Spencer Bailey

Spencer Bailey (born August 18, 1985) is an American writer, editor, journalist, and podcast host.

He has written at length about architecture, art, culture, and design, among other subjects.

Bailey was born and raised in Denver, Colorado.

On July 19, 1989, a month before his fourth birthday, Bailey survived the crash landing of United Airlines Flight 232 in Sioux City, Iowa.

His brother Brandon also survived the crash, but their mother, Frances, was one of the 112 passengers who died.

Bailey's brother Trent and their father, Brownell, were not on the plane.

Bailey is the subject of a famous photograph by Gary Anderson showing Lt. Colonel Dennis Nielsen carrying him to safety.

A statue based on the picture is part of the Flight 232 Memorial in Sioux City's riverfront development.

Bailey graduated from Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut, in 2004.

He received a B.A. in English from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 2008 and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2010.

In 2009, he was a student in a fiction-writing seminar taught by Gordon Lish.

In 2009 and 2010, Bailey interned in the editorial departments at Esquire and Vanity Fair.

From 2010 to 2013, Bailey was a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek, and from 2011 to 2014, The New York Times Magazine.

From May to August 2010, Bailey worked at The Daily Beast, and in September 2010 he was hired as assistant editor at Surface magazine.

Reporting for The New York Times Magazine, in October 2011, he spent a night at Zucotti Park and a nearby McDonald's during the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Over the next three years, he interviewed authors, celebrities, politicians, and cultural figures such as Al Sharpton, Tony Hawk, Rodney King, and Cyndi Lauper for a "How to ..."

column.

Bailey's interview with Rodney King was one of King's last before his fiancée found him dead at the bottom of a swimming pool.

In June 2013, at age 27, Bailey became editor-in-chief of Surface.

With the July/August 2013 issue—Bailey’s first as editor—the magazine unveiled a major design overhaul.

At Surface, Bailey interviewed hundreds of leading architects, artists, designers, and cultural figures, including David Adjaye, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Ian Schrager, and Kanye West, and helped launch the Design Dialogues conversation series.

Bailey's interview with Kanye West, published in the December 2016/January 2017 issue, was covered internationally.

Billboard called it "thoughtful."

In January 2017, Bailey was named editorial director of Surface Media.

In May 2018, Bailey announced he was leaving Surface Media.

In 2018, Bailey was named a contributing editor at Town & Country, where he covers architecture and design, and joined the book publisher Phaidon as editor-at-large.

In May 2019, with Andrew Zuckerman, Bailey founded and launched the media company The Slowdown.

Bailey hosts the Time Sensitive podcast, on which he has interviewed artists, chefs, journalists, novelists, musicians, actors, and others, including the author and translator Jhumpa Lahiri, the poet and playwright Claudia Rankine, and the fashion designer Gabriela Hearst.

In October 2020, Phaidon published Bailey’s book In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials, which features more than 60 memorials commemorating some of the most destructive events of the 20th and 21st centuries, including war, genocide, massacre, terrorism, famine, and slavery.

The book was named a Literary Hub "favorite book of the year" and a Financial Times "best book of 2020."