Starting tomorrow, July 1, the place we all call Baristaville gets bigger.
We will begin covering Maplewood, Millburn and South Orange with sites for each town as The New York Times today ends publication of The Local in New Jersey and directs its readers in those three towns to Baristanet.
We’ve served Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield — towns encompassing about 90,000 people — since 2004. Expanding to Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn will bring Baristanet’s coverage area to 150,000.
“Hyperlocal journalism is constantly evolving, and as The Times continues to investigate this arena, we’ll watch with great interest how our friends at Baristanet advance the cause in Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn,” said Jim Schachter, associate managing editor.
We’re thrilled that the Times has passed their hyperlocal baton to us and we will run with it. First and foremost, we are your local homegrown online community. And to that end, we are bringing these new towns into an expanded “Baristaville” by staying local. Journalist and Maplewood resident Jolie Solomon joins the Baristanet team along with community contributors from Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn.
What does this mean for you dear readers? More to love, we hope, and some new voices as we welcome these towns and new readers into the online community you helped create. Thanks for everything you do to make this site an online news and entertainment destination and a true community. And feel free to say hi and interact with your new neighbors in Baristaville.
That means these towns will now be able to read the intelligent commentary and musings of Herbeverschmel. The honor is all theirs.
This oughta be good. I lived in all 3at one time or another. They are much more alike, than different. Even though I live in Bloomfield on the G.R. boundry, I still go to the above 3 for many things, especially for food !
Great Eats.
I wish that you would start covering West Orange on a more formal basis. Does the Watercooler have territorial rights or something?
Great news. Congrats!!!
But does this mean they get theirs and we continue with ours? Or will I have endure reading about towns and issues I don’t really care about?
If so, is this a step closer to NJ.com?
I hope not, because while I enjoy my pals here, I have a hard time here enjoying the SOMM (South Orange, Millburn, Maplewood) version of the prof, Mr. Roo, cathar, ROC, herb, laser, Kay, et. al.
BOOOOO. Hiss. Let ’em get their own blogs!
Just kidding, of course–this makes perfect sense. Though I was just struck with the realization that despite spending 3/4 of my life in Essex County, and spending a decent chunk of my formative years in West Orange/South Orange, I don’t think I’ve ever set foot in Millburn. Maybe I’ll discover what I’ve been missing…
A hearty welcome to the new voices and congratulations to the Barista for what seems like a real coup. I truly hope it works out and that you continue to go from strength to strength.
It is not in the nature of the marsupial, however, to dwell too long on the upbeat. So I will point out that this is a bad idea. I see how the NYTimes may seem like too good an opportunity to pass up, but with such a wide geographic area to take in, I fear that postings here will become too diffuse–too full of someone else’s politics, restaurants, theater, local characters and so forth–and that you will lose your core audience. There comes a point at which local isn’t local anymore. I already am bored by, say, Bloomfield BOE hullaballoos, as I’m sure many Bloomfielders are bored by similar items about Montclair. Add in Millburn, South Orange and Maplewood and this will only increase.
So I greet this news with some sadness. It’s like hearing that your favorite falafel stand closed and reopened as just another overpriced restaurant with poor service.
I hope I’m wrong.
Prof – You can filter posts by individual town using the new navigation at the top.
A slow news day will still be, quite obviously, a slow news day with regard to coverage of any town. A fatuous, advertiser-adoring post will also still be equally apparent. And bad writing and lazy reporting will likely still hold sway.
Prof, perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the doughty lasered one has been long gone from these precincts. Based on his peculiar approach to written English, too, I don’t even think he’s posting under other name. (Instead, we have several new bozos.)
It would also have been interesting for the Baristas and their crack editorial staff to have done some actual inquiring as to WHY the Times is apparently pulling out of this “hyper-local” form of coverage and then directing its readers to Baristanet. Certainly it’d have been more helpful than the bland comment above from Schachter, which addresses nothing of substance about this seeming defeat for the Times.
“Baristanet Carries Forward New York Times “Local” in New Jersey”
Clearer headlines write baristanet should.
You should make it a different site along the same formula. But not fold it into this site. There is only so much page space and you’ll become “general”
Covering all those locales will not longer be “hyperlocal”
We don’t care about local issues in Maplewood and they won’t care about local issues in Montclair. So you’ll dilute the interest. And, frankly, you have a hard covering current “bartisaville”.
Okay, I just read the Times’ announcement of the “switch.” And, curiously, it answers no questions one might have. Why the handoff to Baristanet? Was it some kind of business deal? What kind of financial bath might the Times have taken on this one? Et cetera, et cetera.
Inquiring, suspicious minds really might want to know more. And if all that really results will be an opportunity for, say, citizens of Millburn to grouse about Mayor Tom McDermott as Montclair folks do now about Fried (even as the Baristas themselves seem averse to ever actually asking him for comment about anything), well, that’s a hollow sort of “victory” at best.
So surely there’s much, much more to this story than we’re currently being given.
If the past in any indication, I’m sure some of the baristas are emailing back and forth bad things about those of us asking questions….
Not that I ever was accidentally cc’d on one of them…..
…do tell…
I’m with Mr. Roo on this one and I don’t even have a pouch. I think the essential nature of Baristanet is going to be lost in the mix. I see that you will have links to posts from individual towns but that will not “scratch my itch”. I want info from Glen Ridge, Montclair and Bloomfield. I am not going to check 3 different “sections”.
I think it’s quite ironic that the hyper-local blog that was going to be the undoing of local print media has now become the new “Star Ledger”.
Many Many Congratulations!!!!!! I am so happy to hear this good news! You Baristas are so hard working! oxo
1) Liz and Debbie and staff: this is PROOF you are great! Throwing $money at a site didn’t help the NY Times succeed.
2) Can you keep the Montclair, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge in a SEPARATE SITE from Maplewood, Millburn etc.??
Nancy M
I’ve often asked myself why, in the past, have the bordering towns, such as Verona and West Orange, been excluded from this post? Now I can only say that the chances are even far more remote.
Far be it for me to spoil this happy day with tales of bumbling fingers, send buttons, foul language, embarrassing behavior and an apology worthy of a child… Though most kids would at least not try to justify their bad acts…
Not for today.
Today is a day for us to bask in the ever-expanding land of Baristaville. I just hope Montclair (and GR/Bloomfield) remains the Constantinople of this empire.
Congratulations and thank you Baristas!!! You work so hard!!!oxo
This is really good news — we couldn’t be in better hands than Jolie Solomon’s. Plus, I’ve been jealous of my Montclair buddies for a long time for having Baristanet!
I’m disappointed. I don’t equate Maplewood-S.O. as within the bounds of Baristaville at all. Sure, they may be (?) “similar” demographically, economically, culturally, but they are not local–and certainly not HYPERlocal. For instance, I’d choose to go into NYC for a restaurant over one recommended in Maplewood. I can see, for instance, W.O., Nutley, even Clifton, though I recognize these are perhaps very different places than Montclair.
I think this site will become something else entirely, which is too bad. Then again, no doubt, someone else will start another blog which will retain that “town” feel.
Prof, good prof, just try to remember, what was once Constantinople is now Istanbul. (And recall too that so much of what made Constantinople Christendom’s leading city in the East has been demolished, profaned or plowed under.) You do leave tantalizing hints, however, of a verrrrrrry interesting tale…..
Some of the “loyalists” from whom I automatically expect this sort of seemingly canned response are of course posting above to the effect that the handoff, or whatever it is, constitutes “great news.”
But the truth is that no one knows yet.
Congrats on the big gig! Sad to say though that I agree with walleroo/monty. I hope the site keeps the hyperlocal character, but the very nature of the change makes that sort of impossible.
I would prefer the current site remain as it is and the new territory be a separate set up unto itself. Now the original Baristaville towns will be separated into individual sites, and that is not an insignificant change. The result may be great, or not, but the character of the website will certainly feel different that what it is now.
Comments within a story will now be more likely to come from people within that town, with less commentary from the surrounding communities and more from the new towns added. Nothing against the new folks, but that’s not the stuff I come here for. Alas. I hope it works.
While we’re on the subject of local changes, where is the promised Part 3 of Mayor Fried’s apologia for higher taxes and what-have-you? Shouldn’t that have appeared by now?
Wait. I clicked on Maplewood to see what was up and this was here…
Isn’t anything regarding Bike Boy on the Montclair section of my local, homegrown online community since 2004?
I’m confused…
Or cathar, did you fail to post in the appropriate place?
Who’s gonna be in charge of that?
Hmmmm…. Like I had mentioned, I lived in Maplewood, South Orange & Millburn at some point in time. All 3 are absolutly wonderful towns, especially S.O. with its fabulous Performing Arts Center & 5 movies, hoards of parking and the most beautiful park in the area, with swans & duck park with rolling hills. Maplewood’s quaint “village” designed after the villages in Old England. Millburn has many stores with 5th avenue branches. Great shows, too!
Art, Sculpture, jewerly, classic cars, and lots of tennis courts. A beautiful town that many here are missing.
That said…..
After reading the comments, herein, perhaps it is a poor idea. The readrship, herein has expressed no interest, and I, for one, can see their point. It does made sence. I would think that the powers that be, herein, might reconsider that idea.
To the rest of you, Maplewood center has in excess of 22 restaurants of every culture you can imagine. 95% are 5 Star !!
SOPAC – go see a show there. You will swear that you are on Broadway, and the place is drop dead beautiful!
SOPAC has an orch. pit, 5 movies, a stage, food, parking and more. The NYC train stops AT or is it IN SOPAC (South Orange Performing Arts Center.
Perhaps info thereof does not belong in here, but people, if you have not been over to those 3 towns, you are really missing a heck of alot.
It’s 6 miles to S.O. – 7 to Mplwd. and 8 to Millburn.
Therefore, Hereafter, Therein, Thereof, Herein….
Dems be words too big for we’s Montclarions.
Many Montclairians hate Millburn, great but non diverse schools, too White, too rich, and not enough Communist spies.
Baristas…take a note from Starbucks. They open new stores to serve different communities … (actually to serve every 500 square feet.)
This is like opening one Starbucks and continuously enlarging it.
New Baristanet = New Coke
mazel tov!
One thing, however does confuse me. While there is very little ever mentioned here pertaining to South Orange, or Maplewood, or Millburn (all in Essex County, BTW, I also note alot of references made and often, to Little Falls. Not even in this county. I always wondered about that.
Ditto on Verona/West Orange. I grew up in Montclair, which is why I love to read Baristanet. I live in W.O on the Verona line, right near Verona Park and don’t understand why you ignore us, when Verona’s and West Orange’s borders touch Montclair, just as Glen Ridge’s does.
Are we not affluent enough for you to cover us?
Resentful Just West of Montclair — where, btw, I spend much of my time and paltry income.
Well… there goes the neighborhood. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but I tend to agree with other posters that while our new annexees are economically similar (read that as equally outrageous taxes) to Baristaville, the new, expanded Baristanet will now have to deal with the dilution that reporting similar stories for noncontiguous localities may bring. If this is step one toward the blending all of these independent townships into one, uber-rich (cultural) entity with shared services and mandatory jail sentences for politicians caught lying, then I am all in favor. But the downside could be that this very eclectic forum for journalists and brick throwers may turn into the Penny Saver or the Shopping News. We shall see! Today, Maplewood: tomorrow, the Caldwells?
Good luck!
Sandy–I like Maplewood just fine, but I think the claim that 95% of the town’s restaurants are 5-star might take away from the credibility of your post just a tetch?
I’m optimistic about the change. Maybe it will bring in some badly needed new blood.
Congrats on the expansion. This is a feather in the cap of those who work so hard to maintain the site. I do fear, although there are links to the individual towns, that the comfortable bankering currently established among commenters will be lost with too much material to absorb. I guess time will tell…
Can you create a separate RSS feed for montclair/gr/bloomfield … or even separate ones for each section? That was my preferred way to read Baristanet, but I just had to unsubscribe as I’m not interested in the other news.
The sad thing about some of your comments is plenty of people from Millburn, Maplewood and South Orange already read and even post here.
I am really wishing you covered Cedar Grove! We have compelling people and stories! Cover us! Please!