

• Don Imus' contract with CBS said: "Services to be rendered are of a unique, extraordinary, irreverent, intellectual, topical, controversial, and personal character." Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin thinks that makes Imus's $40 million lawsuit against CBS a bit more plausible. [CNN]
  
• Grocery store magnate/alleged Radar investor Ron Burkle in talks to merge with American Media Inc. (Star, National Enquirer, etc.). [NYP]
  
• Former Maxim EIC Keith Blanchard has left Wenner Media, where he's been since October. [WWD]
  
• Time Warner's cable business is carrying the can for its sorry publishing component. [NYP]
  
• Details douchebag Dan Peres rises a bit in our estimation. His take on Mark Whitaker's branding Adam Moss "the new David Remnick": "Remnick is beloved, as you know. It would have been much funnier if it had been about someone we all can't stand." [WWD]

By the time Adam Moss came to the podium for the fifth time last night to accept the National Magazine Award for Profile Writing for Vanessa Grigoriadis's piece on fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, some in the audience were muttering that a simple "thank you" would do nicely. But, just as he had for the previous four New York magazine wins, Mr. Moss had a speech ready. "You are never going to give us one again!" he said, and the audience tittered. Perhaps they would, and perhaps they wouldn't!

The award for Profile Writing came after the award for General Excellence in the 250,000 to 500,000 circulation category, in which Mr. Moss beat out a motley assortment of other publications, including demon-child mag Cookie. "Last year I got away with not naming any colleagues personally," he said, reminding the audience that his magazine also went home with awards last year. This year, there was also New York's Magazine Section award for its Strategist section; the award for Design, presented by one of the magazine's founders, Milton Glaser; and the award for Interactive Feature, for the Nymag.com's Fashion Week blog-thing.

Mr. Moss's ultimate boss, the canny money manager Bruce Wasserstein, was also in the audience, and one observer sitting near him reported that he did not so much as crack a smile during the entire ceremony.

It was not lost on anyone in the audience that Mr. Moss had totally beat out David Remnick's New Yorker, which had been nominated for a healthy nine awards but came home with absolutely zero. Still, a certain sense of decorum is to be expected. And thus, when Mark Whitaker, the former editor of Newsweek who is about to start a new job at NBC, quipped on stage that "Adam Moss is the new David Remnick," there was a collective gasp from the audience. Did he really say that? And perhaps more important: Could it be true?

Graydon Carter was decidedly not the new David Remnick. Not with that anecdote about Christopher Hitchens and waxing that he told on stage! Certainly, the words "the back, the crack, the sac" have never been uttered on stage at the National Magazine Awards. However! These are the new National Magazine Awards, held at night for only the second year, at the sleek Jazz at Lincoln Center. Black tie, except Mr. Carter, who wore his trademark double-breasted blue blazer (you know the one, with the gold buttons) and a pair of cerulean blue velvet pants. This is the National Magazine Awards of celebrity guests and presenters, like Kevin Bacon! Scottish singer KT Tunstall opening, but not with the song that was played in The Devil Wears Prada (though no one was sure whether Anna Wintour was actually in attendance). Carrie Fisher! Ann Curry! And videotaped segments by Ellen DeGeneres and America Ferrera!

For as long as anyone could remember, the ceremony had been a lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria, and editors could return to their desks slightly tipsy in the late afternoon. But those days are over! Now individual tickets cost $465, tux rental for the more junior set not included. The editor of the Paris Review, Philip Gourevitch, had bought two tickets, one for himself and one for his managing editor, Radhika Jones—a wise investment, since Mr. Gourevitch's magazine won its first-ever award, for Photojournalism. "I'm going to use it to defend our office," Mr. Gourevitch said afterwards, indicating the Ellie's pointy metal legs. "Tonight, I'm going to go home and let my kid look at it, and hope that no one gets hurt. It's like a throwing star!"

The editor and publisher of McSweeney's, who was there alone (no Dave! No Vendela! No Heidi!), wondered how he was going to get his award, for fiction writing, home to the West Coast. "I don't like to check luggage," he said.

The director John Waters said that he gets 160 magazines a month. His favorite, he said, is the Capital Punishment Newsletter, a magazine that had not been nominated for an award. If he were to start a magazine, he said it would be called Drip, as his last name is Waters, and it would be about "all the worst places to be famous. You know, the embarrassing side of celebrity." —Doree

National Magazine Awards Photo Gallery

National Magazine Awards Winners and Finalists [ASME]