Migrations

AVENUE Magazine Staffers Leave to Form New Lifestyle Title Backed By Jared Kushner

AVENUE magazine publisher Julie Dannenberg, editor-in-chief Peter Davis and creative director Cricket Burns are leaving the 35-year-old Manhattan Media-owned glossy to form their own title, which will be backed by Jared Kushner (who is also the owner of Observer Media Group, which owns The New York Observer). The yet-to-be-named lifestyle magazine will target an audience beyond AVENUE’s traditional Upper East Side domain.

“Manhattan is an ever-evolving island, especially when it comes to real estate,” e-mailed Ms. Dannenberg, who will serve as the new publication’s CEO and publisher. “In the days of Henry James, the social set lived in what is now known as Greenwich Village and from there they moved to Edith Wharton’s Chelsea and onward to the Upper East Side.  [But] we are no longer defined by where we live. We are not an Upper East Side magazine, but a magazine for the affluent household, not defined by neighborhood or by age but by mutual interests and similar demographics. What Manhattan needs is a magazine written and styled for the affluent, stylish, intelligent and savvy man or woman who can and does only exist in New York.” Read More

Society-Mag Smackdown

Late last year, a man named Aidan Vola, a plumber by trade, decided to launch a society magazine called New York Hamptonite. Using $118,000 of his own savings, he assembled a sales team and rented a small office in Bridgehampton. At 3 a.m. on May 22, 2009, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, his distributor Read More