One of the most ubiquitous examples of street furniture in New York is the red Village Voice newspaper boxes. I drew this a few weeks ago as part of my "Before It's Gone" series, when I heard that the Village Voice would cease publishing print editions. Today, I heard that this week's paper is the final edition, so it seems a propos to post it today. I imagine these boxes, now on street corners across the city, will be gone soon.
I spent a year in Boston before moving to New York, and I would buy the Voice each week (you had to pay for it outside of NYC) and peruse all the listings and blurbs of all the cool stuff going on, and dream about living here. When I arrived a year later, the Voice played a pretty big role in my life. Now I could actually go to some of those things. Or, even if I didn't or couldn't afford to, at least I was in the same city! There was some great news reporting and columnists. And the classified section was huge. I actually got a job or two from them. People would line up at the Astor Square newsstand on Tuesday evening, where the new paper would arrive early. Everyone wanted to get first crack at the apartment listings. And there were tons of kooky, kinky sex ads, of every stripe, hinting at a huge illicit under-economy.
These days, it seems like every week, some iconic signature of New York City disappears: a restaurant, a bar, a store, a business. And everyone says, "I can't imagine New York without ________" But the truth is, a lot of times no one's gone to that place in years. I can't remember the last time I picked up a copy of the Village Voice. They laid off most of their main reporters and columnists and drastically cut the page count several years ago, and the functions of the classifieds have long been supplanted by the internet. The publisher says they will transition to being an online paper, but I haven't looked at their website in ages, either.
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