Paper Ends a City Feature, Stirs Discontent

In a move that some readers and former contributors say demonstrates a decreasing devotion to local coverage, the New York Times has halted production on the editorial and op-ed pages of its Sunday city section, ending a three-and-a-half-year experiment.“It had promise,” a former parks commissioner who is the director of New York Civic, Henry Stern, said. “I’m sorry the page is gone.” The newspaper’s city section was created in 2004 to allow more space for local issues as the main editorial page increasingly marketed itself to a national audience. The section’s editorial and op-ed page focused on city policy, offering opinion on local issues ranging from electronics recycling to subway management to homelessness.The December 30 Times included a short announcement that the editorial page would be removed, and stated that “while the section is changing, the editorial department’s commitment to presenting issues and opinions of importance to New York City remains as strong as ever.” A spokeswoman for the Times, Diane McNulty, said editorials relating to the city were moved into the main paper to provide “editorial coverage of New York City issues to a larger range of our readers.”The president of the real estate consulting firm Alex Garvin and Associates Inc., Alex Garvin, said he was dismayed to see the editorials end. Mr. Garvin and a business partner, Nick Peterson, co-wrote an op-ed in the section on city parking policies last year.“It’s very sad when a newspaper no longer has editorials about what’s going on in its own hometown,” Mr. Garvin said yesterday. A professor of public affairs at Baruch College, E.S. Savas, who wrote an op-ed piece on city transportation issues in the section last year, chalked up the loss to the Times’s increasing focus on national issues.“The Times considers themselves above these minor, pedestrian, provincial issues in New York City,” Mr. Savas said in an interview. “It’s cosmic in scope now, so they give up city op-ed issues and give more space to other things.”Another former contributor, author Andrew Blechman, called the section “well put-together,” and said its loss fit a trend of newspapers reducing content.“Newspapers are the ones paying the price for the Internet revolution,” Mr. Blechman said. “It’s an absolute shame.”

Paper Ends a City Feature, Stirs Discontent

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