The creative team at New York magazine was excitedly working on a splashy cover photograph of Zohran Mamdani, the city’s incoming mayor, with the members of his inner circle fanned around him.
The image was shot by the celebrity portrait photographer Mark Seliger on Dec. 17. But the next day, the magazine faced a crisis.
Catherine Almonte Da Costa — a senior adviser who had posed with nine other aides around Mr. Mamdani in the photo shoot at Mr. Seliger’s studio — resigned amid an uproar over antisemitic statements she had posted on social media years earlier.
So the New York editors tweezed Ms. Da Costa out of the picture.
Since the photograph was meant to introduce readers to Mr. Mamdani’s senior team, it would have been inappropriate to publish a version that included Ms. Da Costa, said Lauren Starke, a spokeswoman for the publication.
“The magazine’s editors decided to remove her from the image, since it was meant to represent the mayor-elect’s inner circle for the new administration,” Ms. Starke said on Wednesday.
Most news organizations, including The New York Times, have guidelines that forbid digitally altering photography to remove people from pictures.
On the published magazine cover, there is now an open white space where Ms. Da Costa once stood. The “W” in the logo for New York magazine is visible where her head once was.
It was fortunate that Ms. Da Costa had been posed in a spot that made it easy to simply pluck her from the picture, using photo-editing software, a New York employee familiar with the decision said.
Ms. Starke said the magazine did not consult with Mr. Mamdani’s staff about editing the image. A spokeswoman for the mayor could not be reached for comment.
Reached on New Year’s Eve, Ms. Da Costa directed a reporter to her resignation statement in which she apologized for her tweets, and said, “As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused.”
She declined to comment on being erased from the magazine photograph.
Mr. Seliger, the photographer, did not respond to a request for comment.
The New York magazine article by David Freedlander that accompanied the Seliger portraits reported on Ms. Da Costa’s tweets and her resignation. But the publication did not disclose online or in print that she had previously been in the group picture or that the editors had removed her.
About a week before the magazine featured Mr. Mamdani and his advisers on its cover, The Cut — a fashion and lifestyle periodical produced under New York magazine’s umbrella — published a photo spread and interview with Rama Duwaji, an artist and Mr. Mamdani’s wife. The article was written by Danya Issawi, a fashion news writer for The Cut and former New York Times employee.
In September, Ms. Duwaji illustrated a story written by Ms. Issawi for The Cut about Palestinian women and the personal items they brought with them when leaving Gaza.
Katherine Rosman covers newsmakers, power players and individuals making an imprint on New York City.
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