Fifty years ago, D. Herbert Lipson '52 didn't know what the heck was in his future. A government and law graduate, he was busy thinking of joining the State Department and angling for a post in some European glamour spot.
But there was the pesky problem of middling language skills and perhaps even a tendency to be less than diplomatic. In any case, a summer working for his father, S. Arthur Lipson, a newspaper and magazine publisher, erased just about all that.
“I don't know where it came from. I guess I didn't want to get ignored,” says Lipson, now chairman of Metrocorp, publisher of Philadelphia magazine, of his meant-to-be career in journalism. “But it's a great business. It's more like an avocation. If I had to, I would pay someone for the job.”
Through his involvement in publishing, Lipson, an Easton native, has taken junkets to Europe, eaten breakfast with Henry Kissinger, attended Grace Kelly's wedding, and met a lot of great politicians.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia has directed a generation of readers to its choice of restaurants, saloons, and spas, while sometimes raising eyebrows with its content. “We were brash young kids, doing stories that hadn't been done,” Lipson says of his early days at the magazine. “I wanted to make waves, mold politicians, and right wrongs, all the things young zealots want to do.”
Lipson did that by publishing stories such as one about a crooked Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who eventually went to jail and another about Pearl S. Buck's charlatan dance-instructor boyfriend, he says. “We still go for the same genre, but we don't get the same reaction,” he says. “We have pushed back the bounds of acceptable behavior. No one gets upset about anything anymore.”
Philadelphia wasn't always entertaining and it might never have been if Lipson hadn't tried from the start to change the former Chamber of Commerce booster magazine. “My father liked it the way it was,” he says. “I wanted it to be The New Yorker. We had a lot of fights, but his two partners always agreed with me. We got into screaming matches, and he'd throw me out. I was fired a few times.”
After he became publisher in 1961, the practice of selling the front cover stopped and “a new era of editorial integrity” began. Once called Municipal Publications, it has grown into Metrocorp, with magazines in Boston and Atlanta, along with other publications including Wine and Spirits, Weddings, and Concierge.
Lipson says Philadelphia's popular “best and worst” editions, which praise the best cheesesteak shop while flogging the worst political deal, originated at Boston magazine, which he purchased in 1971. “It worked so well that we did it in Philadelphia. Now all the magazines do it,” he says. “It had far more impact than we ever imagined. People run out to try the best restaurants. We sell twice as many issues that month.”
Boston magazine, he says, is classier than Philadelphia both in appearance and writing. That reflects Lipson's opinions of the two cities, even if his magazine makes living in Philly look fun.
While Philadelphia has “a lot going for it,” including great universities, hospitals, and cultural institutions, he says, it's poor and that shows in the shabby way people dress. There's no shopping left downtown, he laments, because it has moved 25 miles west to King of Prussia. And Philadelphia “makes all the wrong decisions,” he continues, like building another stadium in the south instead of the center of town.
Lipson calls Boston “a great city,” that has remained a financial center with great hospitals and renowned universities.
Nevertheless, Lipson believes his magazine, mostly read by suburbanites, to be one of the most profitable city-regionals in the country “and probably the best run. We've won all the great awards.”
“The city is the core, the cultural center, but what gives Philadelphia magazine its strength is the doughnut around the city, which is divided into inefficient townships and boroughs, each with its own police force,” Lipson says.
Today, the seaside Margate, N.J., resident works when he wants to, writing a column each month for Philadelphia, spending much of the rest of his workday in strategy and problem-solving with his son David, who is now publisher. Fortunately, Lipson doesn't have the same knock-down, drag-out fights with David as he did with his father.
In that way and others, Lipson considers himself lucky in life. “I was good at what I did. I was in the right place, with the right people. And I've had fun,” he confides. “Fun–that's the secret of success.”
D. Herbert Lipson ’52