We gather to bestow final rites on the Village Voice, once a giant of New York City print journalism, a global beacon for social and political and artistic movements chronicled in its pages, reduced last year to a URL and, as of Friday, to a legacy.
But what a legacy not least, of herculean reporting that exposed the corruptions of New York Citys powerful. That incubated and sustained giants like Wayne Barrett, Jack Newfield, Jennifer Gonnerman, Tom Robbins, Colson Whitehead, J.A. Lobbia, Pete Hamill, Stanley Crouch.
That introduced the world to a hustler named Donald Trump shaking down the city for aid. That blew the whistle on corruption in the citys powerful Board of Estimate and in dank corners of the Koch administration. And championed workers, and the heroes and heroines of Stonewall, and womens quest for power and justice, and black and Latino and Asian and immigrant New Yorkers for theirs.
That pilloried the worst among us slum landlords, slack judges and celebrated the best youd never heard of in music, film, dance, art, life.
Whose song will never be heard except in replay, and must never be left to fade from memory.
The New York Daily News
