NYTimes.com launches a city blog
Cory Bergman June 18th, 2007
The Times has launched City Room, a local blog with “with in-depth reports from the five
boroughs.” What I find interesting is it has a blogroll with links to dozens of other local blogs. The blog has video, too. “City Room is the most audacious online venture the Metro desk has so far conceived and committed to,” said Joe Sexton, metropolitan editor. Release after the grab…
THE NEW YORK TIMES LAUNCHES ‘CITY ROOM,’ A NEW BLOG AND ONLINE COMMUNITY
DEDICATED TO ALL THINGS NEW YORK
NEW YORK, June 18, 2007 - The New York Times announced today the launch of
City Room (http://nytimes.com/cityroom), a new Metro news blog and online
community dedicated to responding quickly to important news and information
throughout New York City. Sewell Chan, Times Metro reporter, is the City
Room bureau chief and will leverage the unique talent and resources of The
Times’s one hundred-plus-person Metro staff.
City Room provides online readers with in-depth reports from the five
boroughs of the city, as well as occasional reports from the surrounding,
suburbs on topics such as government and politics; crime and public safety;
schools; transportation; housing and economy; and people and neighborhoods.
It will enhance and supplement Metro articles from The Times, offer
non-news features about the history and civic culture of the city, and
encourage reader comments and discussion.
“City Room is the most audacious online venture the Metro desk has so far
conceived and committed to,” said Joe Sexton, metropolitan editor, The
Times. “The name of the site is a nod to our past and the time-tested
methods of good reporting, which Sewell employs with such formidable skill
– asking tough questions, digging up documents, burning shoe leather. But
as City Room evolves, Sewell will constantly experiment with new ways to
engage readers, and we expect that it will become increasingly informative,
expansive and entertaining.”
“NYTimes.com is increasing its commitment to serving the online needs of
our New York metropolitan readers,” said Vivian Schiller, senior vice
president and general manager, NYTimes.com said. “Editorial offerings such
as City Room and UrbanEye will be the cornerstone of more robust offerings
to come.”
City Room features:
Expanded selection of The Times’s photography
Frequent Web videos with a fresh take on the news
News profiles on neighborhoods and social trends
Links to primary sources
Original documents and Web resources, including other blogs
Forums for reader comments and discussions on New York City issues
In the months ahead, City Room will also host Q. and A. sessions with
newsmakers and Times journalists, where readers will ask the questions, and
there will be continual experimentation with multimedia.
Mr. Chan joined The Times in 2004 and has covered transportation and City
Hall. He was previously a staff writer at The Washington Post, and has
also worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal. A
native of Manhattan, Mr. Chan graduated from New York City public schools
and from Hunter College High School, part of the City University of New
York. He is the son of Chinese immigrants who settled on the Lower East
Side in the 1970s, before moving to Brooklyn and then Queens. The first in
his family to complete college, he graduated from Harvard University and
received a master’s degree in politics from Oxford University, where he was
a Marshall scholar.
NYTimes.com is the most visited newspaper site in the U.S. with an audience
of 12.8 million unique users (May 2007 - Nielsen//NetRatings).
7 Comments Add your own
1. Geoffrey Kovall | June 22nd, 2007 at 5:46 am
This is for City Transportation Director, Janette Sadik-Khan. I am for Congestion pricing, and I live on within the “congestion area.” But I am not stupid, and the repercussions are complex and painfull. If you come up with a plan that does not consider the higher costs for residents it will destroy us to save us!
For example, by charging all commercial vehicles $21 to enter the zone, it means everyone who services me will pay more and the cost of living for me and everyone else who lives within the zone will rise. Every service and every vendor that serves me will be paying substantially more to make deliveries, and this means there will be a dramatic increase in the cost of living for all residents within the “congestion” zone. Every time I go out to buy a loaf of bread or have a delivery the cost to the delivery drives up the cost of living—perhaps significantly.
NYC must be very careful that dramatic increases in entry to the zone do not make us less competitive so that instead of stimulating business it stiffles business with higher costs of living and doing business.
Next, I work outside NYC, so while I am leaving the area for most of the day you are charging me $8.00 a day when I return home just before 6:00! You could easily say, “Well, leave before 6:00 AM and return back after 6:00 PM”. So to avoid the tax, I would have work a 14 hour day, every day. What needs to be done is a REVERSE TAX for residents within the area to encourage them to leave the area by car in the day time, and help defray the higher cost of living this tax imposes on every component of the service community.
Yes, A REVERSE TAX, or a TAX CREDIT is necessary for residents within the area!
Another approach is to give residents time to leave and get back in a span of say a 9 hour day. From 8:00 to 5:00, rather than 6:00 to 6:00.
While I am not in the theater business, or the convention business, both of these industries depend on out of area patrons. While I did not park a car the last time I went to the Javits Convention Center, I observed the lack of adequate parking for out of town guests results in a mind blowing $50.00/day parking fee for visiting a convention for 3 or 4 hours! With Congestion Pricing, it will be $58.00! Do you think this is good for business?
So it seems that Congestion Pricing dictates better mass transit within the zone. Where is the subway to the Javits Convention Center? Oh, did you not notice Gov. Spitzer wants to spend $4 billion EXPANDING the Javits Convention Center. An expansion without adequate delivery or parking space! An expansion that assumes the cost of going to and being at the Convention Center is open ended, with a cost per square foot of over $7,000 which is many times the nearest competitor in any rival city. Congesiton Pricing will add to the internal costs making participation at the Convention Center so high it will encourage conventions to move to other cities!
So, Ms. Sadik-Khan, the idea of Congestion Pricing is good, but the devil is in the details. The original designers of the Javit’s Convention Center won an award for not sweating the transportation details. Let’s hope you have some answers so you to not mushroom the costs for residents within the area.
Or, here is another idea. If you insist in sticking it to everyone who drives into the Congestion zone, why not go right ahead and do that, and simulaneously give residents within this area free Metro Cards to encourage them to use mass transit?
Sincerely,
Geoffrey Kovall
2. Theodore Kaufman | June 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 am
In reference to the traffic congestion bill, what consideration is made for people who live south of 86 street and garage their cars in their building?
3. Theodore Kaufman | June 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 am
In reference to the traffic congestion bill, what consideration is made for people who live south of 86 street and garage their cars in their building?
4. Esther S. Bushell | June 22nd, 2007 at 11:57 am
Janette,
47 years old? Where have the years gone?
XXOO, Esther
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