New year, new Brooklyn — and a new Brooklyn Paper.
At the end of last year, we rounded up our top stories of 2022 — and 23 of the biggest stories coming in Brooklyn in 2023. To kick off the new year, we chatted with some roving Brooklynites about their New Year’s Resolutions — and about what they want to see from their community paper. Each week, our reporters head out to cover political press conferences, grand openings (and somber closings), crime, traffic incidents, and more — but even we miss the important stuff sometimes.
In 2023, we’re going to work to connect with our readers to hear about what they think is important — or fun, or confusing, or in need of change — so we can better cover the communities you care about. We’ll be posting on social media and maybe popping up around the neighborhood in the next few months, but we’re starting here, with a round-up of our resolutions and some goals set by your neighbors — plus, information on how to contact us.
Andrea Herrada and Houston Parke
This year, Herrada is focused on happiness — she hopes to find work that will make her feel fulfilled creatively — and to keep company that makes her happy. She and Parke would like local papers to cover the arts more extensively, and make their physical product easier to find. Parke pictures more printed bulletins, and copies readily available in local coffee and bagel shops so Brooklynites can grab them along with their morning caffeine.
Nadia Ibrahim (with Leo and Daisy)
“To find companionship with someone would be wonderful,” in 2023, Ibrahim said. Maybe someone who will love Leo and Daisy as much as she does, since another of her resolutions is to keep spending plenty of time outdoors with her beloved pups. In 2023, she’d like to see more promotion of events for middle-aged folks and singles events for those 50+ in the pages of the paper. Brooklyn Paper runs calendar listings each week in the GO Brooklyn section, but the events we feature tend to skew younger — if you run or attend events for older adults, reach out and let us know so we can run them in print and online!
Quinn Bell
Quinn has a big goal for 2023 — to unpack the meaning of love. His vision for Brooklyn Paper is a little less lofty: more print papers available to grab in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Free copies of Brooklyn Paper are available out and about in bright blue boxes on some streets, and in some corner stores and coffee shops — depending on your location in the borough, BP might be available under a different flag. In northern Brooklyn, keep an eye out for the bright blue “Brooklyn Paper” header. In Central Brooklyn, you’ll want to look out for the Park Slope Courier or Brooklyn Graphic and in southern Brooklyn, there’s the Bay Ridge Courier, Bay News, and the Mill-Marine Courier.
All that said, we know we can make physical copies more widely available! If you can’t find copies of Brooklyn Paper when you want them, give us a shout, and we’ll see what we can do.
Alexa Vanhattum
Alexa has a brand-new apartment, and she wants to make an effort this year to host her friends there for events — dinner parties, movie nights, you name it. When she’s not hosting in her new pad, Alexa hopes to start exercising more consistently. As far as local news goes, she would like to see increased coverage of bicycling and parks infrastructure.
Jaelen Pinkey and Amani Morone
This year, track runner Jaelen wants to break his school’s record for the high jump in track and field. One of our younger readers, Jaelen wants Brooklyn Paper to keep up with the times with more video content and TikToks. Good news there — we are working to produce some more video content on our Instagram account, and you might see a reporter or two making a cameo there to explain their stories. We haven’t gotten to TikTok yet, but maybe later in 2023!
Amani, a fledgling vegan, wants to keep it up all year round and secure herself an internship in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.) She’d like to read more community life features and news about infrastructure — new buildings, roads, bridges, transit, and more.
Getting in touch with Brooklyn Paper
We’re grateful for all the suggestions to kick off the year, and we’re open to more. Keep an eye on our Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts, where we’ll be posting some polls and questionnaires about what stories you’d like to see in the coming weeks, and feel free to reach out to us anytime — you can contact a specific reporter by clicking their name on the website, then the email icon on their profile page. For general inquiries and tips, email digital editor Kirstyn Brendlen at kbrendlen@schnepsmedia.com with the subject line “2023 Tips.”
We’ll do our best to respond to everyone, but we’re a pretty small team, so we won’t be able to take on everyone’s suggestions! If we can’t write a story, sometimes we can provide some information separately.
