1. Happy 25th Anniversary / Getting Started

This Year We Celebrate The 25th Anniversary of Manhattan Bride & ManhattanBride.com and to honor our dedicated Staff, Advertisers, and enthusiastic Brides who have made it possible … We offer this Special Salute, presenting some of Manhattan Bride’s award-winning features over the past Quarter Century.

We’re also including photos and excerpts from the prior Two Decades of innovative magazines, award-winning photos, and charity benefits by our Editor-Publisher, all of which inspired Manhattan Bride, including … 

Studio 54 magazine, in the club and behind-the scenes at the legendary nightspot … the award-winning Manhattan magazine .. some 40 celebrity-studded Charity Events for the city’s Shelter Children and Breast Cancer research … award-winning Environmental Images, first exhibited at the United Nations … and decades of more award-winning photos, on trips that spanned the globe, from Morocco to the Amazon Jungle, Tahiti, Paris, Maui, and more, with top models, dancers, and even several beauty queens, including Miss France, Miss USA, and Miss Russia. (Cover photos and those in the gallery below: Rick Bard)

Getting Started … It was 1979. New York City was just recovering from its near bankruptcy of 1975, the city’s crack-fueled crime wave was just beginning, the Disneyfication of Times Square was over a decade away, and the Internet was unimaginable. But Madison Avenue remained the Silicon Valley of its day, as it had for decades, attracting the best and the brightest to create the era’s celebrated ads for print, TV, and radio.

And disco was king; the nightspots of Manhattan were famous the world over. I was launching a magazine for clubs around the country and created a special magazine for what many called the hottest spot in the city, maybe the world, Studio 54. As the editor, I would hang out at the club with my “starter” Nikkormat camera (all film in the day) and take photos in the darkened club photographing stars, socialites, the young, and the old. Celebrity or not, all had been granted permission to enter.

A while later I converted the Studio 54 magazine to Manhattan magazine. Where before I had covered the parties, major openings, and entertainment figures of the day, I now photographed the city’s Major Charity Events and broadened our interviews to include leaders in business, the arts, sports, design, music, Broadway, civil rights, the environment, and more.

I needed help. And help I got, as I was joined by the most special team of contributing editors: Robin Leach of “Entertainment Tonight” and later “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous;”  Interior Designer Anne Eisenhower; the charismatic cowboy of the legendary Village People, Randy Jones; and Andy Warhol muse Tinkerbelle. We were ready!

About Us … Background > 1. Happy 25th Anniversary/Getting Started … 2. Annual Charity Events … 3. Celebrating Creativity
4. Globe-Spanning Photography … 5. Celebrating Love … 6. A Word of Thanks