Hugo Lindgren has gotten strong reviews for the newly designed New York Times Magazine across the board (with the possible exception of his decision to let Bill Keller write a column).

But even better than strong reviews? Making money! WWD reports that ad pages for the magazine group, including the Times’ Magazine and Sally Singer‘s T Magazine, were up 10.5% in the first quarter to 509 pages, a return to first-quarter 2009 levels.

Of course that’s nowhere near what they were in 2008, when the magazine had 858 pages in the first quarter. But let’s not get crazy. Things were real different back then.

Hopefully this will take some of the sting out of yesterday’s report that profits for the New York Times overall dropped 57%. We all need to heal.