Clay Felker, a visionary editor who was widely credited with inventing the formula for the modern magazine, giving it energetic expression in a glossy weekly named for and devoted to the boisterous city that fascinated him — New York — died Tuesday at his home in Manhattan.

He was 82.

Felker’s death was of natural causes, said his wife, the author Gail Sheehy. He had throat cancer in his later years.

Felker edited a number of publications besides New York magazine. There were stints at Esquire, The Village Voice, Adweek and others. But it was at New York that he left his biggest imprint on American journalism.

Felker’s legacy

He had edited the magazine when it was a Sunday supplement to The New York Herald Tribune founded in 1964. Four years later, after the newspaper had closed, Felker and graphic designer Milton Glaser reintroduced New York as a glossy, stand-alone magazine.

Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Gloria Steinem and others in Felker’s stable of star writers helped give the magazine national prominence. Meanwhile, what he called its “secret weapon,” its service coverage — on where to eat, shop, drink and live — kept many readers coming back.

Felker eventually lost New York to Rupert Murdoch in a bitter takeover battle in 1977. But his influence can still be felt in the current magazine, from its in-crowd tone to its ubiquitous infographics and inventive typography.

“American journalism would not be what it is today without Clay Felker,” Adam Moss, New York’s current editor, said in a statement Tuesday.”

Ink in the blood

The supercharged atmosphere of New York was a long way from Webster Groves, Mo., where Clay Schuette Felker, born on Oct. 2, 1925, grew up. Journalism ran in his family. His father, Carl, was the managing editor of The Sporting News; his mother, Cora Tyree Felker, had been women’s editor of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch before having children.

After enrolling at Duke University, Felker left college for a three-year hitch in the Navy before returning to graduate in 1951. At Duke he edited the undergraduate newspaper and married Leslie Aldridge, another undergraduate. The marriage ended in divorce, as did his second marriage, to Pamela Tiffin, an actress.

In 1984 he married Gail Sheehy, who first wrote for him at The New York Herald Tribune and who later became widely known as the author of “Passages” and other books.

After college, Felker was a reporter for Life magazine for six years and worked on the development of Sports Illustrated. He later became features editor of Esquire but quit when his rival, Harold Hayes, got the top job. In 1963 he joined The Herald Tribune and became founding editor of the supplement New York.

In addition to Sheehy, Felker is survived by a sister, Charlotte Gallagher; a daughter, Mohm Sheehy of Cambridge, Mass.; a stepdaughter, Maura Sheehy of Brooklyn; and three stepgrandchildren.