The Weirdest and Wildest Finds at Library180, Where Magazine Lovers Go to Worship

Evangelical minister Billy Graham once said, “Even when we allow our imaginations to run wild on the joys of heaven, our minds are incapable of conceiving what it will be like.” I am not a religious leader, but with all due respect to believers, I know precisely what heaven is like: it is Library180, the magazine library in the WSA building of Manhattan’s Financial District. At Library180, archivist and image researcher Nikki Igol has opened up her collection of thousands of rare magazines to the public, all displayed in an airy space with sweeping views of the Statue of Liberty. It’s supremely relaxing to sprawl with her wire fox terrier, Mishu, on the Kartell floor cushions.

“These objects are not just historical artifacts,” says Igol of her magazines, “but living tools for imagination and learning.”

Library180—which opened over the summer and is furnished in shades of black, white, and red all over, just like a newspaper—has the stuff of a printphile’s dream. There are more familiar titles (French Glamour from the 1980s, what feels like the entire run of Interview, W in both its current and early newspaper format, every issue of Visionaire) alongside hard-to-find periodicals. Igol introduced me to the brilliant and unruly trade magazine Sportswear International; sumptuous ’90s quarterly Dutch; the Benetton-sponsored, prize-winning Colors; and the German fetish and fashion journal O. Celebrity interviewer and gossip columnist George Wayne hand-delivered copies of his fantastically bitchy zine R.O.M.E. in a pizza box.

“I like to say my origin story began at a garage sale in Michigan, where, at the age of eleven, I stumbled upon four issues of Details magazine from the 1980s,” says Igol. “My earliest introduction to fashion photography came through the works of Bill Cunningham and Marcus Leatherdale—a remarkably high bar for a kid!”

In adulthood, friends who work as artists, creative directors, stylists, and photographers would come to Igol’s Brooklyn apartment and comb through her magazines for image research. Helping them land the exact image they needed was its own kind of thrill.

Igol, who opened the library alongside her former V magazine colleague Steven Chaiken, keeps admission free (visitors need to make an appointment, but they aren’t charged). She hopes to “create a resource for discovery,” a richer alternative to the endless sameness of algorithm-fed imagery. “When images are consumed primarily on screens, in infinite, rapid scrolls, they flatten,” she says.

Here are some of the most fun finds from Library180’s visual treasure trove:

George Wayne’s R.O.M.E., The Lust Issue, 1995

I devoured issues of Wayne’s R.O.M.E. at Library180. “The Lust Issue” features the coverline “And on the first day, Satan created lust,” and it’s all uphill from there. There’s the “R.O.M.E. Glossary” stating magazine beliefs, such as “Madonna should come out with a line of platinum vibrators” and “one should not frequent restaurants like the Four Seasons if one has to get there via New York City taxi;” a cutting party report on a birthday party for “that mad-woman” Grace Jones (“I stand far off on the balcony perched on a banquette captivated by her histrionics. But her hunk I can’t pass up… she loves them brawny and Scandanavian”); and an In and Out list (In: drinking champagne from a scotch glass, Gregg Araki, hand jobs. Out: Lorne Michaels, art snobs, Los Angeles). This is all followed by a long, fantastic essay, titled “What a Riot: Twenty days at the Chateau Marmont during the Los Angeles riots,” featuring cameos from Madonna, Debi Mazar, Warren Beatty, and “Hurricane” Kelly Cutrone. Wayne was and is fearless—look no further than an essay in the issue that derides John Galliano and André Leon Talley as fashion victims.

Isaac Mizrahi Presents The Adventures of Sandee the Supermodel, 1997

Igol also displays books at Library180 (she has published her own—the delicious NYC Restaurant Ads, 1983-1998, featuring local ads in magazines like Annie Flanders-era Details and early Paper). Among the high-minded art titles, I was drawn to a campy comic book: Isaac Mizrahi’s The Adventures of Sandee the Supermodel, illustrated by William Frawley. In a series of three comics, All-American beauty Sandee gets discovered, moves to New York, battles rivals, anorexia, and the lure of drugs—and becomes a superstar, “a cross between Jean Harlow and Jean Shrimpton.”

It’s catnip for anyone with a passing familiarity with Mizrahi or the documentary Unzipped, which plays on mute on a videotape in the corner of the library. “In the late part of this century, we attribute speed of communications to fax machines, televisions, and the computer,” writes Mizrahi. “In the past, there was a very succinct way of spreading information… it’s called gossip!”

Pop Magazine Issue #14, Courtney Love Cover, December 2006/January 2007

Courtney Love posed nude for Mert and Marcus for this cover, but where she’s really exposed is in the accompanying profile. Journalist Paul Flynn flew to Ibiza for the kind of unfiltered interview that celebrities just don’t do anymore. Courtney Love has never exactly been demure, but she really lets it rip here, baring all about how Mel Gibson helped her get off crack (“Mel Gibson kept coming to my door and I kept saying ‘fuck off’ because I was high on crack!”); her first experience with cocaine at the age of 35 (“To me, cocaine was always a more bourgeois thing, or it was for dumb metal heads”); her fear of Oprah (“She doesn’t have a sense of irony… I need a little edge”); and the ending of her relationship with Steve Coogan (“I saw him shuffling down Sunset into my old strip joint, The Body Shop, alone… it was a true ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ moment”).

It is a perfect profile, and I thank Courtney Love for her wit and Paul Flynn for his service to journalism. I have since overpaid an eBay seller to own a copy of this magazine. It is full of gems. “The problem with some British people,” says Courtney, “is they come to Hollywood thinking it’s one giant vagina with an eight-ball in the middle of it.”

Visionaire, Hype!, 1995

Library180 boasts the entire run of Visionaire, Igol’s former employer—she describes it as “a publication that continues to redefine what a magazine can be.” Visionaire straddles the line between magazine and collectible art piece; famous issues include a 1998 volume designed by Tom Ford, a scent issue containing 21 fragrance samples, and “The Bible,” featuring a holding case designed by Philippe Starck, in which photographers like Wolfgang Tillmans, Mary Ellen Mark, and Steven Meisel reimagine scenes from the King James Bible.

The spreads from 1995’s “Hype!” issue were a play on the tabloids once jam-packed in New York City newsstands (RIP and RIP). Each shoot features funny taglines (“Buy Me Buy Me Buy Me,” screams the cover, shot by Inez and Vinoodh), and there are parodies of ads throughout, both for real companies (a fake ad for Helmut Lang, shot by David Sims, declares that Helmut Lang is the only COMPANY that cares for YOU) and fake (Size Queen Transgender Condoms, 1-800-LEASE-A-LIMB). Vogue editor-at-large Hamish Bowles contributed a piece on the interior of the Conner house, aka the set from Roseanne. Fashion luminaries like former Costume Institute curator Richard Martin and supermodel Niki Taylor dispense advice (Martin: “Of two naked people, the one who has more style is the first one you want to talk to”).

Paper, November 1987

This issue of Paper offers a rare window into 1980s New York City nightlife. In their editor’s letter, Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits encourage readers to go out post-daylight savings. “With clocks falling back and more hours now consigned to night than day, it’s time to take advantage of the situation,” they wrote. “Go late-night belly dancing in Times Square or have 7 AM cocktails on Avenue B. Shop for designer clothing at midnight and eat ‘eggy weggys’ at 5 AM in a weird restaurant called Normal.” Sigh. If only. Here are a bunch of listings for clubs I will continue to fantasize about visiting. (I want to go dancing in the East Village on a dance floor covered in sand, vacuums be damned!)

Sportswear International, Who’s Who in the American Sportswear Market, 1997

Sportswear International was ostensibly a fashion trade magazine. But it was the opposite of dry, full of color and life, something that shows how destitute our visual culture is today. I love the Spice Girls-esque cover spread by Simko in the below issue from 1997. The “Editor’s Beat” opening column, by Michael Belluomo, lists issues facing American fashion that make you cringe with all too much recognition thirty years later: unsold merchandise, retail consolidation, manufacturing becoming an “endangered species,” a lack of creative competitiveness, the dying mall.

W, Paris Fashion: From Tarts to Tomboys, October 20-27, 1986

Younger readers might be unaware that W was published in newspaper format from its founding in 1972 to 1993. Library180 has a bunch, including this issue from the mid ’80s. Seeing Kelly and Calvin Klein in Lake Como, featuring Calvin in a glass closet, is a real trip.

W, September 1995

There are countless iconic issues of W, many of which are on display at Library180. There are many brilliant covers there (my personal favorite is June 2002, featuring Winona Ryder post-shoplifting scandal in a “Free Winona” t-shirt) and editorials (Juergen Teller’s “Best Performances” portfolios, the Beckhams by Steven Klein, Tim Walker’s shoot of Kristen McMenamy as a mermaid). But at Library180, I reached for one of the loveliest: September 1995, featuring Craig McDean’s shoot of Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta channeling the Beats in San Francisco.

“The fashion is Tom Ford’s first collection for Gucci; the models, Amber Valletta and Shalom Harlow, were best friends,” McDean told W in a separate interview. “This was my first story for W, and the idea was to go on a road trip following in the footsteps of writers like Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, stopping at all their haunts throughout San Francisco. I was reading a lot of beatnik poetry at the time and wanted to capture a free-spirited feeling, a time and a place that we can all draw inspiration from.”

Zoom, Mario Testino’s Crack Up!, 1999

I had never heard of photography magazine Zoom before visiting Library180, and there’s precious little info about it online, apart from eBay listings. A magazine for and by photographers, it boasts some of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful imagery in the library’s archives. This issue, titled “Crack Up!,” features a light-hearted portfolio from Mario Testino, including pictures of Gwyneth Paltrow immediately post-Oscar win alongside a grinning Alek Wek.