The "Never Enough Food Halls" Edition
The Briefly is on the road this week, a rant about local journalism, a farewell to Stomp, robot fried chicken, NYC is a shitty place to find a job, and more!
I’m in rainy Los Angeles for work this week, so I’m away from all my code and scripts that I use to help construct the newsletter, so it’ll be a little different this week. (note: It’s just a few things that grab my bookmarks and do all my formatting that cuts a few hours of work out of the process. The newsletter isn’t written by an AI. How could an AI have accidentally used the phrase “Pubic Library” instead of “Public Library” so many times?)
If I’ve complained in the newsletter about the volume of food halls in NYC, Los Angeles has shown me that I know nothing about how many food halls can exist. My first meal out here was a New York-style pizza joint, so maybe I’m not the audience these food halls are aimed at.
• Schneps Media bought Queens Post, adding to their already massive local news umbrella. As far as I’ve understood, this will mean gutting whatever staff the Queens Post websites have and replacing their website and republishing the same articles across every site and pumping them full of affiliate advertising for gambling sites. The Schneps Media empire has a truly enormous breadth of local-ish sites, which through their acquisitions over the years has done tremendous work to silence true hyperlocal journalism and remove multiple independent voices.
If you’re someone who represents Schneps Media and would like to have an honest conversation about your acquisitions, I’m happy to do so privately, recorded for podcast, or on a stage in front of an audience. I promise you an open forum and an opportunity to speak fairly. Email me at thebriefly@gmail.com and let’s set something up. If you’ve worked at a publication that was purchased by Schneps Media and want to let me know what the experience was like, I’ll absolutely allow you to remain anonymous.
• It was pointed out to me that Mayor Adams comparing himself to Aaron Judge was very appropriate:
The mayor claims that 2023 will be his "Aaron Judge year." The Yankees, for reference, were swept by the Astros and didn't make it to the World Series.
It’s true, the mayor wants to have the most successful year of his career to date and when he used the Aaron Judge comparison, and in making this comparison after the season is over, he absolutely knows that the team did not succeed despite Judge’s success. A perfect comparison.
• Farewell to Stomp, which is one of those city staples that we all truly believed that we could see “at some point,” because it has been and always would be there. To quote EV Grieve, “there weren't any "why didn't I see this 26-27-28-29 years ago!" pangs of regret.” (EV Grieve)
• How to join a Community Board. It’s time for you to join your Community Board. The City has the best writeup of what you need to know. (Rachel Holliday Smith for The City)
• New York City ranked 147th out of 182 of the best cities to find a job. (Matt Troutman for Patch)
• Korean fried chicken made by robots, here comes Robert Fried Chicken on Fifth Ave near W 31st. (Jin-won Kim for Korean Economic Daily via roundup on Eater)
• Apartment Porn: A $1.9 Chelsea pre-war co-op with two beds, a wood-burning fireplace, 12-foot ceilings, in-unit washer/dryer, and more. (Michelle Cohen for 6sqft)
• 17 “sizzling” Korean BBQ restaurants. (Caroline Shin for Eater)