#ed levine

[scottspizzatours]

A Slice of New York Pizza History

How New York pizza came to be sold by the slice.

Here’s part 1 of a three part series I worked on with Ed Levine and Adam Kuban, two of my absolute heroes. Both these guys showed me how to approach pizza as a complete subject rather than just a food. This part covers some NYC pizza history. We’re still working on structuring exactly how we got from Neapolitan immigrants making pizza in bakeries to the classic NY slice but this is a good start.

[scottspizzatours]

The 27 Best Pizza Slices in New York City

The definitive list of pizza slice joints that will help you understand the state of the New York slice in 2018.

Here’s part 2 of the 3 part series I worked on with Ed Levine (Serious Eats) and Adam Kuban (founder of Slice and Margot’s Pizza). We did our best to craft a list that wasn’t just a list. This is just as much about context as it is about telling you who makes better pizza than whom. All three of us really hate those things so this is our attempt to really lay it all out. We spent a lot of time on the ground trying tons of pizzerias to give you a real idea of where the NY slice is right now in NYC. Enjoy!

[scottspizzatours]

Special Pizza Sauce: Adam Kuban and Scott Wiener Talk Pie, Part 2: Pie Harder

Ed Levine in conversation with Adam Kuban and Scott Wiener, part 2 of 3.

Episode 2 of a 3 part series I did with Ed Levine and Adam Kuban, two of my pizza nerd mentors. 

[scottspizzatours]

Special Pizza Sauce: Adam Kuban and Scott Wiener Talk Pie, Part 1

Scott Weiner, Adam Kuban, and Ed Levine talk about their love for pizza.

Episode 1 of a 3 part series with my mentors Ed Levine and Adam Kuban. These two people were hugely influential in my entering the professional pizza eating universe. 

[fredalan]

Ed Levine was the instigator.

Everyone in the 21st century casually refers to basically anyone and anything as brands. But, as far as I can tell, no one did before MTV: Music Television in the late 1980s. And MTV only did it because of Ed Levine.

Without Ed no one would be talking about themselves as "brands." Seriously.

Today, Ed Levine's known as the founder of Serious Eats and the first good writer to take everyday food –pizza, burgers, bagels– ahem... seriously. But, we knew Ed from the music business, and when Albie Hecht suggested Ed as Fred/Alan's first legitimate advertising agency colleague –after years of us being cable programming consultants and promotion producers, Nickelodeon flattered us into becoming a full service agency*– Ed had done a stint as an account executive at the world renowned J. Walter Thompson. We had a lot in common, that made us comfortable with becoming legit.

When we started describing to Ed what we did for a living at Fred/Alan, developing modern television logos, defining the positioning, promotion and marketing language and tactics for cable TV networks like MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick-at-Nite, he nodded with understanding.

"Oh, you do branding."

We looked confused. "We make the logos the star, we create loyal audiences for our clients."

"Right. Branding. Looking, I quit the agency business when they assigned me to advertising hemorrhoid creams. Like Anusol. It's a famous brand in hemorrhoids."

Hmmm. Let's give that a whirl.

The next time we had a marketing meeting at MTV we snuck "the brand" into some part of the conversation. The execs looked as confused as we'd been.

We improvised. Something like, "Well, a brand is a beacon, a signpost. It's the place that an audience most identifies with, like MTV is for music, for fashion, for... attitude. And, not for nothing, a brand is the most expensive thing in a category. It's why MTV has higher CPMs** than anyone else."

Nods all around. Within a week, all you heard around the halls of MTV Networks was about "the brand! the brand!" Soon enough, we were also touting it over at Nickelodeon, VH1, all of our clients at the company.

And then, with whatever smoke signals were read throughout media, suddenly, everyone had a brand!

And then, and then, and then, here we are. You're a brand, we're a brand, it's a brand, the president of the United States is a brand.

Thanks Ed!

* A full-service advertising agency is a firm that provides all major marketing and advertising functions under one roof, from strategy and creative development through production, media placement, and campaign management. It means the client does not need to hire separate companies for creative, media, production, digital, and strategy—the agency handles the entire process.

**CPM: cost per thousand viewers for an ad; the key marker for success in television.

[fredalan]

Hangin’ at 870.

The first Fred/Alan office was pretty funky. At the top of a mid-priced Manhattan, New York hotel at 870 7th Avenue, was a hastily assembled tower, only accessible by going to the top floor of the hotel and then squeezing into an elevator the size of a large phone booth.

When you got off on our floor –not for nothing, the original Jackie Gleason production company– you saw stucco stalactites above and pop art rug fragments from every floor in the hotel.

But, like any workplace it was the people who gathered that made the difference. Over the years we had three office locations and about 100 co-workers. On a lot of posts in this archive they get mentioned or credited, but it’s about time we showed some of them from 870 in photos taken around 1987. 

Clockwise from the top left corner: Jessica Wolf, Ed Levine, Tom Leonardis, Tom Pomposello and Marietta Szubski, Lori Jacobsen, Nancy Nalven, Mike Shavelson, Elliot Krowe, Chris Strand, Albie Hecht, Janet Gutyan; Marietta Szubski; Nancy; Lori Jacobsen; Barbara Powers, Alan Goodman and Len Fischman.

[allwaysfull]

The Young Man & The Sea | David Pasternack & Ed Levine

[wellofcoursenot]

The Oral History of Serious Eats

How a cash-strapped start-up became the internet’s food-nerd utopia.