Letter from the Editor
Welcome to NYCPlus
Greetings! And welcome to NYCPlus, New York City’s first general interest magazine for and about New Yorkers in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and – I kid you not – 100s. After months of planning, it is with pride and satisfaction that my colleagues and I bring you our first stellar collection of stories, photographs, and illustrations in various styles, across a range of topics, that pertain to and explore Life: Act II.
And the timing couldn’t be riper. Because New York seniors represent the fastest growing population in the city, it has become essential to reshape our outdated perceptions of aging. Two reasons: The youngest of the Baby Boomers are approaching 50, while advances in medical technology have enabled people to live longer and often more productive lives. Moreover, that habitually navel-gazing swell of humanity – people born between 1946 and 1960 – has left an identifiable signature on every passage of it’s collective journey. To be sure, that signature will be scrawled yet again – this time in large print.
So let’s get the ball rolling with an exciting first issue that introduces a quartet of columnists: Kent Doyle on Humor, Arthur Webb on Commentary, Wickham Boyle on Reflection, and Don Conrad on Personal Finance. Deeper inside the book, acclaimed New York author, Vivian Gornick, has contributed a razor-sharp and insightful essay entitled “Even Smart Women Hate Losing Their Youthful Looks”; while veteran reporter, Jerry Tallmer, profiles Jules Feiffer –illustrator, playwright, and children’s book author extraordinaire. But fasten your seatbelts, folks, because this is only the beginning …
\What better place to launch the first “sexy” publication about aging than in New York City – a veritable brain trust of fifty-plus writers, artists, actors, dancers, musicians and thinkers, many of whom are eager to voice their pleasures and concerns regarding the process of growing older. Historically, New Yorkers have been obsessed with youth and beauty. In fact, young people are gorgeous. But they are not always wise, centered, or particularly mature. Most Older Americans don’t expect to live in the limelight. Yet why must they be hustled into the shadows of mainstream media and culture when they have so much to offer and their stories are so compelling?
The engine that will drive NYCPlus can be articulated in a word: Movement. There’s no escaping the ongoing need to adapt, often in the face of contradictory feelings reinforced by our culture that things ought to be “settling down.” Thus, NYCPlus will focus on LIVING, albeit within a different set of assets and liabilities.
There’s no doubt about it: NYCPlus is an ambitious project and there is much work to be done. But it is good work – work that we have the talent, the potential resources, and the will to undertake – work that feels essential. And so, it is with this exuberance that we invite you to join us in our exploration of everything from menopause to Medicare – in infinite shades of gray.
Jennie Green
Editor
