NYC24: Central Park: About us

MASTHEAD

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Jessica Marmor

MANAGING EDITOR
Sean Leahy

PRODUCTION EDITOR
Elva Ramirez

QUALITY ASSURANCE EDITORS
Ron Brownlow
Matt Goad

DESIGN EDITORS
Fahmida Rashid
Nancy Reardon

MULTIMEDIA EDITOR
Jim Higdon

REPORTERS
Jen Brown, Wale Fatade, Caitlin Johnson, Gina Pace, Gennady Sheyner,
Catherine Shu, Armen Terjimanian, Dario Thuburn and Emily Wilson

NYC24 would like to thank
our advisors: Sreenath Sreenivasan, Duy Linh Tu
and Jennifer Johnson and
Jeff Gralnick. NYC24 also thanks Jennifer Pucci and
the rest of the good folks
at the Central Park Conservancy.

NYC24

Central Park: the NYC24 gang hanging out in the park.

PHOTO: Sreenath Sreenivasan

Who is NYC24? We are 17 journalists from across the country and around the world who have scoured the streets for the past four months to bring you five issues of untold and ready-to-be-told again stories about New York City. In this, our fifth and final issue, we have produced a special report on Central Park: the core of the Big Apple.

Why Central Park? Anyone – New Yorker or not – who has lived through an unbearably cold winter, can understand why spending four weeks reporting from the frontlines of Central Park didn’t sound like a bad idea. Like most other New Yorkers, we just wanted to hang out in the park. In the process of all that hanging out, we photographed, recorded and filmed 34 real Central Park stories – all of which illustrate the park’s timeless vitality. We hope our readers enjoy the stories as much as we enjoyed reporting them.

As we write these last words, spring is in full swing and summer is just around the corner. The time is right for stocking picnic baskets, pulling out sunglasses, grabbing Rollerblades and heading you know where. See you in the park.

Jen Brown This Jersey Shore girl is a fan of the Yankees, naps, and all things beach-related. When not basking in the pollinated oasis that is Central Park, Jen is most likely to be found sipping on $1.50 PBRs or writing books, often at the same time.

Ron Brownlow lived in Taipei for five years so he doesn't understand why the elevators in New York are so slow. His greatest ambition is to produce a documentary featuring sources whose voices have been distorted and faces pixilated to protect their identities.

Wale Fatade hopes to be in the forefront of the online journalism revolution in Nigeria when it starts. His favorite places in New York are the numerous Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Strand, and Labyrinth bookstores.

Matt Goad worked as a reporter, copy editor and page designer at old media newspapers in North Carolina before studying at Columbia, where he has found learning new media to be an exciting and challenging experience.

Jim Higdon came to New York City from Kentucky. He likes college basketball, horse racing and shooting bottle rockets at elevated subway trains. After graduation, Jim returned to Louisville as the Web site intern for the Courier-Journal.

Caitlin Johnson hails from outside Boston. She's tall, she's blonde and she's fearless. Caitlin enjoys yoga, baseball and yummy beer. Her one true talent is her flawless knowledge of all music from the decade of her birth: the 1980s. Don’t Stop Believing,
America.

Sean Leahy learned a lot about the Internet, about reporting, and about putting together a magazine from Sree and his fellow NMWers. He is headed to Baltimore, and hopes that a cool job covering sports lies ahead of him.

Jessica Marmor moved to the East Coast from California seven years ago and still refuses to believe that flip-flops cannot be worn in the winter. She is an artist, new media journalist and crossword puzzle champion in training.

Gina Pace likes long walks on the beach, stained glass windows and is aroused by the mundane. After graduation, she wants to be a plucky education reporter.

Elva Ramirez is a troubled loner with a fondness for classic 1950s typography. After doing the production for the final issue, however, she is so over Photoshop and HTML. Don’t even get her started on apples, big or otherwise.

Fahmida Rashid thinks the world revolves around NYC, but she still likes to travel to see what other places are out there. Give her a hot dog and a techy gadget, and she will be your new best friend.

Nancy Reardon worked as one of two design editors for this project. She hopes to make it to the editing chair some day and have a hand in page design, especially for page one. Nancy wants to collect some by-lines along the way, preferably on a political beat.

Gennady Sheyner likes grassy knolls, rainy days, Labradors, ruby-throated hummingbirds, Earl Grey, Guinness, Grey Poupon, Los Angeles sunsets, New York subways, San Francisco fog, jazz, Tom Robbins, dive bars, dark comedies and dry British wit.

Catherine Shu When she was a little girl, Catherine wanted to be a fairy princess ballerina and buy all the Hello Kitty music boxes in the world. Now she wants to be a working reporter and own a pet squirrel.

Armen Terjimanian is the most Armenian person at NYC24. A native of Troy, Mich., he graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in film and political science. He hopes to use his new media skills in the world of sports journalism.

Dario Thuburn is a tall, handsome stranger with a bookish past and a new media future. He likes muffins and vodka. After graduating, he moved to Moscow to work as a newswire reporter.

Emily Wilson is a fifth-generation Californian. She loves her home state, her husband, her dog, Bollywood movies, Central Park and her New Media classmates, although she finds Catherine’s squirrel obsession baffling.

Sreenath Sreenivasan

Sree has been teaching the new media workshop at the Graduate School of Journalism since time immemorial. When he is not appearing on WABC in his “Tech Guru” segments, he can be found in the new media lab harassing students with cries of “Less words, folks!” None of our days are complete without a barrage of Sree-scripted e-mails. He is an associate professor of professional practice at Columbia University.

Duy Linh Tu

If Sree is our Tech Guru, Duy is our Tech Master. He teaches us the ins and outs of such fascinating things as making rollover buttons in Dreamweaver and white-balancing cameras. Duy is a founder of Resolution Seven, a Web site design and distribution company for documentaries. Duy is a 1999 graduate of Columbia's School of Journalism.

Jennifer Johnson

This is Jennifer's first year as an adjunct for the new media workshop, of which she is a graduate, and our copy would not have been the same without her. She is a 2003 graduate of Columbia's School of Journalism. Currently, she is an editor at the Wall Street Journal Online.

Jeff Gralnick

Jeff is NYC24's in-house voice of online reason. He critiqued each one of our issues and made all of our work stronger for it. Previously executive producer on NBC Nightly News, Jeff made the switch from broadcast to new media many moons ago and currently serves as Internet and Technology Consultant to NBC News.