RIP Village Voice print edition, 1955-2017
August 24, 2017 10:31 AM Subscribe
The Village Voice, a storied progressive alt-weekly that has watchdogged New York's political and business classes for more than half a century, is ending its print edition. The announcement is a symbolic blow for alternative weeklies across the United States, which have endured successive cuts and closures in recent years as print advertising revenue has dried up. The Village Voice, founded in 1955, is regarded as one of the first alt-weeklies and counts among its alumni crusading journalists and literary authors such as Wayne Barrett and Norman Mailer. As also reported by the New York Times and
NPR.
Generations of Village Voice writers, including Robert Christgau, Robert Sietsema, and Michael Musto, reflect on the paper leaving the honor boxes
From the New Yorker in 2009: Louis Menand on how the Voice changed journalism.
Generations of Village Voice writers, including Robert Christgau, Robert Sietsema, and Michael Musto, reflect on the paper leaving the honor boxes
From the New Yorker in 2009: Louis Menand on how the Voice changed journalism.
This coincides perfectly with me buying Vanishing New York: How the Greatest City in the World Lost its Soul today.
posted by Liquidwolf at 10:55 AM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Liquidwolf at 10:55 AM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'm actually surprised that they still had a print edition.
posted by octothorpe at 11:01 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 11:01 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
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posted by doctor_negative at 11:03 AM on August 24, 2017
posted by doctor_negative at 11:03 AM on August 24, 2017
Oh Village Voice Print Edition, you shall be missed. Back when it was a hub for jobs, apartments and even musical connections, it was kind of amazing. So many capers, backed by paper. RIP!
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:08 AM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:08 AM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
Wow. The Voice was a constant companion in my NYC years. First neon, now this...
posted by Splunge at 11:17 AM on August 24, 2017
posted by Splunge at 11:17 AM on August 24, 2017
Young folk who came up with the Internet simply cannot understand what an amazing breath of fresh air alt-weeklies were in a time when your media choices were all quite bland (albeit usually quite well done) establishment mouthpieces.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:19 AM on August 24, 2017 [20 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 11:19 AM on August 24, 2017 [20 favorites]
On the west coast the occasional thumbing through VV gave me my earliest and very best, what, no really wtf no no no not possible, moments.
posted by sammyo at 11:29 AM on August 24, 2017
posted by sammyo at 11:29 AM on August 24, 2017
My local alt-weekly seems entirely supported by cannabis advertising. With legalization right around the corner there might be hope for them yet. Hopefully the Voice can stay relevant being all-digital. I love me paper but worry about its environmental footprint.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:38 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:38 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm actually really sad about this. The Voice was an indelible part of my young adulthood for many reasons -- Christgau, the classifieds, Hentoff (yeah, I know), Pazz and Jop, Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies, Lynda Barry. And hate reading Isadora Alman. I also dated a bunch of people from the personals back in the day, almost all of whom turned out to be unmitigated yet hilarious disasters. So, yeah, I'm feeling melancholy about this one.
posted by holborne at 11:47 AM on August 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by holborne at 11:47 AM on August 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
I wonder if they can sublet all of those street newspaper boxes. Maybe I'll just start using them for storage.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:54 AM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:54 AM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
I haven't read the Voice for many years, but it was a regular purchase for me back in the late eighties and early nineties even though I liked no where near New York. It keep me informed about the kinds of day to day arguments and celebrations of people that simply didn't have much of a, well, voice elsewhere.
It wasn't the only periodical I relied on, but it seemed the most vibrant and its specific niche as an alternative paper in NYC gave it more of a feeling of concrete specificity of place and time the national left leaning magazines didn't have. It felt alive and provided a connection to a way of living far different than the Midwest suburban life I grew up around.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:59 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
It wasn't the only periodical I relied on, but it seemed the most vibrant and its specific niche as an alternative paper in NYC gave it more of a feeling of concrete specificity of place and time the national left leaning magazines didn't have. It felt alive and provided a connection to a way of living far different than the Midwest suburban life I grew up around.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:59 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
This made me really nostalgic. I grew up an hour outside of NYC, but us broke kids couldn't get there as often as we'd have liked. Picking up an issue of the Voice, which cost $1 through most of the 80s, at my local corner smoke shop was a way to get access to what was going on in art, music, and politics, bringing the energy of downtown to the NJ suburbs. It was a lifeline and an introduction to a whole lot about the arts and adult life. I haven't really picked up an issue in years, but still:
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posted by Miko at 12:04 PM on August 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
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posted by Miko at 12:04 PM on August 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
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I had an internship in New York City in the summer of 1994 - it was my first time in the city. I caught the subway either at Astor Place or Union Square to get to work. (It depended on my mood.) I always took the subway from Astor Place on the day the Voice came out (was it Wednesday back then?) so I could make sure to pick up a copy. I usually got there shortly after the papers arrived, and there was always a crowd. This was when you still had to pay for it at the newsstand. It was one of those "only in New York" things I could do. I always brought home an issue on each subsequent trip. This is a sad day.
posted by SisterHavana at 12:07 PM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
I had an internship in New York City in the summer of 1994 - it was my first time in the city. I caught the subway either at Astor Place or Union Square to get to work. (It depended on my mood.) I always took the subway from Astor Place on the day the Voice came out (was it Wednesday back then?) so I could make sure to pick up a copy. I usually got there shortly after the papers arrived, and there was always a crowd. This was when you still had to pay for it at the newsstand. It was one of those "only in New York" things I could do. I always brought home an issue on each subsequent trip. This is a sad day.
posted by SisterHavana at 12:07 PM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Goddammit. Ellen Willis, Lester Bangs, Jules Feiffer, Stan Mack, Mark Alan Stamaty, Alexander Cockburn.... I was one of those who waited eagerly for each new edition and read it cover to cover (when I got a job in what was then still the Pan Am Building in 1981 I'd walk through Grand Central and buy a copy at a newsstand); I still vividly remember Bangs' death and Cockburn quitting the paper in a rage over Israel/Palestine/Lebanon, and so many other things (the older covers they show all ring a bell). What a huge part of my first decade in NYC! Rumors of its imminent demise were around even then, every time it was bought by yet another rich asshole, but somehow it survived. (I know, it's still going to exist as some sort of online thing. Not the same.)
I like Sasha Frere-Jones's reminiscence a lot, especially this bit:
I like Sasha Frere-Jones's reminiscence a lot, especially this bit:
When I was growing up, it was by far the coolest thing in the world. I was very lucky to be a kid in the '70s and '80s, and the music writing team at that point, it felt like we had the 1977 Yankees. Greg Tate, Jim Hoberman, then in the '80s Joan Morgan. The quality of writing was so much higher. You'd read a mainstream newspaper review and it would feel like a book report: Here's what happened. You wouldn't get to know if someone loved it or hated it. You'd read a Voice review and it would be a fireball, full of references to things I never read, which is how I found out about so much. Editors say now people won't get that reference … how the fuck are you supposed to find out about new things then? I only read Marx because someone wrote about it in a Gang of Four interview.posted by languagehat at 12:18 PM on August 24, 2017 [14 favorites]
1979. I'm 14, alone in my mom's pre-starbucks place making a simple cappuccino for a guy who works at the record store down the aisle of the mall and plays sax in the tunnel under it and he's pissed off about the Bad Brains leaving DC because he'd just get up on the stage with them and his saxophone and roll with it and they didn't mind.
He had a copy and I got a cup and we started reading Lester Bangs and 4 U.S. Marshall's come in from their oddly-placed office upstairs and want to know what's so funny and they agree that it is funny and then we start going through the classifieds and it's a riot.
.VV.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:56 PM on August 24, 2017 [10 favorites]
He had a copy and I got a cup and we started reading Lester Bangs and 4 U.S. Marshall's come in from their oddly-placed office upstairs and want to know what's so funny and they agree that it is funny and then we start going through the classifieds and it's a riot.
.VV.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:56 PM on August 24, 2017 [10 favorites]
On the west coast the occasional thumbing through VV gave me my earliest and very best, what, no really wtf no no no not possible, moments
Yeah, it's hard to overstate just how valuable the Voice was to people growing up in less metropolitan parts of the country. In my far-from-NY town, the Voice was available at the public library and, more irregularly, at the indie newsstand. If you had any artsy/cultural aspirations or interests at all, then every issue felt like a window on to a world that was so much bigger and more important. For years I kept nearly every one I could get my hands on and I think I had several boxes full when I finally threw them out.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:30 PM on August 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
Yeah, it's hard to overstate just how valuable the Voice was to people growing up in less metropolitan parts of the country. In my far-from-NY town, the Voice was available at the public library and, more irregularly, at the indie newsstand. If you had any artsy/cultural aspirations or interests at all, then every issue felt like a window on to a world that was so much bigger and more important. For years I kept nearly every one I could get my hands on and I think I had several boxes full when I finally threw them out.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:30 PM on August 24, 2017 [6 favorites]
I'll join the chorus of nostalgia: I transferred to NYU in the late 80s and when I arrived, the Voice was waiting for me. There was a "best of NYC" feature published that first week of school, and I devoured it completely, holding onto that paper well beyond the expiration date. If you didn't know anyone from New York and the internet wasn't a thing, how else were you supposed to know where the best slice of pizza was, or that the Staten Island ferry was free to ride, or where the best place was to see punk bands (and no it wasn't CBGBs)?
For the next 5 or 6 years I lived in NYC the Voice set the rhythm of each week. The writing was always uneven, and there was a definite sense even then that its "glory days" were over but I always made an effort to check out everything.
posted by jeremias at 1:34 PM on August 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
For the next 5 or 6 years I lived in NYC the Voice set the rhythm of each week. The writing was always uneven, and there was a definite sense even then that its "glory days" were over but I always made an effort to check out everything.
Young folk who came up with the Internet simply cannot understand what an amazing breath of fresh air alt-weeklies were in a time when your media choices were all quite bland (albeit usually quite well done) establishment mouthpieces.Aw man, totally this. When the Tompkins Square Riots happened it was a tiny blip in the mainstream media, but the Voice covered the story for many months afterwards and furthered my education and thinking around gentrification, police brutality and general social inequality in a way that I would have never had otherwise.
posted by jeremias at 1:34 PM on August 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
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posted by lalochezia at 1:34 PM on August 24, 2017
posted by lalochezia at 1:34 PM on August 24, 2017
Lovely eulogy by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds:
"The exhilaration of that work was matched only by how you felt when you’d hold The Voice in your hands and marvel at its sheer physicality. The weight. The thickness. The knowledge that this was a narrative adventure that required wading through. Then you’d ride the train and watch your fellow New Yorkers do the same thing, clinging to the paper as if it was a totem of Big Apple membership. You’d feel the thrill of seeing someone digest your work, surpassed only by the sight of your name on the cover."
posted by holborne at 2:22 PM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
"The exhilaration of that work was matched only by how you felt when you’d hold The Voice in your hands and marvel at its sheer physicality. The weight. The thickness. The knowledge that this was a narrative adventure that required wading through. Then you’d ride the train and watch your fellow New Yorkers do the same thing, clinging to the paper as if it was a totem of Big Apple membership. You’d feel the thrill of seeing someone digest your work, surpassed only by the sight of your name on the cover."
posted by holborne at 2:22 PM on August 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
so the VV was having trouble with it's new boss attempting to break the small but historically significant VV Union (First union in the city to expressly extend benefits to same sex partners). I designed the VV Union twitter avi and the poster for their Pajama Party screening/fundraiser. I did some illustrations for them straight out of college. I regularly drink in the bar the VV was founded in. This is absolutely tragic and clearly part of the process to break up the union.
posted by The Whelk at 2:26 PM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 2:26 PM on August 24, 2017 [8 favorites]
Even though I haven't had much use for the Veev for a while, and occasionally ground my teeth at some of the stuff published under its masthead, I still have to give it credit not only for being very useful during my short stay in NYC but for getting me excited about going to the city in the first place.
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posted by Halloween Jack at 2:33 PM on August 24, 2017
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posted by Halloween Jack at 2:33 PM on August 24, 2017
The Voice explained to us NYers who exactly our current POTUS was, long before "reality TV" was a thing. (RIP Wayne Barrett)
posted by Stu-Pendous at 6:45 PM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Stu-Pendous at 6:45 PM on August 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Well shoot. Where are intellectuals going to go now to meet with other intellectuals to speak another language?
posted by themanwho at 7:36 PM on August 24, 2017
posted by themanwho at 7:36 PM on August 24, 2017
Two of my friends met through the personals ads in The Voice back in the early 2000's. They have been married for over 10 years and been together for 15 simply because of the tag line "Emotional baggage limited to one carry on."
posted by KingEdRa at 9:16 PM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by KingEdRa at 9:16 PM on August 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
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posted by mikelieman at 11:26 PM on August 24, 2017
posted by mikelieman at 11:26 PM on August 24, 2017
Where are intellectuals going to go now to meet with other intellectuals to speak another language?
The London Review Of Books?
The London Review Of Books?
My last seven adverts in this column were influenced by the early catalogue of the Krautrock band, Paternoster. This one, however, is based entirely around the work of Gil Scott-Heron. Man, 32. Possibly the last person you want to be stood next to at a house-party you've been dragged along to by a friend who wants to get off with the flatmate of the guy whose birthday it is. Hey! Have you ever heard Boards of Canada? They're amazing; I'll burn you a CD. Box no. 3178.posted by octobersurprise at 6:09 AM on August 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
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Even after I left The City, I'd still try to find copies, always picking up the Pazz and Jop issue. Very sad to hear this news.
aav.
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posted by the sobsister at 10:41 AM on August 24, 2017 [5 favorites]