UPDATE: What Happened To GowanusLounge.com?

Less than a year after the death of blogger Bob Guskind, someone has apparently acquired his acclaimed Gowanus Lounge website and changed its focus. Sources close to the deal told Gothamist that Guskind's wife was approached by a company interested in paying $7,500 to purchase the domain where the journalist once detailed Brooklyn development and neighborhood minutia. Since then, the site's original banner has been replaced with a photo of Mulberry Street in Manhattan, and Guskind's posts have been replaced with a video of Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, a piece about Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," and an artsy video (early Gowanus Lounge posts remain online on a Blogspot.com domain). The motto "Serving Brooklyn" no longer appears on the site. Now, according to the "About" page, "Gowanus Lounge is an informal review of News, Business, and Life in New York as well as in the US as a whole. Expect to find our rants about Real Estate, the economy, Religion, and even pictures of life throughout this great land. We’ll review hotels and restaurants that we want you to know about - basically everything is open and you’ll see this website take shape as time goes on!"

Update: Although the Gowanus Lounge URL has changed hands, all of Guskind's work from the site has been archived at BobGuskind.com. Miss Heather has more info about it here.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Ben Muessig in News on January 3, 2010 5:40 PM

Comments [rss]

kleinpeter

Yeah, that was a great site. Bob was a pretty cool guy, too. Such a sad loss.

spnder

Man, I miss that site...

Ed

I'm getting a bit nervous about blogs (I like this site btw). Pretty much the one cool thing about this decade, its pretty obvious to me that corporate/ government types are salivating to get them as under control as they have TV and newspapers.

Expect blogs to be "gentrified" in the next decade.

TeddyNYC

There's still Brownstoner.

amg2000

I gotta say I'm sad about this too. Sucks about all those posts and comments being gone now...there are many times since Bob passed away that I went back and looked at articles (and comments) on the site.

There is a site called The Internet Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org/) where you can type in a url and it gives you dates that the site was archived, click on the date and it gives you the site on that date (sort of). Its not the same as having Gowanus Lounge (the site design doesn't come through, and the comments aren't really there), but its better than nothing.

One funny thing I found on there:

The domain gowanuslounge.com was in use in 2003. It was used for the website of a place called (strangely enough!) Gowanus Lounge! Almost forgot about this place, it was on the corner of 5th and Union (where Brooklyn Industries is now).

Anyway, I guess his widow had the right to sell the domain, wish there were some way they could have kept the site around, but then that does cost money.

famdoc

His wife is entitled to sell the domain name...frankly, I'm surprised she got $7500. Probably just enough to pay the burial expenses.

Flatbush

Bob's content is archived at bobguskind.com.

DanielJ

This is NOT COOL. Bob put his heart and soul into that site and to see it hijacked by some rich idiot with no concept of the significance of the site that preceded it (or knowledge of its namesake neighborhood) hurts my soul.

These was a vast wealth of knowledge on that site, important to a whole hell of a lot of people.. I hope to God that it's not gone forever.

vaduzuvunt

This sucks. I use to write for Bob, and after his passing there was a lot of conversation about what should happen to the site... the final decision to leave it as he left it. Sure do wish we'da been able to keep it going with the contributors he had... sigh.

E.C. Stephens

This is incredibly sad for all his contributors and for his memory. Goodbye old friend and all our content and efforts.

BViB

I can't even be rational about the change-over, but it's a true loss and a shame that they former postings couldn't have remained as a resource and archive. It was almost a year of information and commentary between the blogspot and new site.