William Holmes Honan (May 11, 1930 – April 28, 2014) was an American journalist and author who directed coverage of the arts at The New York Times as its culture editor in the 1980s. Honan held senior editorial positions at the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Saturday Review and The Villager, a weekly newspaper serving downtown Manhattan. Honan also helped solve the theft of medieval art from Quedlinburg: the disappearance of over $200 million worth of medieval treasures from Quedlinburg, Germany at the end of World War II. The quest to find the "Quedlinburg Hoard" later became the subject of one of Honan's books. Early life Honan was born in Manhattan on May 11, 1930, the son of William Francis Honan, a thoracic surgeon and Annette Neudecker Honan, a journalist. He is a brother of Park Honan, an academic and author. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in history. In 1955 he earned a master's degree in drama from the University of Virginia. After serving in the Army, Honan moved to New York City where he managed Ed Koch's early political campaigns and began a career in journalism. Career The Villager Honan worked at The Villager, a downtown New York City paper, from 1957 to 1960, and is credited with turning the publication from "a little society paper" to a significant force in Manhattan politics. Serving as editor, Honan established himself as a crusading voice for reform against the Tammany Hall political machine and the automobile-centric visions of the autocratic urban planner Robert Moses. Honan convinced the Villager's assistant publisher, Jim Bledsoe, to endorse political candidates in 1959. In a 2,500-word, full-page editorial the paper backed Reform candidates against Carmine De Sapio, the last head of the Tammany Hall machine. The editorial accused De Sapio of widespread corruption. De Sapio ended up winning the 1959 election by a vote The Villager called in its headline a "Razor Margin." However, the paper also correctly predicted that this race was "the last hurrah" for De Sapio and the Tammany machine. De Sapio would run in and lose in the next three election cycles. The New York Times Honan joined the Times in 1969 as an editor at the Times Magazine. He went on to become editor of the Travel section in 1970 and editor of the Arts and Leisure section in 1974. He was promoted to daily