DailyHeights

Check it out! Medusa recently waxed nostaglic about the closing of the YWCA gym and pool in the Daily Heights message boards… and now her quote has been picked up by the Daily News: “It makes me a little sad as I learned how to swim in that pool and took gymnastics for many years in the gym … But the plan looks good, honorable and in keeping with their mission.”

Also, thanks to Daily News reporter ELIZABETH HAYS for properly attributing the quote to Dailyheights.com. We are glad that we can serve as a resource for local media–particularly for the Daily News, which consistently has outstanding coverage of issues that affect Prospect Heights.

And yes, by complete coincidence (pinky swear), we happened to reference Elizabeth’s “Yummy Outdoor Getaways” article today (see post below about JRG Fashion Cafe).

LINKS:
YWCA Closes its Gym & Pool [mr underhill in Daily Heights Forums]
Budget Homes at the Y [New York Daily News]

Woo woo, you guys are making history! Congratulations, “citizen journalists.” Last night, DH contributor Miranda G. alerted me to the article in PoynterOnline, and sure enough, Daily Heights just showed up in my Google News Alerts…

The Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, future journalists, and teachers of journalists, has an article up called “The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism” [Steve Outing in PoynterOnline].

Daily Heights is situated at Layer 7 in Murrow’s Inferno (“7. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Unedited version”).

While we can’t promise you fame or riches, we can promise you this: what you write for Daily Heights will get read, partly because Google likes us and partly because we have an actual and substantial audience of local people that checks back regularly. Last Wednesday, for the first time, we had more than 1,000 unique visitors in a single day.

What do you want to write about?

Luz Redfrofu writes: “I’ve picked up this little gig with Glamour magazine where I help them dig up people to interview for various stories. Today their editors are looking for funny, quick-witted men in their 20s or 30s who are somewhat insecure about their body and are willing to discuss it. Only caveat: they can’t be writers, lawyers or actors.”

“Can you help? Are you willing to wax witty about your gut or hairy back? Or do you know someone who is? And haste would be most appreciated; they want me to round up four good guys by Monday.”

Send your leads to [email protected].

IMAGE: Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy [StrangeCosmos.com]

Go pick up issue #24 of Stay Free!, the published-locally, thinking-globally magazine on “politics and perversions” of mass media and American culture. This is the first issue since the one with the “American Gentrifier” fake cover that got on the radar of virtually everyone in the Greater Prospect Heights Area (just ask around at the next “baby’s first birthday party”). It will be hard to top the “Local Bodegas Now Stocking Brie” issue, but publisher Carrie McLaren and crew (including Charles Star) did put together a brilliant send-up of “Ask your doctor about…” drug ads. Somehow Stay Free always manages to tread the line between stories of national interest and Brooklyn interest. How do they do it?

Issue #24 includes:

* Bill, the founder of flash mobs, looks back on his legacy
* How stadiums turn public money into corporate profit (interviews
with Andrew Zimbalist and Neil deMause)
* A brief history of McDonald’s commercials
* Restaurant reviews by Eugene Mirman
* The Federation of Black Cowboys
* Negativland’s Mark Hosler interviews a man who makes robots for
Christian theme parks
* Interview with Jeffrey Meikle, on the cultural history of plastic
* Carrie McLaren on the advertising and the idiot consumer (historically)
* Interview with Mark Peters, candidate for Brooklyn DA
* More

Pick up Stay Free! on Vanderbilt Ave. (Amorina, Half Wine Bar, Hibiscus, Housebroken, Le Gamin, Soda), Underhill Ave. (Bar Sepia), Washington Ave. (Cafe Shane, Ripple), Flatbush (Biscuit, Prospect Perk, Sugarcane) and Dean St. (Freddy’s).