That Other New York Review

“Being Jewish, I thought it was good to work with the Jewish mafia,” said designer Steve Heller, at a launch event with Molly Heintz at the School of Visual Arts (sponsors of NYRA), for his new book, Growing Up Underground. Heller is a longtime art director for the New York Times and the editor/author/coauthor of something like 200 books (“I used to imagine what it would be like not to work eight days a week, and then in the pandemic it happened, and it was not all it was cracked up to be”). This particular book, a memoir, focuses on his early days and early publications (he started making drawings and then art directing for the New York Free Press when he was just fifteen). My favorite, of course, was New York Review of Sex, which then became the New York Review of Sex and Politics, and finally, for its last issue, New York Review of Sex, Politics and Aeronautics. His mafia distributors became upset with the diminishing amount of sex content in each issue, and responded by dropping the publication.