Leonard Abrams, the founder of the East Village Eye, a community newspaper dripping with attitude that, according to The New York Times, “captured in newsprint the do-it-yourself post-punk ethos that ignited the explosion of groundbreaking art, music and fashion in downtown Manhattan in the 1980s,” died of a heart attack on April 1, at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike on his way home to Queens. He was 68.

The Eye, a monthly publication with an international readership, was “a house organ for the graffiti artists, New Wave bands, and maverick fashion designers who created one of New York’s storied cultural flowerings,” The Times said. Stars like Keith Haring and Barbara Kruger, musicians like Iggy Pop and the Beastie Boys, fashion designers like Patricia Field and Betsey Johnson made up its pages.

The Eye shut down in the late 1980s, and The New York Public Library added some salvaged issues in Mr. Abrams’ possession to its archive. Of the acquisition, Mr. Abrams said, “I had a nose for news, and the news I had a nose for was 10 years ahead.”