Biography|Stephen J. Adler — BusinessWeek Named Him Editor in This Tower

On 6 December 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies announced that Stephen J. Adler would become editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek on 1 April 2005.

He would succeed Stephen B. Shepard, who was leaving after twenty years to found CUNY's journalism school. Adler was 49.

The magazine's editorial offices were in the McGraw-Hill Building at 1221 Avenue of the Americas, the red-granite tower in Rockefeller Center finished in the early 1970s. The 2005 annual report still printed that address as the company's New York home.

That is the pin. A public corporate tower, not a private floor.

McGraw-Hill reached outside the magazine to hire him. The New York Times noted the next day that several internal candidates had been passed over.

He joined in January 2005 to work the transition with Shepard, then took the chair on 1 April.

Company biographies later said the magazine and its website won more than 100 major journalism awards in his five years. That figure is McGraw-Hill's and Thomson Reuters' own count, repeated across appointment and retirement memos.

The run ended when McGraw-Hill sold BusinessWeek to Bloomberg in 2009. Adler announced he would leave when the deal closed.

On 2 December 2009 Thomson Reuters said he would join as editorial director of the Professional Division.

The tower is now usually called 1221 Avenue of the Americas. McGraw Hill left it in 2015.

The plaza and the Sun Triangle sculpture are what a visitor still finds at the Sixth Avenue setback.

Photo: David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.