Tom Allon runs for his birthday (NY1)

We had arrived in the middle of one woman's speech about why Mr. Allon's views on teachers was inspiring. (Mr. Allon had taught English at Stuyvesant High School after graduating from Columbia, after all.)

After the woman had tearfully finished, we approached Mr. Allon. "As someone who has to balance a media and political career, who is your inspiration?"

"Boris Johnson," he said, laughing. And to clarify: "Wait, I'm just kidding!"

Mr. Allon added that his hero certainly wasn't Berlusconi.

"I guess Bloomberg is the only person who comes to mind, but he has a very different kind of media company than I do. I think of myself not just as a newspaper or a magazine publisher, but an educator."

Well, Pulitzer and Hearst made this town, we reminded him. So why even bother with politics when he already had the power of the press?

"I don't want to be in politics," Mr. Allon told us. "I want to be a public servant. I've been a media person for 25 years and I'll probably be a media person after I leave office, but I decided to run after I tried to change the administration standards at my old high school and realized how they weren't going to change, no matter how many articles about the issue I banged out."

With that, we let the perhaps future mayor go back to receiving his birthday wishes and congratulations...mostly, we noticed, from schoolteachers who had come to toast their new champion.

"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."

The new publication will cover social events, luxury style and New York personalities. "We will be at every movie premiere, black tie charity benefit, hot night club opening and in the front row of every fashion show from Alexander Wang to Oscar de la Renta to tell who said what to who, and why they said it," said Mr. Davis, via email. "News breaks by the tweet in Manhattan, so expect updates on the digital horizon as well as print. We are fascinated with what's next, whether it be a hotel (we already have the insider scoop on The Standard's new East Village location), to a handbag, to the girl of the second that has the style world swooning. We will keep you talking and guessing all year, and all night long."

"The three of us are thrilled to be given the opportunity to create and entirely unique and unexpected magazine," added Ms. Burns, via email.

Ms. Dannenberg, Mr. Davis and Ms. Burns are all Manhattan natives and Ms. Dannenberg pointed out that they're all ostensibly part of the demographic they're also targeting. "Peter Davis is a Buckley boy, has over 15,000 Facebook followers, and has written for every prestigious magazine on the planet," said Ms. Dannenberg. "He is always the most popular man at the party. Cricket Burns is herself a Sacred Heart girl with two Sacred Heart girls of her own. She has worked at Harper's Baazar, Seventeen, Quest, Luxury Finder.com. and AVENUE magazine."

Ms. Dannenberg spent over 23 years at AVENUE with breaks in-between to work as Publisher at start-ups Manhattan File,and Luxury Finder.com and in-between, she was Publisher at Quest.

"I'm excited to work with a team that has already demonstrated success," Mr. Kushner said, "And I look forward to seeing what I know will be a creative, smart and stylish publication."

When New York Press shut down last month to make way for a revived Our Town Downtown, The Observer wondered what would become of the hundreds of kelly green Press boxes dotting lower Manhattan. Standing side-by-side with the red graffiti'd Village Voice boxes, they were a visual reminder that print newspapers do still exist. Would they be thrown away, or left abandoned, like the wire holders for The New York Sun still lurking in subway newsstands?

On September 1, following the final issue of New York Press, the green boxes were transformed.  A black sticker with the revived paper's emblem now covers the familiar bright yellow New York Press logo on many of them downtown.

Gerry Gavin, Our Town Downtown and Manhattan Media publisher, explained the decision to repurpose the boxes made sense since writers from New York Press still contribute to the new paper’s arts and entertainment coverage.

“In this way readers of the NY Press would be easily able to find the new downtown publication,” Mr. Gavin said in an email. It's also more environmentally sound than throwing them all out.

Although alt-weeklies may never feel the same again, Manhattan Media will immortalize some of New York Press’ artsy spirit on the boxes.

In addition to recycling the green boxes, Mr. Gavin explained Manhattan Media intends to hold a newspaper box decorating contest which allowing downtown artists, schools and community groups to submit designs to paint each individual box. The boxes, Mr. Gavin said, will display each groups’ vision of what they love about downtown.

“This will make the boxes individualized art installations throughout downtown from 14th Street to Battery Park,” he said.

The New York Press will live on in name, sort of. The arts section of Our Town Downtown will be called New York Press, and nypress.com will be expanded in the fall to aggregate news and content from Manhattan Media's ten titles and other local news sources.

Marissa Maier, previously reported to be Jerry Portwood's replacement at the top of New York Press, will serve as managing editor for Our Town Downtown and Josh Rogers, formerly of Downtown Express, will supervise the re-launch and execution. It will be published by Gerry Gavin, who publishes the other five Manhattan Media weekly papers, with help from a few New York Press sales people.

"Downtown has changed, it's more ripe for a community paper than an alternative paper," Mr. Allon said. (The same demographic shift led to the original launch of Our Town Downtown in 2006. It merged with the New York Press when Manhattan Media bought it in 2007, making this a reverse-merger.)

Our Town Downtown plans to address its new audience with a new focus on real estate and with a special issue commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a portion of the advertising and sponsor revenue from which will be donated to two 9/11 charities.

"It'll compete with the Voice for hipsters, Downtown Express for community activists, and New York magazine for intelligentsia who care about real estate and their home values," Mr. Allon said.

The Daily News City Hall Bureau Chief, Chief Adam Lisberg, is departing for the top editing job at Manhattan Media, publisher of City Hall News and The Capitol. The Daily News confirmed the Gawker item about Lisberg's departure, which had been making the rounds online.

(Lisberg fills the vacancy created when Edward-Isaac Dovere decamped to Politico.)

Lisberg, in a brief interview with me, denied saying the "cheap" quote that appears right after him attributed to him in the Gawker item. "I never spoke with Gawker and would never say that," he said.

With his new job, Lisberg moves from the hard-scrabbled world of tabloid journalism into the roomier pastures of a thoughtful periodical.

City Hall News and The Capitol churn out spacious pages with lots of room for lengthy, investigative stories; just ask the Working Familes Party. (City Hall News, comes out every two weeks; The Capitol, once a month.)  The publications also host more public events with newsmakers than practically any other news outlet in New York.

Lisberg, a general assignment reporter with the Daily News before taking the City Hall beat (and Sunday column that goes with it), says he's glad for the change of venues.

"I think one of the strengths of City Hall News and The Capitol is that they're not snarky, they're not slanted," he told me in a brief interview just now. "They don't do cheap shots. It's serious and substantive and they do fair work. There's not enough places for long-form, serious journalism that doesn't necessarily slam one side or the other, but really presents issues."

And in true, feisty, adoration, his long-time colleague, blogger Celeste Katz wrote to wish him well, and to warn Lisberg that she is already planning to "clea[n] your clock!" [fixed]

The eponymous Dan Rattiner will remain the paper's president and editor-in-chief. When Brown Publishing filed for bankruptcy in May, Mr. Rattiner assured readers that his paper wasn't going anwhere

"Brown's bankruptcy is not about shutting down and selling off the pieces. In fact, everything will be proceeding as normal," Mr. Rattiner wrote on the paper's website. "Instead, this action is about shedding much of this long-term bank loan."

Richard Burns, the chairman of Manhattan Media, said that even during Brown Publishing's struggle with bankruptcy, Dan's Papers never stopped making money.

In my interview with Allon, he said he was recusing himself from the endorsement process.

In the endorsement, Our Town noted they interviewed Bloomberg, and said that Bill Thompson “has often been in alignment with the mayor, and there are few major points of difference between the two candidates.”

The paper also endorsed David Yassky for comptroller, who, as Liz Benjamin noted, is renting office space from Manhattan Media.

UPDATE: The paper did run a disclaimer at the bottom of the endorsements disclosing its financial relationships with some candidates. Overall, only one of the four candidates who use Allon’s local ad buying service was endorsed by the paper.

Usually, it’s to arrange for him to place ads in weekly and ethnic newspapers throughout the city.

On January 16, a company called Madison Square Partners L. L.C. was founded. It set up shop inside the midtown offices of Manhattan Media, which publishes City Hall News, The Capitol, Our Town, the West Side Spirit, and Avenue Magazine.

Madison Square Partners is a separate venture from the publishing empire Allon oversees. It has also led Allon to recuse himself from the endorsement process at some of his newspapers, he said.

As Allon described it in a series of interviews this week, Madison Square Partners is a company that places ads throughout the city. The result for clients is a cost-effective way to reach a targeted audience, which, in the current media landscape, is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

Currently, Madison Square Partners' main client is Michael Bloomberg’s reelection campaign. According to records at the city Campaign Finance Board, Madison Square Partners has taken in $409,007 this year from clients, with $370,487 coming from Bloomberg’s campaign. That does not represent pure profits. According to Allon, the cost of placing the ad is included in the bill Madison Square Partners sends to its clients.

Ads for Bloomberg's campaign have appeared in local and ethnic newspapers in all five boroughs, thanks to Allon.

(The only other campaign that has used Madison Square Partners is the campaign of David Weprin, who is running for city comptroller. Both campaigns employ consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who said he does not know anything about Madison Square Partners.)

In the interviews, Allon said the work of Manhattan Media and Madison Square Partners is completely separate. He also said that like most publishers, he does not steer coverage of his newspapers.

Allon also said that, for the first time, he will recuse himself from the endorsement process his newspapers will go through with candidates for office. When his editors meet with candidates, Allon said, he will not be in attendance and will not voice his opinion.

He noted that only the weekly papers at Manhattan Media (Our Town, the West Side Spirit and New York Press) make endorsements. The monthly publications (City Hall News and The Capitol) do not.

From the e-mail:

Today, another release touts several hires at the magazine. George Lois, creator of Esquire's most iconic magazine covers of the 1960s and Pentagram's Luke Hayman have been tapped to redesign the magazine. Jamie Hooper, who launched Giant magazine in 2004, will be 02138's new publisher. And David Blum, the editorial director of Manhattan Media and the editor in chief of the New York Press, will become editor-in-chief of 02138 when it resumes printing with its December/January issue.

Mr. Blum, who had previously been editor in chief at The Village Voice but whose tenure there was rocky and brief, has stepped aside from his role at the Press, handing the reins to Jerry Portwood, the paper's managing editor since 2006. Mr. Blum, who'd been top editor at the paper for 10 months, says he'll still be around the Press offices. "I'm just there to help if needed," he told Media Mob.

Mr. Portwood, 31, whose first issue as editor in chief is out now, says one thing he plans to bring to the paper is an outsider's perspective on the city. "I'm a new New Yorker, I am told. I've been here for four years," he said. "I'm not interested in whining about the city. I'm interested in talking about the city to people who are still coming to the city." Mr. Portwood recently hired a new Arts editor, Adam Rathe, late of The Brooklyn Paper.

In taking over 02138, Mr. Blum thinks the magazine can be repositioned as a general-interest publication. "Harvard overlaps with, and connects to, all the important issues of the day and every aspect of culture and politics I can basically think of," says Mr. Blum, who isn't a graduate of the university. (He attended University of Chicago and graduated in 1977.) The editor believes that his lack of time spent in the Yard (or even the Quad!) is an asset. "I've always found that in my career that a certain distance is healthy," he says. "I'm sort of glad that I have an open mind about the whole thing."

When he approached Mr. Lois and Mr. Hayman to "tweak" the look of the magazine and "make it our own," he says he got lucky. "The two people in New York City I most admire in the field of art direction and design are Lois and Hayman."

Mr. Lois, whose work was recently installed at the Museum of Modern Art, hadn't heard of 02138 when Mr. Blum reached out to him, but the 77-year-old former ad man came to the Manhattan Media office carrying a Zabar's bag "with a bunch of his books" and spent four hours talking with Mr. Blum about Esquire in its glory days. "It was surreal," says Mr. Blum, who plans to implement similar single-topic covers as those pioneered by Mr. Lois.

Other 02138 hires include managing editor Daniel Adkison, who'd previously worked with Mr. Blum at The Voice as that paper's copy chief and most recently worked for Portfolio; Greg Atwan, who'd been an associate editor at 02138 has been promoted to senior editor; and Kimberley Thorpe, a staff writer for the Press will also serve as an associate editor for the magazine.

The next issue of 02138 will feature the third iteration of the magazine's Harvard 100—the last of which included everyone from Barack Obama to Conan O'Brien—and will appear in December.