If you see an exquisitely coiffed rider in a bespoke suit in the Q train, it just might be a Conde Nast higher-up who’s lost his limo privileges. NY Post media scribe Keith Kelly says several Conde execs are taking it on themselves to save a few nickels by shunning the black chauffered Mercedes for public transport.
WITH the hard times continuing to hurt Condé Nast, a number of the magazine giant’s most prominent editors and executives are shunning the chauffeur-driven Mercedes and taking the subway instead.
Among them: New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick, Gourmet Editor-in-Chief Ruth Reichl, David Carey, a group executive president who oversees Golf Digest, Wired and Portfolio, and Portfolio Publisher William Li.
Given that Remnick spent a lot of time as a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter in Moscow for The Washington Post, he probably thinks nothing of trudging down into the subway on a cold morning.
His office declined to comment, but an insider noted a trek on the subway wouldn’t be too difficult: “He lives on the Upper West Side, two express stops away.”
Reichl, too, is an Upper West Sider. She said, “I’ve taken the subway for years. I was never one of those people who thought you had to have a town car.”
She probably developed her taste for the low-key approach during her years as The New York Times’ food critic, frequently donning wigs and other disguises so she could write reviews incognito.
Carey, meanwhile, is taking Metro North to Grand Central and then hoofing it over to Condé Nast’s headquarters at 4 Times Square.
“He’ll use [car service] at the odd time, if it’s pouring rain,” said one insider.
[image: ichauffeur.co.uk]