The American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors will induct Arthur Gelb into its features Hall of Fame on Friday, Sept. 30, during the organization's annual convention. The convention will be Sept. 28 through Oct. 1 at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, Colo.

Mr. Gelb is being honored for his contributions to journalism during his 45-year career in The New York Times newsroom, including his work as the editor in charge of features coverage in the Sunday and daily sections of paper.

In 2003, Mr. Gelb published memoirs of his career at the Times. In "City Room" (J.P. Putnam's Son), he wrote that, in 1975, Times editors were warned that rising costs threatened to drive the paper into unprofitability. In response, they began to explore the characteristics of its readers and create feature sections to lure readers who were not buying the Times, but who possessed the same demographics of traditional Times readers.

As deputy managing editor, during the paper's conversion to a four-section newspaper, he was the main newsroom architect and overall editor of the new daily feature sections -- first Weekend, then Living, Home, SportsMonday and Science Times. In a little more than three years, the Times went from barely profitable into a thriving newspaper, with booming circulation and advertising.

He also oversaw redesigns of the Sunday Book Review and Sunday Travel as well as the Sunday daily and culture sections.

Today, Mr. Gelb is the director of the scholarship program for The New York Times Company Foundation. He will leave that position on July 1, when Soma Golden Behr, a senior editor at the Times, will become the next director. Mr. Gelb will remain as a consultant. He served as president of the foundation for 10 years, leaving that position on Feb. 1, 2000. He retired as managing editor of The New York Times in 1990, bringing to a close a 45-year career in the Times newsroom.

Mr. Gelb, 81, was born in Manhattan, attended public school in the Bronx and graduated from New York University in 1946. He lives in the city with his wife, Barbara, a biographer, and is the father of two married sons.

He joined the Times as a copy boy in 1944 while still in college. His early reporting experience included coverage of the police, health, City Hall and the United Nations. In 1954 he was invited by Brooks Atkinson, the chief drama critic, to become an assistant drama critic, and for the next eight years wrote numerous reviews and articles about Broadway and the burgeoning off-Broadway theater. In 1962, he was appointed chief cultural correspondent.

Mr. Gelb's critical eye for new talent fell on many show business personalities who later came to prominence. In 1961, for example, he found a new talent at a Greenwich Village coffeehouse - a stand-up comic named Woody Allen. A couple of years earlier, he was the first critic to praise Barbra Streisand, who was appearing in a tiny Greenwich Village basement nightclub.

He is co-author with his wife, Barbara, of "O'Neill," the first definitive biography of the playwright Eugene O'Neill that was published in 1962. He is the co-editor with A.M. Rosenthal of a number of books including "The Night The Lights Went Out," "The Pope's Journey to The United States," "Great Lives of the Twentieth Century" and The Sophisticated Traveler series.

He is working on several new projects. He and his wife are completing a collaboration with Ric Burns for WGBH in Boston on O'Neill. His book "City Room" was published in paperback this spring and is part of the inspiration behind a documentary on the history of the Times that is planned by Mr. Burns. In addition, he is working with Mr. Burns on a documentary about the history of the Actor's Fund. He is also currently editing Maureen Dowd's book "Are Men Necessary?" slated to be published by Putnam on Nov. 8. He will interview Ms. Dowd about her book at the 92nd Street YMCA on Nov. 9.

ABOUT AASFE: The American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors is an organization of editors dedicated to the quality of features in newspapers and the craft of feature writing. AASFE supports its membership with an annual convention, a writing contest, an annual magazine and a Web site, http://www.aasfe.org/. It is the forum where forward-thinking editors introduce, debate and spread ideas and strengthen our sections. If an innovation in features has caught your eye, chances are it has been discussed in an AASFE workshop or publication.

The organization was started in 1947 by 17 Sunday editors at newspapers ranging from the Williamsport (Pa.) Grit to The New York Times. Today, the AASFE includes about 200 editors from the United States and Canada.

ABOUT THE HALL OF FAME: All members of the AASFE Features Hall of Fame are visionaries. These men and women insisted that writers and editors move up to the next level of features coverage. They have helped guide features to the lofty status it now holds. We -- and newspaper readers all over the country -- are fortunate they chose their respective career paths.

Past recipients include: Susan Bischoff, Marty Claus, Shelby Coffey III, Ruth D'Arcy, Collen (Koky) Dishon, Jon Franklin, Mary Hadar, Bill Hosokowa, Robert Hosokowa, Dorothy Jurney, David Laventhol, Eppie Lederer, Jack Loftis, Pauline Phillips, Leonard Pitts, Michael P. Smith, Seymour Topping and Rosalie Muller Wright.

For more details, visit http://www.aasfe.org/halloffame/index.html.

SOURCE: American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors