Back when the Paris Review was still run out of George Plimpton’s apartment, the office was a jumble of antique typewriters, smudged-up manuscripts, and bicycles that hung upside down from the ceiling. The Paris Review was a literary magazine, but it was also Plimpton’s clubhouse, a place where young bookish types sought refuge from the conventions of the real world. Salaries were nil to meager, but such is the payoff for a workday that involves reading Rick Moody stories and joking around with the legendary writer and lover of life George Plimpton.

Plimpton died in late 2003, and the time that followed was marked with great uncertainty. His protege, managing editor Brigid Hughes, was appointed editor, but hardly a year passed before the board of directors replaced her with New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch, who moved the offices to TriBeCa. The magazine has been revamped, with a new retro look and a greater emphasis on nonfiction. No original staff members remain at the magazine.

As far as Ms. Hughes was concerned, there was only one thing to do after being shown out the door: start her own magazine. After a summer spent planning and fund raising, Ms. Hughes has set up her new magazine, A Public Space, in a 160-year-old horse stable in downtown Brooklyn, just down the road from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. “It never would have happened if I thought about what I was getting into when I started,” Ms. Hughes, 32, said of her quick recovery. “You just have to put your blinders on and go.”

Ms. Hughes has the wavy blond hair, icy blue eyes, and pulled-togetherness of a Hitchcock heroine. She chooses her words carefully, and when asked about thoughts on the new version of the Paris Review, said, “I haven’t really sat down with it yet.”

Her new magazine’s enormous home has wooden beams, high ceilings, and heavy black doors held shut by a thick latch. The sparse, modern decor is a far cry from the amber-lighted warren that used to house the Paris Review, but the whimsy that floated through the East 72nd Street office seems to have found its way across the East River. A recent visit found Diane Mehta, the managing editor, flinging open the doors and chasing a bumblebee onto the street.

The new quarterly, which will debut in January 2006, will also print art and essays that result from the magazine’s “Fieldwork” grant, an occasional sponsorship of a writer’s wish to travel to investigate a subject that intrigues them.

Ms. Hughes, an English graduate from Northwestern University, was introduced to the Paris Review by its former poetry editor Richard Howard, who taught her in a poetry workshop the summer after college. Mr. Howard wrote a letter of introduction, and Ms. Hughes met with several editors on Election Day 1994. “We talked a lot about politics and a little bit about poetry,” she recalled. “The interview must have lasted 10 minutes.”

She was offered an internship, and she recalls finding the magazine’s atmosphere intimidating at first. “When I started I was reading slush, and I remember another intern was proofreading a story by A.S. Byatt and I thought, ‘I hope someday I can do that.'” She went on to run the office and oversee all aspects of production, everything from finding new writers to editing stories by such as authors Haruki Murakami and Richard Powers.

“The thing that excited me about the magazine is it had one foot in the establishment and one foot out there,” she said. “It was always doing its own thing.”

She spoke with confidence about her new magazine’s ability to attract a core audience, even at a time when most mainstream magazines are scaling back on fiction. “Many smaller magazines have managed to succeed,” she said, citing McSweeney’s as spearheading the current cultural moment. “The numbers may not be as big as a Conde Nast title, but the readers are devoted.”

To many people, the Plimpton-era Paris Review is best remembered for its parties, always a hazy nimbus of smoke and laughter and fancy talk. In George’s house anything went – 60-year-old poets mingled with undergraduates; movie stars cavorted with literary agents, and something precious was always broken by the end of the evening.

“My favorite part about this office is the doors,” Ms. Hughes said, craning her neck to take in the enormity of the new space. “When we leave them open people come in off the street, wanting to pitch stories or just say hello.”

lmechling@nysun.com