Results tagged “brownstoner”

This weekend a Times reporter gets his hands dirty (but keeps his fingers unsmudged) while diving into the cutthroat world of commenting on New York neighborhood blogs. They discover that the city's "fabled brashness" often leads to "raucous New York-style debate." The writer then falls prey to something that a lot of us have been guilty of on more than one occasion—following insane comment threads. After introducing us to a Brownstoner post where commenters had a familiar battle over parents in Park Slope, the story ends with (Spoiler Alert) a get-together of Brownstoner regulars that was "bearing a notable absence of ill will" where "virtual friends didn’t look like what they had expected." The whole thing leaves you with so much of a virtually warm feeling that you almost begin to imagine a world where a couple who met as fellow Gawker commenters could end up betrothed—oh wait.

This week’s New York Magazine cover story drops over 5,500 words on the “slightly illicit-sounding” Brownstoner, a blog that for several years has chronicled the steamy vicissitudes of gentrifying Brooklyn. Or rather, the article looks at Brooklyn’s turbulence through the prism of the blog’s commenters – specifically a derisive doomsday prophet who calls himself The What. 5,500 words, one commenter. Up next, a sprawling New Yorker profile on Alex Balk’s Tumblr imitator.

Jonathan Butler has been talking real estate and renovation over at his blog, Brownstoner, since 2005. This year he brings his know-how offline with the most massive flea market Brooklyn has seen, aptly called Brooklyn Flea. While honing our haggling skills, we asked him a few questions about what to expect when it opens this weekend.