SoHo Weekly News

SoHo Weekly News

Type	Alternative weekly
Founder(s)	Michael Goldstein
Founded	October 11, 1973
Language	English
Ceased publication	March 10, 1982
City	New York City
Readership	25-30,000

The SoHo Weekly News (SWN) 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 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.

Many staff at the paper had storied careers after the paper shut down. Annie Flanders founded Details magazine; Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits started Paper. Bill Cunningham spent many decades as a photojournalist for The New York Times, Allan Tannenbaum became known for his coverage of rock musicians, and Bruce Weber got his start photographing male fashion models with a ground-breaking SWN photo story showing an underwear-clad male model in erotic poses.

The SoHo Weekly News was a weekly alternative newspaper published in New York City from 1973 to 1982.^[1] 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.^[2][3] Initially published in eight pages, it grew to over 100 pages and competed with The Village Voice.^[2] In SoHo: The Rise and Fall of an Artists's Colony, Richard Kostelanetz asserted that SWN "was founded ... in part to exploit the success of the Voice, with a similar size and similarly weekly publication schedule".^[4] 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.^[2][3] 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.^[5]

In January 1976, The New York Times reported that SWN was the second largest English-language weekly in the city, positioned as a direct competitor to The Village Voice, and 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 advertising 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 advertising revenue by the end of the year. Stephen M. Blacker, associate publisher of The Village Voice, said "There is a need for more papers, but I don't see them as real competition".^[3]

In a 2020 interview, Kim Hastreiter spoke with Paper magazine editor Mickey Boardman and described the impact SWN had:^[6]

... there was this newspaper, called the Soho News, that was downtown. It was like our bible. Every Wednesday morning, it would come out and that's what you did. You bought it and looked through everything. It had a calendar that told you every club, every party, every art opening, every opening of anything, every concert. You planned your whole week from it.

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, 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.^[7]

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".^[8]: 174 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"^[8]: 178 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.^[8]: 179

Many SWN staff, 80 percent of whom were freelance in 1976, had notable careers before or after their association with the paper.^[3] 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.^[2][9][10] Gerald Marzorati, art editor and Artful Dodger columnist, was reportedly the first journalist to write a major story about Keith Haring.^[11] Dramaturgy scholar Elinor Fuchs wrote for the paper as a freelancer.^[12] John Perreault was senior art critic from 1975 – 1982, earning a 1979 fellowship in art criticism from the National Endowment for the Arts.^[13] 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 SWN was off-off-broadway.^[14]

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 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".^[4]

Annie Flanders had been the fashion editor;^[15] 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.^[16][17] Kim Hastreiter succeeded Annie Flanders as fashion editor; she and news reporter David Hershkovits went on to found Paper magazine.^[18] 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.^[19]

In a 1985 review, publisher Bonnie Marranca wrote of her efforts in 1975 to get Performing Arts Journal off the ground. At the time, she was writing for SWN, which she described as "renegade" and "a fledgling publication, with no pretense to paying writers". She had lined up printing services but was facing the even larger expense of typesetting; 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.^[20] Marranca again wrote about SWN in 1995, reflecting on 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".^[21]

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.^[11][16] 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.^[22] Tannenbaum was known for his coverage of rock music, having photographed David Bowie, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and the Rolling Stones.^[23] Greenfield-Sanders has work on display at the Museum of Modern Art^[24] and the National Portrait Gallery,^[25] and was featured in American Master: The Boomer List on PBS.^[26]

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^[27] and "legend" by John Duka.^[28] Katya Foreman of the BBC labeled it as "iconic ... [defining] a new ideal for male models".^[29] The 2020 independent film Rise of the Male Supermodel described the story as "an intimate portrayal of a young athletic man", noting that "the male form as a sexualized object was historically the focus of gay porn, not mass media" but that Weber had "[legitimized] the notion for the mainstream". SWN fashion director Paul Cavaco described the story as using "very very expensive underwear from Saks Fifth Avenue". After the piece ran, Saks cancelled their advertising due to the erotic nature of the photos; this announcement was greeted with a round of applause from the staff because, as Cavaco put it, "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."^[30]

SWN was known for its coverage of new musical artists in downtown New York.^[2] In an interview shortly after Goldstein's death, SWN music editor Peter Occhiogrosso credited Goldstein's "background in the rock ′n’ roll world" for driving SWN's music focus and for its ability to differentiate itself from The Village Voice. Occhiogrosso noted that Goldstein "was especially attuned to the developing music and associated night life scene south of 14th Street".^[31] Author Richard Boch described 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".^[32] In a 2020 interview Kim Hastreiter spoke about her experiences at SWN:^[6]

It was totally wild west at [the Soho News]. You got there [at] one in the afternoon. You didn't have to go to work till then because everyone was up all night at the clubs. You had to go to the Mudd Club to find the art director and then drag her back to the office at two in the morning to do your layouts. It was crazy there. We had a drug dealer that would come to the office. Everyone was smoking pot.

In 1975, SWN was one of the first papers to interview the Ramones.^[33] In his book Between Montmarte and the Mudd Club, Bernard Gendron wrote about the music scene at CBGB; he described the club as "an altogether unlikely site for a major cultural movement", noting that it filled a void after the nearby Mercer Art Center was destroyed in a building collapse.^[34][35] CBGB hosted new bands such as Television, the Ramones, and Blondie, but the venue was largely ignored byThe Village Voice and The New York Times, with "the brunt of local support [coming] from the alternative press, initially The SoHo Weekly News and later the fanzines Punk and New York Rocker."^[35] In 1978, SWN ran an interview with Talking Heads.^[36] 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:^[37]

New York fostered musical innovation in its varied venues, and as a global media capital it also provided the infrastructure to spread its new sounds locally, nationally, and inter-nationally. Influential print journalism and music criticism could be found in the pages of local outlets like The SoHo Weekly News and the East Village Eye, along with others with a further reach such as The Village Voice and New York Rocker.

In 2023, The New York Times noted that SWN's greatest success was in the 1970s and its demise in 1982 gave the Eye an opportunity to '[peak] in influence".^[38] In 2002, dance critic Elizabeth Zimmer wrote that the "dance boom" of the mid 1960s was followed by increased opportunities for young dance critics in New York, with The Village Voice and SWN being the two main publications providing space for their work.^[39] The SWN 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.^[8]: 126

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".^[40] SWN was also known for their coverage of local artists struggling to make a name for themselves; Gary Indiana wrote in Artforum:^[41]

There were plenty of artists of all types living there before this little boom thing in the mid-'80s. Most of the ones I knew never expected to have any type of commercial success. The biggest thing that ever happened to them was a mention in The Village Voice or the Soho Weekly News.

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: "There was only one newspaper back then ... The SoHo Weekly News". He recounted his experience doing a show with Marc Shaiman at Club 57 in the east village; after the SWN published a "rave review", the next week's performance was "packed with people like Jay Presson Allen, Mike Nichols, Joe Papp, and Allen Carr".^{[42]: time index 23:30}

Interviewed c. 2025 for Room 100: Sid, Nancy, and the Night Punk Rock Died, Ann Bardach told of her start in journalism. She had landed a position at The New York Times but the 1978 New York City newspaper strike put her out of work after writing a single story. She decided to frequent the New York City morgue where she became friendly with the staff and was introduced to the chief medical examiner, Michael Baden, who reportedly allowed her free access to the autopsy room (although Baden disputed this).

One night, a woman's body was delivered who, Bardach recalled, everybody assumed was "some hooker, probably". Bardach, however, said she recognized the woman from the Mudd Club and exclaimed, "Holy shit – that's Nancy Spungen!" although none of the people there recognized the name, nor that of punk rocker Sid Vicious, whose girlfriend she was. Baden also disputed this part of the story, saying that they had been informed by the police of the impending arrival of Spungen. Regardless of which version of the story was correct, Bardach wrote a series of articles about Spungen's murder which were published by SWN. Author Jesse Pollack described the stories as "among the earliest and most influential pieces of journalism on the crime, [playing] an important role in shaping public understanding of it as well as the historical record". Barden said that when she pitched the story to the paper, "The SoHo Weekly News was the place to be because they covered the punk scene. They recognized that it was a big deal".^[43][44]

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 along with a briefcase containing a $1 bill and a rat trap. Benvenuti and his severed fingers were taken to Bellevue Hospital but doctors were unable to reattach the fingers.^[45]

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.^[46] Recalling the event in a 1982 retrospective, SWN editor Tim Page noted that "Security was abysmal" at the SNW office.^[46]

In 1979, the SWN set up a 24-hour telephone line in their office and offered a $500 reward for information about the whereabouts of Etan Patz, a six year old boy who had disappeared in the neighborhood a few days earlier.^[47] The case gave rise to a massive search effort and national awareness but was not solved for almost 45 years.^[48]

Circulation was variable, at one point dipping as low as 14,000.^[49] In May 1978, the English Associated Newspaper Group (ANG), led by Vere Harmsworth, took a 25% share in SWN. Reportedly, this was in response to Rupert Murdoch (with 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.^[50] ANG bought out the remaining stake in 1979 and named John Leese as publisher and editor in chief.^[11]

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, ongoing losses ($1.7 million in the previous year) forced ANG to shut down the paper in March.^[49] The closing was despite an increase in circulation in the last year, variously reported as "12 to 15 percent" or "almost doubled".^[51][52]. The last issue, dated March 10–16, 1982, had a print run of 40,000 copies, carried a cover price of $0.75^[52][53] and featured a front-page story about John Belushi.^[49] The next issue was in production at the time the paper was officially shut down but never reached the newsstands.^[49] At the time of the shutdown, the staff numbered about 70 people, of which 25 were full-time reporters and editors.^[54] The shutdown of SWN left ANG with interests in two other American publications: The American Lawyer and Esquire magazine.^[55]

The unionization of the paper in its last year of operation was a factor in the ultimate decision to close; in response to voting in the union, ANG instructed Leese to either shut down or sell the paper, which in turn impacted staff morale.^[52] Also contributing to the downfall was a pending lawsuit by Susan Sontag. On February 6, 1982, Sontag gave a speech critical of communism at The Town Hall. Later that month, SWN published Sontag's comments^[56] (as also did The Nation)^[57] This coverage proved popular with SWN's readership but also prompted Sontag to file a $50,000 lawsuit against the paper for copyright infringement.^[56]

Leese said the paper had lost $2 million in the previous year on operations with no prospects of making the paper profitable. He said that despite growing circulation, the paper had needed to increase advertising by six pages per issue, which the owners did not believe was possible. Another spokesman put the total losses at $6 million.^[54]

Leese was quoted as saying that attempts to sell the paper had been unsuccessful, even at a price described as "nominal".^[55] 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". Leese also cited the Sontag lawsuit, which he described as based on "the News' unauthorized publication last month of Susan Sontag's speech".^[58]

In a 2020 interview, Kim Hastreiter described ANG as "these stupid people in England, who didn't know anything", saying, "All of the sudden, it was shut down and I didn't have a job."^[6] The final decision to fold the paper was made at noon and the newsroom staff were informed by Leese at 4 p.m.with instructions to clean out their desks immediately. Senior editor Eve Ottenberg said, "I don't think anybody burst into tears ... People were just kind of tired. They sort of expected it, but some of the people were angry".^[59]

In a 1996 interview on Berks Community Television, William Zimmer spoke of his experiences as the second art critic at SWN, succeeding John Perreault:^{[60]: time index 6:04}

It was a newspaper that was a little before its time. It died in 1981 and the 80s were the golden decade for SoHo so if it had been able to stick around it could have had great success. But we were owned by a business that had a lot of North Sea oil interests so they kept us afloat and then when the price of oil went down they said "you're going to have to fend for yourselves" and we didn't know how to (inaudable) money ... [they ended the newspaper] overnight, or even less than overnight. We were working on a Tuesday afternoon for the next day. The paper came out on Wednesday and we got the word about 2 o'clock. The main editors protested: "at least let us put out a farewell issue" and they said "No."

After SWN closed down, Zimmer wrote for The New York Times, as art critic for their suburban sections. He described how SWN differed from the Times:^{[60]: time index 7:09}

You were writing for a hip audience ... it was like being a little bit of a mini-celebrity: you could walk down the street after having written something and people would congratulate you, or argue with you, or something: You were noticed.

The day after the shutdown, The New York Times said SWN had been "a weekly journal of counter-cultural news and opinion for New York City".^[54] In an op-ed a few days later, 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.^[46]

A 2018 retrospective in The New York Times Style Magazine included the closure of SWN as one of the "events that transformed the city over three extraordinary years". Jennifer Conrad noted that "Alternative paper The Soho News, for eight and a half years the chronicler of the burgeoning downtown arts scene, ceases publication".^[61]

• "SoHo Weekly News – New York in the 70s". Photography by Allan Tannenbaum.
• Tannenbaum, Allan (2003). New York in the 70s: SoHo blues, a personal photographic diary. Overlook Duckworth. ISBN 978-3-89-985052-9. Includes many photographs of SWN staff and offices, and a selection of SWN front pages photographed by Tannenbaum.