The New Yorker

For the tenth anniversary of September 11, I reversed and updated Saul Steinberg's iconic 1976 New Yorker cover. In this version, the world looks towards New York in solidarity.

Three weeks ago I submitted a cover proposal to The New Yorker magazine. It’s a project that’s spent most of the last ten years in my office “to-do” drawer. This winter I moved the cover to the front burner. It’s about 9/11, and I wanted to pitch it for the magazine’s September 12, 2011 issue.

In January and February I went into late-night overdrive. By the end of March, the image was finished. I asked friends and family: do you know anyone at The New Yorker? Without a name, my cover would surely disappear into the largest slush pile in publishing.

I couldn’t find a connection. So I Googled “The New Yorker” and called the blue number next to the address. I got the operator for all of Condé Nast. “Françoise Mouly at the New Yorker, please,” I said in my work voice. Mouly, I learned online, is the magazine’s cover editor. I reached her assistant, and sent in my unsolicited proposal.

Several days later I received a short, courteous no-thank-you note. Rejection is easier than it used to be. My million-to-one longshot succeeded in bringing me the quiet fulfillment of completion.

"The Pleat," a modern glass building I designed to update the streetscape.

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March 25, 2011

Ms. Françoise Mouly

Art Editor

The New Yorker

4 Times Square

New York, New York 10036

Artist’s Statement

On September 11, 2001, millions of people around the world became New Yorkers. When terrorists hijacked commercial airplanes and flew them into the towers of the World Trade Center, thousands of civilians and emergency first responders died. What also perished on that day were stereotypes that New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers held of one another. Instead of hubris, the world saw heroism and humanity in the people of New York as they charged into burning buildings and stood in lines to donate blood. Instead of remoteness, New Yorkers found a kinship with the world’s citizens as they rose up to support the victims and their families.

Saul Steinberg’s iconic 1976 New Yorker cover “The View of the World from Ninth Avenue,” depicts a perception of New York before the September 11 attacks. In the illustration, dwarfed continents recede behind the towering and detailed streets of the City.  For the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Steinberg’s drawing returns to the cover of The New Yorker. But this time the view is reversed. The world’s citizens gather in the foreground, look towards the City, and remember. New Yorkers wave as they go to work and push children in strollers. The civilian scene shows that blocks away from the mired World Trade Center site, an enduring city is alive with new greenways, architecture, and possibility.

Steinberg's 1976 New Yorker cover, "View of the World from 9th Avenue."

"Today we are all New Yorkers."