The Grumbler

Thanks to Roy Edroso at the Village Voice who included my blog in the story "I Blog New York: Your Guide to Gotham's Best." And thanks to my "sturdy, like-minded readership"--you know who are.

Be sure to read the whole story for 17 more "obsessive, cantankerous, and unstoppable Gotham blogs worth going ape over." Which New York blogs would've made your list?



Here's what Roy had to say about "The Grumbler" at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York:

Anyone who's lived in New York for more than a few months will start grumbling that things have changed and the good places are going away. "Jeremiah Moss," as he calls himself, is a longtime East Villager and marketing writer who, as he says, "wasn't content to grumble, in that all my grumbling was making me miserable. And the people around me were sick of hearing it." So, starting in 2007, he started blogging. The result is Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, which notes the passing of just about everything, in the EV and surrounding locales, that fades away—an old sign, a great bar, a good friend.

"Times Square just about kills me," Moss says, as he ticks off the most hurtful departures. "Most recently, Skyline Books . . . the Amato Opera House on Bowery . . ." Among the people he misses is Eddie Boros, the East Village eccentric who built the once-famous Tower of Toys at the 6th Street and Avenue B Community Garden, "which the city destroyed after his death—the typical 'New York character' is an endangered species today."

JVNY's valedictory tone, a continuing homage to things that pass, has attracted a sturdy, like-minded readership and got the Daily News to publish a Moss op-ed in which he suggested that "many of us welcome" the recession because it might break open the "gated community" that Manhattan has become and bring back a city where "rents are reasonable, small businesses can thrive, artists can flourish..."

But he doesn't really expect to halt progress with his blog. "It has no impact on the Bloomberg administration," he says, "on the decisions made by real estate developers, or the people who drunkenly flood the streets of the East Village to scream and yell and watch football games in sports bars. It doesn't stop Sex and the City tourists from coming, and it can't bring Howard Johnson's back to Times Square."

Then why bother? "I don't want to downplay the importance of making people feel less alone in their emotions," he says. "The feelings of sadness and powerlessness that hyper-gentrification evokes can be overwhelming. And knowing that there are others out there, that you're not the crazy person ranting on the street corner alone, is significant." —EDROSO