Selected Directory of Hyperlocal Publications in NYC
| PUBLICATION |
CATEGORY |
M.O. |
| Bay Ridge Journal | Neighborhood. | Heavy on press releases and second-hand crime stories. |
| Bensonhurst Bean | Neighborhood. | Recently created by Ned Berke, founder/editor/publisher of SheepsheadBites, site relies heavily on Huffington Post-style re-purposing of content originated by other publications. |
| Bikeblog | Specialty site. | Founder Michael Green, a film maker who sees the bike as “humankind’s greatest invention,” writes about “bicycle technology and the vast realm of bicycle culture,” with special section on police crackdown on bicyclists. |
| BK Southie | South Brooklyn neighborhoods. | Subway service, crime and politics. Site complains that stories and features based on its content turn up uncredited in the Murdoch-owned Brooklyn Paper (see its listing in this directory). |
| Bob’s Walk | Specialty, with photos of every block of Manhattan island. | Bob Sheridan, retired NY Times editor, began his project in 1988, using photographic film. Well before he finished, in 2007, he shifted to digital images. His photos also include Marble Hill, which was severed from Manhattan island when the Harlem River was diverted, and Governors Island, but not other islands that are part of Manhattan borough. |
| Bowery Boogie | Neighborhood. | Mission is “to document the past, present and future of the ever-changing neighborhood landscape,” but actual news is Bowery lite, with emphasis on handouts and upcoming filming scenes. |
| The Bronx Ink | Neighborhood. | Operated during the September-May school year by students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, site runs breaking news and “seeks to offer an in-depth look at the issues facing Bronx residents.” Stories show reporters lack of experience and direction. |
| Bronx News Network | News of Mount Hope, Tremont, Norwood, Hunts Point and Mott Haven in the Bronx. | Named one of best 18 blogs in the city by the Village Voice in 2009, the nonprofit site’s mission is “to provide high quality local news and information in neighborhoods where no one else does. We engage, inform and empower residents so they can hold decision makers accountable and build strong communities.” |
| Brooklyn Daily Eagle | Brooklyn news. | Bearing name of borough’s long-gone eminent daily, the Daily Eagle serves up a daily meat-and-potatoes plate of breaking news. There’s little interactivity and no social networking tools. Features ARALifestyle.com scam ads on homepage. |
| Brooklyn Heights Blog | Neighborhood. | Breaking news, heavy on handouts. Little interactivity and poorly promoted social networking tools. |
| The Brooklyn Paper | Neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, North Brooklyn and Park Slope. | A little-known duchy of the Murdoch empire, it covers basic breaking news, with emphasis on fluff (“Champagne Diet: New Book Says You Can Drink Bubbly and Get Fit”). |
| The Brooklyn Politics | Specialty site. | Founder and local blogger Colin Campbell told Politico, which ranked him among “top 50 politicos to watch”: “My philosophy tends to be nonpartisan reporting and news aggregation with commentary kept a little restrictive except when I start to ramble and do electoral analysis.” Content emphasizes videos. |
| Brownstoner | Brooklyn – focus on real estate. | All about Brooklyn real estate and renovation, “and all the tangential topics that impact life inside and outside the home in Brooklyn. Its Marketplace claims “over 3,000 real estate listings and 250 local businesses.” Site, which has received tons of press nationally, draws over 200,000 unique visitors monthly. |
| City Limits | Specialty site covering civic issues. | Nonprofit civic-focused site features investigation journalism that aims to “make a difference in people’s lives by laying the groundwork for policy changes and inspiring other organizations to conduct research on the issues we cover.” Site recently launched Brooklyn Bureau to “amplify issue-focused journalism in New York City’s most populous borough.” |
| Curbed | Real estate news, with emphasis on taste making. | Says it “breathes life into real estate and neighborhood news with witty and insightful coverage of the country’s most vibrant urban centers. Our editors relentlessly report on sales and rental prices, new developments, neighborhood trends, and celebrity deals” – like this article. Curbed also covers the Hamptons, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and has a national site. |
| Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn | Specialty site. | Fights big development – like the nearly $5 billion Atlantic Yards mixed-use project – which it believes overwhelms or short-shrifts the community. |
| DNAinfo | Manhattan neighborhoods; adding other boroughs. | Site’s extensive staff of experienced journalists – including former longtime New York Post crime editor/reporter Murray Weiss – is seemingly on top of every misdeed, no matter how slight, like this second-story computer burglary suspect captured on video. DNAinfo’s detailed, eye-catching data visualizations track crime by borough. |
| Dumbo NYC | Neighborhood. | Coverage emphasizes continuing renewal and gentrification of this neighborhood in the shadows of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. |
| EV Grieve | East Village. | Fights to preserve character of historic neighborhood it sees threatened by trendy redevelopment. |
| F’ed in Park Slope | Neighborhood. | Self-description: “A blog about a pretty, gentrified, know-it-all neighborhood in Brooklyn.” |
| Gothamist | Specialty site. | Described by Forbes as a “sophisticated, deliciously urbane city blog.” Gothamist says it is “about New York City and everything that happens in it. That means news and events, restaurants and bars, happenings and goings-on” – like this story about Shaq O’Neal’s unhappy experience trying to enter a “Times Square tourist trap.” |
| Here’s Park Slope | Neighborhood. | Chronicles revitalization and gentrification of one of “Greatest Neighborhoods in America” (American Planning Association, 2007). Coverage also includes Park Slope’s highly rated publicly schools and multiple-starred restaurants and nightlife. |
| The Local/East Village | Neighborhood. | Collaboration between CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and the New York Times that grew out of the Times’ failed attempt to launch a network of Locals beginning in New Jersey. Content comes from CUNY journalism students and community contributors, with oversight provided by Times Associate Managing Editor Jim Schachter. |
| The Local/Fort Greene and Clinton Hill | Neighborhood. | Reporting of both sides of story shows baseline of professionalism by CUNY students, and value of oversight by experienced editor. See background above. |
| The Lo Down | Lower East Side south of Houston. | Founded in 2009 by 20-year broadcast news veteran Ed Litvak and his wife TV news producer and film maker Traven Rice, the site keeps close tabs on everything from the local community board to an appearance by Lady Gaga at the New Museum on the Bowery. |
| LostCity | Specialty site. | Self-description: “A running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers’ disregard for Gotham’s historical and cultural fabric.” |
| MadParkNews | Neighborhood. | Fluffy coverage includes local restaurants with “best grilled cheese sandwiches” and “Hanky Panky Sample Sale.” |
| NYCivic | Specialty site. | Founded by former New York City Parks Commissioner and Councilman-at-Large Henry J. Stern, nonprofit, nonpartisan site “aims to advance political reform in the city and state of New York through education, community outreach, social networking, and grassroots activism,” and to achieve legislative reform by avoiding political extremism. |
| New York Connection | Specialty site focused on civic issues. | “We’re a bunch of frustrated New Yorkers who believe that this city should be the model for progressive change,” says the site. ”We think that Mayor Bloomberg is a bad choice, that destroying neighborhoods for a new stadium is awful, and that the brain-dead political machine could use some shaking up.” |
| Noticing New York | Specialty site focusing on development and its politics. | Advocate of the late Jane Jacobs’ “new urbanism,” it opposes the scale of mega projects like the nearly $5 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and trains a suspicious eye on Mayor Bloomberg’s ambitious development strategy for the city. |
| Patch | Neighborhood news from Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene-Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn and Bayside and Long Beach in Queens. | The six sites in Brooklyn and Queens mirror Patches in other communities with a grab-bag of hard and soft news and handouts gathered by a staff editor with the help of freelancers. “Local Voices” are provided by community bloggers. The Long Beach Patch in Queens struck it rich news-wise last summer with close-to-the-ground, all-points-of-view coverage of the cancellation of a festival part of a 15-day surfing competition. One article drew more than a hundred comments. from supporters and opponents of the beach event. |
| Place Matters | Specialty site. | Site, co-sponsored by City Lore and Municipal Art Society of New York City, seeks to identify, promote and protect distinctive local environments, like the Bowery and W. 52nd Street, once center of jazz clubs. |
| Queens Crap | Specialty site. | Heavily aggregated content focusing on “over-development and ‘tweeding’ of Queens. |
| Queens7.com | Specialty site. | News serving the immigrant communities in Woodside, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst. |
| Roosevelt Islander | Neighborhood. | Covers the East River community that’s linked to Manhattan and Queens by the subway and also a tram that goes to E. 59th Street-Second Ave. in Midtown. |
| Schoolbook | K-12 schools. | Blog co-sponsored by the New York Times and WNYC that invites user to drill down to every school in the city for scores on performance (beyond test results) and student-parent-teacher satisfaction and for other metrics, including diversity and enrollment, and to compare one school to others. |
| SheepsheadBites | Neighborhood. | “Part community bulletin board, part newspaper, Sheepshead Bites brings you stories about breaking news, meeting coverage, events, businesses and history,” the site says about itself. “We report on your block and every block around you.” Its 28-year-old founder/editor/publisher, Ned Berke, is a lifelong resident of what he calls “the best’ neighborhood in Brooklyn.” |
| StreetsBlog | Specialty site for biking community. | “Weekly Carnage” feature tracks “death and destruction causes by automobiles”; it will be expanded to include metro area stats. Aggregates pertinent biking-related stores from other hyperlocals in region. |
| Subway Blogger | Specialty site. | Looks out for the New York City’s 5 million+ subway riders – except for students whose free and reduced fares are up for elimination in system budget cuts. Subway Blogger’s misanthropic advice to low-income parents: ‘”Keep your legs closed, get on the pill, put on a condom, and stop pumping out children. The fact that poor people have more than one kid is absolutely amazing to me.” |
| Sunnyside Post | Neighborhood. | Founded by Christian Murray, former Newsday political reporter, site keeps a close watch on real estate deals, especially ones affecting the Queens community’s many apartment dwellers. |
| Times Square | Neighborhood. | Not very lively site about one of the liveliest crossroads in the world. |
| Tribeca Tribune | Neighborhood. | Granular coverage of this former factory center between Greenwich Village and downtown that’s become increasingly residential keeps spotlight on residents’ complaints of shortage of schools, among other issues. |
| True Gotham | Specialty site covering real estate from the broker’s perspective. | Published by the Heddings Property Group – whose founder Doug Heddings was a participant on the panel “Real Estate: The Original Hyperlocal?” in Street Fight’s Summit 2011 – the site fights the image of real estate brokers as “used-car salesmen.” One topic on the site: “Dirty Real Estate Tricks.” |
| Uptown Collective | Neighborhood. | Mission: “To become ‘the’ definitive, transformative and community-based force impacting the arts, culture, business and New York City’s overall perception of Upper Manhattan.” Objective: “To reset and positively redefine upper Manhattan’s art, politic, culture and business scenes via the collective’s initiatives.” |
| Uptown Flavor | News of Harlem. | Deerives its name from a line in a Langston Hughes poem (“All those sweet colors Flavor Harlem of mine!”), is heavy on pro-forma event coverage. Conscientiously reports openings and closings of shops and other businesses. |
| Washington Square Park | Neighborhood. | Founder Cathryn Swan was inspired to create the site after visiting an exhibit about “new urbanism” advocate – and Greenwich Village resident – the late Jane Jacobs. Cathryn – she prefers going by her first name – provides comprehensive coverage of the ongoing redesign of the historic park at the foot of Fifth Avenue in the Village. |
| West Side Rag | Neighborhood. | Witty, offbeat and well illustrated features on life on the Upper West Side are this site’s hallmarks. |
| NOTE: This selective list of mostly news-focused hyperlocals covers four boroughs of New York City – we couldn’t find a site that covered Staten Island well and was current – and includes both neighborhood and specialty sites that focus on politics, schools, real estate and other subjects of high interest or take a unique look at the city and its neighborhoods. There are many other hyperlocal sites in NYC that are not included because too much of their news content was aggregated or not up to date, or they didn’t meet minimum standards of user engagement. New York Hyperlocal, Gotham Gazette and Globe of Blogs maintain their own lists of sites. | ||