Peter Kaplan, the editor of the New York Observer for fifteen years, whose talent and affability helped the publication offer a smart, insider’s view of New York City’s elite, died of cancer on Friday at the age of 59.

Kaplan, who was appointed editor in 1994, helped the Observer become a must-read for those interested in both the machinations and pettiness of a city with a vibrant and highly entertaining overclass. The knowing, inquisitive voice and persona he carefully tended in the pages of the Observer became, in many ways, the template for the explosion in personality-driven journalism that attended the rise of online publishing, including this site. Next to Kaplan’s paper, most of it is a cheap, insulting knock-off.

Kaplan was a master at attracting gifted reporters and editors, convincing them to work for next to nothing, and training them up and into the ranks of the glossies. He was known for helping along the careers of several now-prominent writers, including author Candace Bushnell, Choire Sicha, Nikki Finke, Ben Smith, Tom Scocca, Tom McGeveran, and Nick Paumgarten. He seeded his destabilizing influence throughout the Manhattan media establishment. There isn’t a major publication operating, including this site, that doesn’t have a Kaplan man or woman with their hands in the wheel.

Kaplan remained with the Observer after its purchase by heir Jared Kushner in 2006 and ensuing change in direction, before taking a position at Condé Nast in 2010.

from the new yorker:

Peter W. Kaplan, the longtime editor of the New York Observer whose death, of cancer, was announced late yesterday, was wary of change but dazzled by modernity, adored by employees yet mysterious to most of them, and revered by Web journalists while defying the wisdom of the digital age.

Kaplan was born in Manhattan in 1954, and attended Harvard where he became a stringer for Time. He lived in Larchmont, N.Y., and is survived by his wife, Lisa Chase, and four children.