No Nudes in Real Estate

By: Jim Rosenberg Readers of The New York Times' New Jersey Real Estate section earlier this month were treated to a writer's private entreaty to his editor.

Deep into his copy for a Sunday "Streetscapes" story about Manhattan's 111-year-old Art Students League building, freelancer Christopher Gray bracketed a note within his copy: "great photo supplied, will be first nude in RE section, somebody be a hero and use it."

When the story was printed on Oct. 5, that note appeared within a paragraph about the building's classrooms and sculpture studio. Next to the paragraph appeared a photo -- not of the nude artist's model, but instead a 1908 picture of William Merritt Chase's painting class.

Only the writer's words survived editing. His plea did not, "because the picture we used was better," said section editor Michael Leahy, adding, "I was certainly embarrassed."

A copy of the section was sent to E&P this week by a New Jersey reader.

The cause of the mishap was traced and an editor's note published. Calling it "a fluke of the software," he explained that the bracketed copy looked like -- but was not -- the non-printing text of an Atex front-end system's notes mode. Some freelancers submit stories as files attached to e-mail, while others can file directly to the paper's Atex system, said Leahy, who wasn't sure how Gray's piece had been sent.

The writer's note to his editor was deleted from the archived version of the story.