Westchester Magazine is 10 years old! Well, sort of. I’m not sure if you remember Spotlight magazine. It was owned by Susan Meadow, and, in August 2000, I purchased it. (Spotlight magazine had been published for 24 years prior to that). Susan Meadow remained on for a few months and we put out a few more issues of Spotlight until we launched Westchester Spotlight in January 2001; we then dropped the “Spotlight” altogether and became in April 2001 Westchester Magazine. So, yes, this is our 10th anniversary.
We have experienced many exciting moments at the magazine in the past decade. And I am fortunate to have many of the original members of the old Spotlight magazine staff still with me as well as staff members who have joined us along the way. My deepest thanks to them all for helping make Westchester Magazine the premier, go-to, highly valued and revered magazine serving Westchester County.
Along the way we launched Westchester Home, Westchester Weddings, and, recently, 914INC., a quarterly business lifestyle magazine. You also may not know that our big sister, Hudson Valley Magazine, is going to be celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2012.
And, as a proud member of the City and Regional Magazine Association and the Magazine Publishers of America, we stick to the high-quality guidelines that these associations demand: an audited circulation with a paid subscription base, clear definition of editorial and advertising sections, glossy paper stock, and other practices that separate Westchester Magazine and its ancillary publications from the other publications in our region. And, of course, our goal has and always will be to inform, entertain, and make a difference in our community of Westchester County.
So we have big plans for the next 10 years. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I strongly believe the magazine industry will carry on. There is just something about a magazine that is different from other media. Magazines feel good—you can pick them up at your leisure, put them down, and then pick them up again. You can keep them by your bed or your coffee table and refer back to them again and again. And, of course, you can delight in their photography, their design, their creativity.
But we live in a digital world now, and thus we are investing a lot of time and money in our Westchester Magazine website and other online vehicles. Now, you can read Westchester Magazine, Westchester Home, Westchester Weddings, and 914INC. on your iPad, your iPhone, and/or your Droid. Just go to westchestermagazine.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and on Twitter, so we can inform you about special offers and new editorial features, and you can connect with other Westchester residents to build a truly interconnected Westchester community. We look forward to continuing to serve you for the next decade and the decades to follow.
