New York Magazine November 4-17, 2024

FOR new york’S latest cover story, features writer Charlotte Klein talked to 57 of the most influential people in media about the industry’s future (“Can the Media Survive?,” October 21–November 3). Understandably, the majority of responses came from journalists, with various parts of the package picked apart not only on X but—sign of the times—in countless newsletters and the reader-chat function Substack and other platforms now provide. One theme: arguing the list of “powerful people” was incomplete because the magazine either missed some who deserved to be considered elite or was misguided in being interested in only the elite viewpoint. Said Marcela E. García of the Boston Globe, “You can’t possibly discuss the future of journalism without Latinos, the second largest racial or ethnic group in the US.” Labor reporter Kim…

INSIDE: An Orthodox mall in Williamsburg / Iron Mike heads to the ring IT WAS THE WEEK BEFORE the election in New York City, and the vibes were acrid. It hadn’t rained in 32 days. There was a fascist rally at Madison Square Garden mere weeks before Mariah Carey’s annual Christmas show. Everyone was acting more insane than usual and seemed to be ambiently mad at one another; even Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum folded under the pressure, abruptly breaking up. On the subway, a man told me unprompted that my shoes (normal boots) were indicative of the failings of women in general. It’s true that all American elections are unhappy in their own way, but this one has felt particularly miserable, what with the naked and gleeful encroaching authoritarianism,…

“IT’LL BE NICE in winter,” Zissi tells me, her sheitel-and-headband combo sparkling. “And it’s nice not worrying about the food being kosher or the clothes being modest.” We’re in the food court of the W Mall, a brand-new glassy box on Flushing Avenue built expressly for the Satmar Hasidim of Brooklyn. Nearly every shopper I see is a woman in a long skirt, a head wrap or sheitel (the traditional wig worn by married women), and flats pushing a baby carriage. The food court is not a mishmash but rather one W-branded restaurant hydra of meatless dairy offerings, including the signature Orthodox combo of pizza and sushi. This community mostly patronizes mom-and-pop shops, the local ones on and around Lee Avenue in Williamsburg that sell shoes and kosher poultry. The…

MIKE TYSON is running late for dinner. He opens the back door of his guesthouse, his broad frame filling the doorway. His wife, Kiki, looks up as he shuffles over to her in the small kitchen and gives her a kiss. “Am I eating tonight, or am I finished eating?” Tyson asks. She’s sitting on a stool in yoga pants, toweling off her hair. “I got you Nobu,” she says. “What’d you get me?” he asks. “I got you your fish,” she says. “The fish I like?” They’re in the guesthouse because their actual house, a sprawling mansion in Henderson, a residential suburb of Las Vegas, is under construction. Instead of flopping off to a hotel, where fans would flock, they’ve retreated here. Mars, their fluffy goldendoodle, makes his rounds…

The National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C., is secured by 40-foot bronze doors, each of which weighs 6.5 tons. On Valentine’s Day 2024, around 1 p.m., Donald Zepeda walked the mile there from his Airbnb to throw paint powder on the Constitution of the United States. He was 35. The parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere was 422.99. He had been arrested 20 times for civil disobedience, including the day before, when he and two others sat in the middle of the George Washington Parkway and demanded that President Biden declare a climate emergency. Zepeda had dressed respectfully for the occasion: khakis, plaid button-down, gray anorak, black Vans. When he arrived at the archives, he walked to the bathroom, where he removed a small plastic bag of tempera…

BEN MEZRICH OWNS A MAGIC RADIO. It’s an antique, the stand-up kind families used to gather round, stare at, and listen to, with a large dial that resembles a marine compass. He bought it for $50 in the late ’90s, back when he was a mid-list author deep in debt and contemplating giving up writing for an M.B.A., after wandering into a yard sale. For years, he kept the radio at his high-rise apartment in Boston before transporting it to his country home in the village of Quechee, Vermont, where it now lives in an extra bedroom he uses as a writer’s studio. One day in August, padding around in pink shorts and white socks, Mezrich, a bespectacled 55-year-old with spiked hair, leads me upstairs to behold it. The studio…