THE NEW YORK TIMES
March 17, 2002
The inclusion of this magazine in the Periodicals section of a History feature is admittedly something of a cheat.
As a (now-extinct) television supplement to the newspaper of record, it certainly could not be purchased (separately) from a magazine stand. And more significantly, since it is dated 2002, it clearly falls outside the 1957-1964 time frame to which this feature is dedicated. Nevertheless, the action depicted on the cover exactly captures what we hope to convey in our efforts here: The making of West Side Story and its significance in popular culture. There is no better example of this significance than the cover picture of this otherwise trivial throwaway.
When the editors were preparing a story about filming movies on the streets of New York, an article containing no fewer than 37 examples of movies that have used the Big Apple as their shooting location, they chose for their cover display the film that we can assume was the most easily recognized—not to say best-loved or most-admired—to make the point. This distinction comes a full forty years after the film’s release, despite the roster of noteworthy possibilities that had been made since. Without question, the popularity and longevity of West Side Story is most evidently, and most reassuringly, a simple fact of life.
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