Stephen Sondheim contributed a crossword puzzle to every third issue of New York Magazine during its first year of publication. Then as now, the legendary composer took a special interest in games and puzzles of all kinds, as both a collector and a creator. (He sometimes devised elaborate games for friends’ parties.) Sondheim’s crosswords are unorthodox, offering variations on the usual across-and-down format, and aficionados know them as a high point of the puzzle-maker’s craft. To mark New York’s 40th-anniversary year, we’ve reprinted the first three of them on the pages below.

Sondheim’s First Puzzle Woodbabes Dedicated Dodecahedron