Photo by Joelle McKenna
Introducing the Fall 2021 issue of Brooklyn Magazine—in print
The first issue of the new Brooklyn Magazine tells the story of a pandemic-addled borough of survivors and strivers
If print is dead, we never got the memo.
This week, we’re announcing a new fall issue of Brooklyn Magazine, in print and available to subscribers and at shops, boutiques, cafes and various spots around the borough and beyond.
Not only is this a new issue, but Brooklyn Magazine is itself a new magazine. And going forward we’ll be putting four issues a year. As a publication, we relaunched online last December—new ownership, new editorial leadership, new mandate—because we are living in a new Brooklyn.
And as we said at our online relaunch last December, we see the mission of the new Brooklyn Magazine as a unifying one: We aim to cover Brooklyn communities that are rebuilding, persevering and creating. We’re about celebrating the culture, music, arts, fashion and businesses of Brooklyn. But not just the cool kids, or influencers, or movie stars.
How did we get here? Founded in 2010 by Daniel and Scott Stedman, Brooklyn Magazine in its first iteration had a great run covering the ascent of the borough into a global brand—something almost unimaginable a generation earlier. After running into some financial difficulties, the original Brooklyn Magazine printed its last issue in 2018; the website went dormant shortly after that.
A 20-year Brooklynite myself (some will argue that’s not long enough to call myself a real Brooklynite), I was approached by my now-partner Michael Bassik in April of 2020 with the idea of acquiring the archives and relaunching with a rethought publication. It was peak pandemic and I was between jobs, most recently having completed a three-year run as the editor-in-chief of Ad Age. We brought on Thomas Franke as our publisher, who has in turn done a phenomenal job of re-engaging with the local (and even national) business community. We have big plans for 2022.
We’ve all read stories about professional pandemic pivots, and in a sense that’s what this whole undertaking is. It’s been incredibly rewarding, and we’re all still learning.
Speaking of pivots, in this very issue we have five mini-profiles of BIPOC creatives who reinvented their own careers over the past 20 months. And in a way, a lot of the stories you’ll read in our pages are about reinvention: Andy Warhol turned himself from a good Catholic boy into a pop art icon (you’ll be able to visit him at the Brooklyn Museum next month); playwright Keenan Scott II is reinventing what a Broadway playwright looks and sounds like; photographer Heidi Systo unexpectedly turned herself into the patron saint of the borough’s feral cats; Brooklyn indie legends They Might Be Giants will celebrate 40 years of self-reinvention next year. The list goes on.
Reinvention is not a bad theme for fall. That said, fall also marks the onset of decay—and as Brooklyn grows, our housing stock remains woefully stagnant. We take a look at that too.
If that catalog of stories sounds like a bit of a mishmash, well, Brooklyn is a bit of a mishmash. We don’t pretend to be comprehensive around here, but maybe we can provide a sort of impressionistic snapshot of a borough rocked by a pandemic and resilient as a motherfucker. (Motherfuckers are resilient, right?)
Before I let you go, I would be remiss in not calling out the incredible team at Group SJR, led by Johnmichael Faustini and Joelle McKenna, who designed the hell out of this issue. We’ve done what’s called a “split run”: Keep an eye out for one of four covers wherever you find us. Collect them all! And feel free to send us photos of the magazine in the wild. We’ll put them in our winter issue. February will be here before you know it.