Boston Magazine‘s latest cover features the actual shoes runners wore when the Boston Marathon because the Boston Marathon bombing. The title of monthly magazine’s cover story, “We Will Finish the Race,” serves as a heartwarming reminder of the strength of the people of the city, nation, and the world, who competed, and who became on-the-spot heroes, medics, first responders, and, sadly, victims.
Boston Magazine editor John Wolfson explained that the cover “helps us get out of the moment a little bit,” the Atlantic Wire reports:
“To me, the cover says perseverance, and the cover says unity,” Wolfson said in an interview Thursday morning. Wolfson also regards the image as symbolic. Removing one shoe would “diminish the overall effect,” he said. “I just felt that was symbolic of the city’s response.”
We emailed with Associate Art Director Liz Noftle, who explained how the cover came together.
We wanted to do something really special that would honor the runners and everything they had to go through in the events of marathon. We had only a few days to pull something together. Monday night we came up with the concept, and Tuesday began to execute it. It was only made possible by the help of everyone on staff. We reached out to anyone and everyone to collect shoes in less than 48 hours. It was a tremendous effort by everyone—people going out of their way to bring in shoes, interns collecting them, organizing couriers to bring them here. Then we drove them all down to New York on Thursday, where Mitchell Feinberg photographed them, and we closed the magazine while the city was in lockdown on Friday.
Boston Magazine released the image, photographed by Mitch Feinberg, via Twitter and Facebook yesterday, and it has already gone viral.
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In “Behind the May Boston Magazine Cover,” Boston Magazine’s John Wolfson adds:
So many of you have asked when the magazine will be available on newsstands and whether we’ll be commissioning posters of the cover image. Copies will start showing up on newsstands on Friday, and will be widely available starting Tuesday. As to a poster, we are already at work with the company that prints our magazine to produce posters. Given how fast all of this has come together, we still haven’t finalized the cost or the availability date, but one thing I can tell you for certain is that all proceeds will be donated to The One Fund—Boston. Please send us an email at bmagdigital@gmail.com if you would like more information about the posters once they’re available. You can also support The One Fund at onefundboston.org.
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We have received numerous inquiries from readers who live outside of Boston who want to purchase the issue. Please visit this page for more information on ordering a single copy. Thank you for your interest.
Peace.