In his 1991 autobiography, Lost Property: Memoirs and Confessions of a Bad Boy, Sonnenberg recounted his childhood growing up in a five-story townhouse on Gramercy Park, where his father and his household staff of six entertained celebrities at regularly held dinner parties.
[1] The inaugural issue of Grand Street, which he edited from the dining room of his Riverside Drive apartment, featured works from his friends Hughes and Merwin, as well as pieces by Northrop Frye, John Hollander, Alice Munro and James Salter, along with excerpts of Glenway Wescott's journals.
Sonnenberg published material based solely on his preferences, saying in a 1989 interview with Newsday that "I thought a magazine would be a good way to give money to individuals whose writing I liked".
[1] A review of the Winter 1985 issue in The Washington Post called Grand Street "Hellenic, leftish, mandarin, impeccable", of which Sonnenberg would later say that he found that the accolade "hardest to accept is 'impeccable'".
[1] He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1994 [6] Sonnenberg died at age 73 in Manhattan on June 24, 2010, due to complications of multiple sclerosis.