Monday, Apr 13, 2009    Text size: 

The feature story titled "Arrivals" is online now at the magazine's official website. Author Adam Sternbergh examines the attitudes and motivations of those who move to the city.

Lucas is profiled among a batch of notable New Yorkers that includes actors James Franco, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Andy Samberg, former mayor David Dinkins, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, model Naomi Campbell, designer Diane Von Furstenberg and "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels.

"I am incredibly proud to be chosen by New York magazine," Lucas said. "Over my 13 years in business I have loved every minute of my assimilation into the best city in the world. I am a New Yorker. I greatly appreciate the openmindedness of the city and the respect they have always given me. It is a great feeling to have my accomplishments be acknowledged."

Lucas' profile notes he first arrived in the Big Apple in 1997.

"I had arrived at JFK with a backpack and a little suitcase and $150," Lucas notes. "I immediately started escorting for $300 an hour and working at the Gaiety Theater. Porn was not my dream; I wanted to be the next Tom Cruise. But I was realistic and practical, and saw my competition in Hollywood, and decided that the opportunity for me was in porn."

Within a few months, Lucas had saved enough money for his own place. However, he was still penniless. "I wore poor-person clothes like Abercrombie & Fitch, which was very sad, very beige. Eventually, when I started to get some money, I bought Valentino, because I did not know any better. I got bad haircuts and shopped in bad supermarkets. I learned to cook from marked-down cookbooks I bought at a Barnes & Noble, but I preferred the Burger King. I remember looking in the mirror once in 1997 and not seeing even one ab."

The current feature is not Lucas' first appearance in New York magazine. He was also the subject of an extensive October 2006 profile titled "The Lion of Chelsea."