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02138 Is Two!

02138 is two! Or at least, we’re beginning our second year of publication. Much has changed since we published our fi rst issue in September 2006. We’ve moved from Boston to New York. We also have some new folks helping us tell Harvard’s stories. After stints at Tango and Success magazines, Califia Suntree joins 02138 as managing editor, while RICHARD BRADLEY, author of Harvard Rules and former executive editor of George magazine, comes aboard as 02138’s executive editor. Califi a, Richard, and the entire staff completed this issue despite a massive steam-pipe explosion that closed our offi ces near Grand Central Station for a week—but you’d never know it to look at the magazine.

Throughout all this change, our desire to chart the universe of Harvard alumni remains constant. We launched 02138 with a feature called the Harvard 100, our mostly factual, somewhat subjective list of the university’s most infl uential alums. The issue you’re holding features the second annual Harvard 100. Honing our choices to focus on those helping to shape the world now and in the immediate future, we think we’ve compiled a compelling group.

Wherever you’d rank him, one alumnus has unquestionably had an impact in 2007: AL GORE. I met with the former vice president at the Casa Del Mar in Los Angeles; our conversation would carry on to New York and Tennessee. Casual and funny in person, Gore arrived fresh from a 3 a.m. fl ight from Mexico City. On the campaign trail against global warming, he was en route to San Francisco, Aspen, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. I talked with him about the state of the planet, while trying to pin Gore down on a question many Americans would like the answer to: Will he run for president in 2008?

There are, of course, many ways to have an impact on the world. In “A Death in New Orleans,” we tell the story of PAUL GAILIUNAS and HELEN HILL, two young Harvardians who aspired to live a life both fueled by romantic love and engaged with everyday problems. Tragically, a horrifi c crime robbed Helen of her future. But as I and everyone who works here read Jason Berry’s article, we were deeply moved by Helen’s story and amazed at how many people she inspired during her tooshort life. This past June, I visited what would have been Helen’s 15th college reunion. In an Adams House memorial service organized by her classmates, Helen’s friends and family provided a loving glimpse of just how special she was.

There’s much more I’d like to say about this issue—about the terrific photo essays on Harvard vintners and what’s required to raise a Harvard child, about legendary scientist James Watson’s tough-minded critique of the university’s future in Allston. But I’ll leave those things for you to discover. I think I hear issue six calling …

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