Today’s the day, ninety years ago to be exact, when the new weekly mentioned above turned up on newsstands across Manhattan. The cover, by Rea Irvin, was surprising. It featured a drawing of an as yet unnamed gentleman from an earlier time. How odd, how very strange. Who is that fellow, and why did The New Yorker’s founder and first editor, Harold Ross, decide to place the top hatted dandy on the inaugural issue. I can’t help but think that Ross made a very human decision: art won out over commerce.
I like to think that The New Yorker has survived 90 years, through tough times (in its infancy) through great times, and golden times, through times of editorial upheaval, and these current times of hourly change, because it has held to its promise from the start, that “it will be human.”
