…is a rough estimate of the average elapsed time between posts here the last few weeks. (Sorry about that—I’ve been super-busy.) But 7 Days was also the name of a beloved New York weekly that existed for about a hundred issues from 1988 to 1990. The magazine is remembered these days partly because it had an unusually impressive stable of writers and editors, many of whom went on to prominent gigs in Manhattan’s magazine-industrial complex. The editor of 7 Days was Adam Moss, who later edited The New York Times Magazine and now edits New York. This 2002 Greg Lindsay piece from Folio magazine is a capsule history of the genesis, short life, and demise of 7 Days.

I attended college here in New York from 1987 to 1991, and I have vague memories of seeing 7 Days on the newsstand. But I didn’t really become a magazine geek until after graduation, so I’ve known of it only through its reputation. I’ve tried to find copies a handful of times over the years, but they’re surprisingly scarce now. The amazing subterranean magazine store Gallagher’s on East 12th Street stocks thousands of classic magazines from decades past; in its cavernlike rooms you can find stacks of Vogues from the ’50s, Esquires from the ’60s, New Yorks from the ’70s, and Spys from the ’80s. But the last time I went there, a few months ago, they didn’t have any copies of 7 Days on the premises, and I got the sense that they rarely, if ever, have any in stock.

So I was stoked a week or two ago when a friend told me she owned a few issues of 7 Days and would be happy to lend them to me. When I got my hands on them—they’re dated January 10 and January 17, 1990—the first thing that struck me was how big they are: 11 inches by 14 inches, or more or less the same size as an unopened New York Times. I had always thought that 7 Days was a variation on the Time Out model: listings, reviews, short features, little else. But these two issues seem more like a cross between a nonsnarky New York Observer and a budget-strapped New York. According to the Greg Lindsay article linked above, 7 Days became more and more like a conventional magazine as its run progressed. I’d be curious to see what the earliest issues were like.

I’d love to own a few copies of 7 Days, so if you have an issue or two you’d be willing to part with, drop me a line at hearst [at] nyc.rr.com. Thanks.

Here are the two covers; I’ll post the editorial masthead after the jump.

And now, the masthead from the January 17, 1990, issue: