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Park Slope Reporter Starts Times Blog in Fort Greene
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 3, 2009
Modified Mar 3, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 3, 2009
Modified Mar 3, 2009
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The Times has begun experimenting with a niche neighborhood blog platform, starting with a website about Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. If it works, perhaps Brownsville is next? Edited by Andy Newman, a Times reporter who resides in Park Slope (but just eight blocks from Fort Greene!), the blog has burst out of the gate with posts about sledding, kids who couldn't get into a movie, and the ongoing struggle to save Broken Angel. Newman introduced the site, called The Local, with a reminder to readers that "is an infant, unformed. With your care and feeding it can grow into a self-sustaining adult." So surely commenters welcomed this fragile newcomer with the tenderness it deserves? Ah, welcome to our world, Newman: "Oh, thank you so much for helping to continue the gentrification of my neighborhood by promoting it as the new cool local place for (white) people who read the NYT to be! Make sure to post lots of pictures of people eating in cafes and drinking coffee and riding their bikes to and from the farmer's market! I can’t wait to read what the hipsters love and hate about this neighborhood!" One day old and The Local already has their own "Ides of March." (See also: Jersey.)
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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