Unlike his respected and formal predecessor, who wore jackets and ties, saw people by appointment and was addressed as “Mr. Shawn,” Mr. Gottlieb was a quirky collector of kitsch such as plastic ladies’ handbags, a passionate lover of classical ballet, and an eccentric Anglophile who called writers “dear boy.”
He didn’t attend tabloid lunches, preferring a hot dog in Central Park or a sandwich at his desk. With his long face, heavy glasses, and thinning hair, he sauntered around the office like a beachcomber in old sneakers, baggy pants, and rumpled polo shirts, chatting with the staff.
To ease the fears of many New Yorker aficionados, he made few and mostly minor changes over five years. He published new contributions, including the journalist Raymond Bonner, the essayist Judith Thurman and the poet Diane Ackerman, and fiction by Robert Stone and Richard Ford. New critics were hired and Talk of the Town commentaries were opened up to more writers and were no longer written anonymously. But he didn’t shorten the lengthy articles that critics sometimes called tedious and boring, and he gradually won the trust and affection of most of the contributors.
In 1992, Tina Brown, the British editor of Vanity Fair, replaced Mr. Gottlieb in an amicable transition and made splashy changes. Admirers called them lively topicality and refreshing brutality. Traditionalists called them vulgar, notably a portrait of Eustace Tilley, the magazine’s signature dandy, who appeared on an anniversary cover as an acne-stricken teen wearing a gold earring, squinting at a handbill in front of a Times Square sex shop.
After his days in New York, Mr. Gottlieb resumed editing in time for Knopf; became a dance critic for The New York Observer; collected anthologies on dance, jazz and lyrics; and authored several books, including a 2016 memoir, “Avid Reader: A Life,” in which he discussed the pros and cons of the literary life.