The Group Portrait: Bookforum Was a Good Magazine

After 28 years, a beloved hub of literary New York closes its doors.

- Bindu Bansinath

THE BOOKFORUM OFFICE in Chelsea is almost stripped bare. Only odds and ends are left on this Monday in late December, the staff ’s last in the space. A yoga mat sits rolled on a cardboard box of stray titles. “Most of the good stuff is gone,” observes managing editor David O’Neill, studying the bookshelves mounted above the desks. “I’m going to take my big boy,” says associate editor Lizzy Harding, running her finger along a Berenice Abbott boxed set.