Capital New York raises $1.7 million to lure Observer talent; New York magazine editor hired away by Vanity Fair

Three New York media notes--two related, all important in their own way:

Capital New York, the small, year-old website launched by a pair of former New York Observer editors, has raised $1.7 million in order to double its current editorial staff "to a grand total of nine," Ad Age reports.

While miniscule in comparison to the kind of capital raised by some Silicon Alley start-ups, the figure is not insignificant, considering the founders (Tom McGeveran and Josh Benson) recently brought on a president (Bianca Janosevic, a former New York Times executive) so that the site could actually start selling ads to supplement its high-quality editorial product.

Angel investor Adam Riggs led the recent round, according to Ad Age, and will join its board of directors alongside Benson, McGeveran and Curbed founder Lockhart Steele.

Concurrently, Capital New York announced this week that it had hired New York Observer political reporter Azi Paybarah away from the salmon-colored paper. "Sad @azipaybarah's leaving," NYO editor Elizabeth Spiers wrote on Twitter. "But @jbens and @tmcgev admittedly hard to resist."

However, the Village Voice reports that Observer freelancer Dana Rubinstein--who has written for the Wall Street Journal and Capital--and Reid Pillifant, also most recently a political reporter at the Observer, are jumping to Capital New York, too. "Thanks to @tmcgev and @jbens, I'm now hiring on the politics desk," Spiers wrote. "Resumes to espiers AT observer."

In other aggressive staffing moves, News York magazine's senior online editor Chris Rovzar is leaving the site after four years for Vanity Fair, Conde Nast-owned WWD reports. Rovzar, who edited the glossy weekly's flagship Daily Intel blog, replaces Michael Hogan, who left Vanity Fair the AOL Huffington Post in June.