Adventures of Urban Life

Katherine Pimentel
Activity 9 : Why blog if no one reads it
I was having a hard time finding blogs that related to urban life in general so I searched for those relating to life in New York City. Our blog discusses things that take place in NYC and that is our focus, therefore I found it appropriate. The first blog that I found was Curbed NY (http://ny.curbed.com/). The main focus of this blog seemed to be housing and development. Many of the post dealt with new construction projects going on all around the city, rentals and costs of apartments as well as issues like gentrification. Some of the topics that were brought up in class such as the Atlantic yards issue and the changes that Brooklyn has been experiencing over the past years has been addressed. My groups blog did not focus much on property that is in NYC therefore I can not say there was much of a similarity, but the topics were certainly familiar.
NewYorkology is another blog spot that I found (http://www.newyorkology.com/index.php). This one is unique in that it finds events in the city such as plays and art galleries and it reviews them or recommends them. They call themselves “a New York travel guide”. This blog is an excellent source for New Yorkers to learn about what their city has to offer and take advantage of all that there is to see. When our groups had to find a place for our field trips it was very difficult because no one really had any ideas and money was an issue for those who did not work, if we had gone to a blog like this we could have found many affordable things to do that we would have probably never thought of on our own. The only similarities that I found with NewYorkology and my group’s blog was that we visited places that others have recommended although ours did not relate to the arts.
Gowanus Lounge (gowanuslounge.com) looks into current events that relate to the city and centers their posts on that. They read the major newspapers and discuss what is going on, even if it s just to comment on the weather. From my blog I know how much the weather can impact city life and the amount of activity that goes on, especially when I observed parks and plazas. There was even a post on the public library in Brooklyn which one of my group members wrote about, and they were basically trying to let everyone know that it is a great library and they should step in sometime. Much like our blog it is mainly informative.
Streetsblog (Streetsblog.org) is literally what the name is, a blog about the New York City Streets. They discuss streets that need to be paved or those that are dangerous and many accidents occur on them. It helps New Yorkers know where their tax money is going and how it should be spent. One of the articles that caught my eye was the one about the city trying to remove street art vendors from open spaces like parks and they included a quote on William Whyte, "What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people." This reminded me of the plaza activity and how the city focuses on the most ridiculous things sometimes.
City Room(http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/) offers a more political approach to it’s blog. It looks into new legislation and city officials that are making headlines and discusses why it is important to us. They range from what mayor Bloomberg is up to, to the recent doorman strike. My group’s blog did not have much of a political stance except for the community board meeting which included politicians and more legal issues. This blog is from the New York Times so it makes sense that they are so politically oriented.
I have commented on an article in each of these blogs and left a link to my groups blog telling them to check it out as a way of getting our blog out there. All of the blogs that I visited were large and have a large number of followers , the followers may see my comments and click on the link if they are curious about my experience in the city. Our blog is also published in Google reader which should make it more accessible to the public searching through blogs. ( I was unable to post the direct links of the comments because they would show up as errors when i tried to publish the post).