A Requiem for Gothamist

As you may have heard, both Gothamist and DNAinfo were shuttered this past Thursday. Billionaire owner Joe Ricketts scrapped the sites and purged their archives shortly after workers pushed for unionization. In the span of a second, many worthy writers, editors, and staffers lost their jobs. Years of important reporting was needlessly scrubbed from the internet. And, selfishly, I couldn’t help but feel a part of myself disintegrate.

I was 19 years old when I moved to New York City. Like so many others, I had visions of who I wanted to be, but few actionable goals or resources. It is one thing, I learned, to live in New York City — it is another thing entirely to function within it. Still, I worked hard to maintain the veneer that I was in control. And, perhaps faking it is half of the battle. The other half, of course, is the Internet.

During one of my many feverish searches for “where to take vegan Tinder date” or “how to interact with a slum lord,” I discovered Gothamist. I was instantly hooked on the site’s utter lack of pretense and friendly-yet-wry tone. It was the one place that seemed to quietly understand that everyone here is peeling back New York City, layer by layer, every day.

It was a site unafraid to be critical of NYC and its denizens, but somehow the reporting was always infused with the deepest love for this strange, fucked up city…