SoHo Weekly News

The SoHo Weekly News was a weekly alternative newspaper founded by music publicist Michael Goldstein and published in New York City from 1973 to 1982. Positioned as a competitor to The Village Voice, it struggled financially. The paper was purchased by Associated Newspaper Group in 1979 and shut down three years later when AMG was unable to make it profitable. Many of the staff went on to have illustrious careers at other New York publications.

The paper was known for its coverage of the Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, which at the time was just starting to become fashionable. Although the official editorial stance was anti-gentrification, there have been arguments made that its coverage of local culture and business actually contributed to the upward trend in property values. Coverage of emerging music acts in local venues was particularly strong, with the paper being particular well known for its early coverage of the punk rock band, the Ramones.

Several photographers at the paper went on to have storied careers. Bill Cunningham went on to many decades as a photojournalist for The New York Times. Allan Tannenbaum was well known for his coverage of rock musicians. Bruce Weber got his start photographing male fashion models with a ground-breaking photo series showing an underwear-clad Jeff Aqualon in erotic poses.

The SoHo Weekly News (SWN) was a weekly alternative newspaper published in New York City from 1973 to 1982. The paper was founded in 1973 by Michael Goldstein (1938–2018) who put out the first issue on October 11, 1973, using "his last $800" to fund operations. Initially published in eight pages, it eventually grew to over 100 pages and competed with The Village Voice. In SoHo: The Rise and Fall of an Artists's Colony, Richard Kostelanetz asserted that the SWN "was founded ... in part to exploit the success of the Voice, with a similar size and similarly weekly publication schedule". The paper's offices were at 111 Spring Street, Manhattan, although the earliest issues showed the address of Goldstein's apartment on nearby Broome Street on the masthead. One of the more unusual topics covered was a review of East Village drug merchants; the piece described various brands of heroin and cocaine that were available, their street names, and commented on the relative quality.

In January 1976, The New York Times reported that the SWN was the second largest English-language weekly in the city, being positioned as a direct competitor of The Village Voice, and was sold at 400 newsstands with a circulation of about 28,000. Goldstein described the intended audience as "basically the 22‐to‐35‐year old group, who grew up during the 60's going to rock concerts" but conceded that his market research consisted of seeing who was buying the paper at newsstands. Hank Weintraub, vice president of ad agency DienerHauser-Greenthal, stated that the paper's circulation and effectiveness were unproven and he would only place ads there when specifically requested by clients: "It has not proven itself to be a viable medium or the challenge to The Village Voice they say they are". At the time, the paper had two salesman but was looking to hire three more and double both circulation and ad revenue by the end of the year. Stephen M. Blacker, associate publisher of The Village Voice, commented that he didn't "see them as real competition".

In a 1985 review, publisher Bonnie Marranca wrote of her efforts in 1975 to get Performing Arts Journal off the ground. She had lined up printing services but was facing the even larger expense of typesetting. At the time she was writing for the SWN, which she described as "renegade" and "a fledgling publication, with no pretense to paying writers". SWN's publisher (unnamed but presumably Goldstein) knew of Marranca's plans and offered to provide her typesetting services for the first three issues at no cost in exchange for another year of her writing for free, which she accepted. Marranca again wrote about the SWN in 1995, describing her experiences as a theatre critic there during 1975 – 1977. She described the paper as "one of the respected, opinion-shaping newspapers at that time, featuring extensive coverage of the burgeoning downtown arts scene".

The paper was an outspoken critic of the commercialization and gentrification of SoHo, the neighborhood where it was located and concentrated its coverage. In a 2003 review of the revitalization of the SoHo neighborhood, Stephen Petrus argued that despite taking an editorial stance opposing gentrification, the SWN actually promoted it, "showcasing the galleries, boutiques, and restaurants", eschewing a role as neighborhood watchdog in favor of competing directly with The Village Voice. He gave as an example "a two-part series for the 1973 holiday season, [in which] the Weekly News took readers on a tour of more than two dozen neighborhood shops." Petrus also noted their "extensive classified section, listing lofts for rent or sale" which helped drive up rents, pricing artists and other renters without long-term leases out of the area.

In 1974, SWN inaugurated a Loft of the Week feature in which they highlighted opulent residences. The first installment covered the home of fashion designer Valerie Porr, which they described as "[one of the] most fascinating spaces in SoHo". The paper touted the advantages of converted lofts, writing, "Living in a loft gives you a whole new dimension in space and space relationships to work with" Jim Stratton took a contrary stance. In response to a 1974 piece in New York Magazine which called SoHo "The Most Exciting Place to Live in the City", he lamented the influx of wealthy people who could "buy a loft in SoHo and send an artist to Brooklyn" and that when people came to artist's lofts, they were coming more to look at the real estate than the artwork.

Many SWN staff, 80 percent of whom were freelance in 1976, had notable careers before or after their association with the paper. The editorial team was led by founder Michael Goldstein who previously had been a successful music publicist. Among his clients were Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, and the Grateful Dead; 17 of the acts he represented were eventually inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Gerald Marzorati, art editor and Artful Dodger columnist, was reportedly the first journalist to write a major story about Keith Haring. Dramaturgy scholar Elinor Fuchs wrote for the paper as a freelancer. John Perreault was senior art critic from 1975 – 1982, earning a 1979 fellowship in art criticism from the National Endowment for the Arts. Edward Gorey wrote movie reviews under the byline Wardore Edgy; in a 2014 interview, he said that if The Village Voice was off-broadway, then the SWN was off-off-broadway.

Richard Kostelanetz noted that The Village Voice, had been "founded ... by people residing within Greenwich Village, initially to provide them with cultural information about their community" and contrasted this with the SWN, stating that it had been "founded ... by an outsider" and that "Though the offices of the SoHo News were on Broadway below Houston Street, nearly all of its editors lived outside SoHo; most of its writers probably did as well".

Annie Flanders had been the fashion editor; very shortly after SWN closed, she organized a meeting of ex-staffers including Ronnie Cooke, Stephen Saban, Lesley Vinson, Megan Haungs, and Bill Cunningham to found Details magazine which ran from 1982 to 2015. Kim Hastreiter succeeded Annie Flanders as fashion editor; she and news reporter David Hershkovits went on to found Paper Magazine. Marzorati went on to work at The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and eventually The New York Times, where he edited the New York Times Magazine.

The photography staff included Allan Tannenbaum, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Bruce Weber, and Bill Cunningham. Cunningham did a style feature, Bill Cunningham's Sunday, having been recruited by Annie Flanders. He then went on to a long career at The New York Times as a photojournalist producing his famous On the Street and Evening Hours columns. Tannenbaum was known for his coverage of rock music, having photographed David Bowie, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and the Rolling Stones. Greenfield-Sanders has work on display at the Museum of Modern Art and the National Portrait Gallery, and was featured in American Master: The Boomer List on PBS.

Fashion photographer Bruce Weber's controversial 1978 series of photos featuring model Jeff Aqualon clad only in underwear was described in The New York Times as "flagrantly erotic" by Herbert Muschamp and "legend" by John Duka. Katya Foreman of the BBC labeled it as "iconic ... [defining] a new ideal for male models". The photo story, using "very very expensive underwear from Saks Fifth Avenue", was later described by SWN fashion director Paul Cavaco as "an intimate portrayal of a young athletic man as a sexualized object", something which was "historically the focus of gay porn, not mass media". The announcement that Saks had cancelled their advertising due to the erotic nature of the photos was greeted with a round of applause from the staff because "it was all about, at that moment, how far can we push things, how far can we go against the norm of what fashion is supposed to be, of what people think of male models, of what male beauty is, of what is acceptable for men to show."

The SWN was known for its coverage of new musical artists in downtown New York. Author Richard Boch describes how many of the SWN staff would frequent the nearby Mudd Club each night, including Goldstein "dressed in a brass-button navy blazer and looking like a country club admiral". In 1975, the SWN was one of the first papers to interview The Ramones. According to Bernard Gendron:

In 1978, they ran an interview with Talking Heads. In their Video Lounge exhibit, the Museum of the City of New York noted the paper's leading role in covering the New York music scene:

Their arts coverage ranged from local talent to mainstream. One article on dance included a performance in a Mercer Street loft alongside one at the Metropolitan Opera House by the American Ballet Theater. Film critic Jerry Oster lamented in his 1977 coverage of the New Directors/New Films Festival that The New York Times gave it minimal attention, and The Village Voice and The New Yorker none at all: "The most comprehensive coverage of the program was ceded to the scrappy irregulars of The SoHo Weekly News". SWN was also known for their coverage of local artists struggling to make a name for themselves; Gary Indiana wrote in Artforum:

In a 2018 interview at the Museum of Modern Art, lyricist Scott Wittman told of the influence SWN had on promoting the acts of rising performers. He recounted his experience doing a show with Marc Shaiman at Club 57 in the east village:

On November 26, 1979, 27-year-old Manhattan resident Henry Benvenuti walked into the SWN office and asked to see art editor Gerald Marzorati. After being told he could not see Marzorati, Benvenuti took out a hatchet, stated that, "I'm doing this in the name of art," chopped off two of his fingers, and walked out of the office, leaving the fingers behind. He was found in a nearby taxi with a briefcase containing only a $1 bill and a mousetrap. Benvenuti and his severed fingers were taken to Bellevue Hospital but doctors were unable to reattach the fingers.

The paper's office was once bombed by a "leader of a radical organization" who was upset that his name had been misspelled in an article. The explosion injured two employees.

In 1979, the SWN set up a 24-hour telephone line in their office and offered a $500 (equivalent to $2,000 in 2024) reward for information about the whereabouts of Etan Patz, a six year old boy who had disappeared in the neighborhood a few days earlier. The case gave rise to a massive search effort and national awareness but was not solved for almost 45 years.

In May 1978, the English Associated Newspaper Group (ANG), led by Vere Harmsworth, took a 25% share in the SWN. Reportedly, this was in response to Rupert Murdoch, which whom Harmsworth had been feuding, having bought The Village Voice the previous year. A year later, Goldstein stated that the paper had an annual revenue of $1.1 million and their circulation was 60,000; it was reported, however, that the paper was losing money. ANG bought out the remaining stake in 1979 and named John Leese as publisher and editor in chief. In the fall of 1981, ANG announced plans to close or sell the paper by February 1982. Although there were negotiations with possible purchasers, which continued beyond the original deadline, continuing losses ($1.7 million in the previous year) forced ANG to shut down the paper in March. The recent unionization of the paper was cited as a factor in the decision. The last issue, dated March 10–16, 1982, had 40,000 copies printed.

In a 1996 interview on Berks Community Television, William Zimmer spoke of his experiences as the second art critic at the SWN, succeeding John Perreault:

After the SWN closed down, Zimmer wrote for The New York Times, as art critic for their suburban sections. He described how the SWN differed from the Times:

The day after the shutdown, The New York Times said the SWN had been "a weekly journal of counter-cultural news and opinion for New York City". Leese said the paper had lost $2 million in the previous year on operations with no prospects of making the paper profitable. Another spokesman put the total losses at $6 million. At the time of the shutdown, the staff numbered about 70 people, of which 25 were full-time reporters and editors. The next week, the Times reported in their national edition that despite growing circulation, the paper had needed to increase advertising by six pages per issue, which the owners did not believe was possible.

'Contributing to the downfall was a pending lawsuit by Susan Sontag which claimed that the SWN had violated her copyright when it printed a speech she had given about communism. John Leese was quoted as saying that attempts to sell the paper had been unsuccessful, even at a price described as "nominal". In contrast to most descriptions of the paper, Leese said, "We certainly didn't regard ourselves as an alternative newspaper. Our primary appeal was to a young and affluent reader". By way of comparison, he said "The Voice was older and had a virtual monopoly of classified (advertising) for a weekly publication. That's very important. If you want an apartment, The Voice is the paper to look at. It's very difficult to compete with that kind of stranglehold".

In a New York Times op-ed published shortly after the paper folded, editor Tim Page called SWN the "alternative to alternative papers", describing it as "a most interesting little paper: breezy, intelligent, witty, joyously Epicurean, wildly uneven". The paper's contributors were described as an eccentric mix of "neo-conservatives and Marxists, radical feminists and hedonistic libertines, chronic potheads and antidrug crusaders". Page described the poor physical condition of paper's office; a "plaster oven" in the summer, "drafty and underheated" in the winter, infested with "rats the size of dachshunds", and equipped with unreliable telephones and typewriters.

• "SoHo Weekly News – New York in the 70s". Photography by Allan Tannenbaum.