Staff
Executive Editor and co-founder
Jen, a New Jersey-born New Yorker, edits Gothamist. She attended Columbia University, likes learning about NYC infrastructure (the subway system's intricacies, how engineers design skyscrapers), and hopes that one day a NYC zoo will have pandas. Her favorite TV shows are usually crime procedurals set in New York City, preferably with a chung-chung sound effect. She also yells at cars for not obeying stop signs.
Publisher and co-founder
Jake was born and lives in Brooklyn. He attended PS321, JHS51, Stuyvesant, Columbia, and NYU, where he got an MBA. He claims to have never been away from New York City for more than ten weeks in the last thirty-six years. Surprisingly, his mortal enemy is... milk. You can learn more about Jake at facebook.com/jakedobkin or twitter.com/jakedobkin.
TECHNOLOGY director
Neil Epstein is a graphic designer with his hands in cookie jars around the city. He is left brain by day, right brain by night and no brain by the early morning hours. Neil is a New Yorker gone native who enjoys films, scuba diving, useless knowledge, and going feral in Prospect Park.
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has resided in NYC since 1995, and started writing for Gothamist in 2006. His first interview for the site was with Ian MacKaye, and he's since gone on to interview each member of Fugazi. Next up: everybody in Nickelback. His writing has also appeared on The Awl, The Resident, The New Yorker ["The Mail" section, citation needed], and in electrifying theatrical form at The Brick Theater. He currently resides in Williamsburg surrounded by the ghosts of stalled condo projects.
Deputy Editor
"Rewriting her bio" has been on Jen's to-do list for 4 years, but until it is complete (let's face facts, this may never happen) here is what we can tell you: her first big concert was New Kids on the Block and her last one was Radiohead. Take that for what it's worth.
Ben Yakas was born and raised in NY, and has written for WNYC, The Encyclopedia of NYC, and several little-read poetry journals; he also had a brief stint at Vandelay Industries. He has a giant poster of the legendary Dan Smith (who will teach you guitar), but still has yet to have a guitar lesson with him. He subsists on a diet of chinese food, billiards and concerts, and firmly believes that between here and there is better than either here or there.
Chris was born and raised in “The South,” meaning that he spent many years sighing and drinking iced tea under magnolia trees. Fed up with life in the NASCAR belt, he arrived in New York with two suitcases, a bike, and a nose that had yet to smell urine on a daily basis. Chris is well aware that he is named after a famous, future ambassador to Lithuania from the UK. Stop asking him about it.
Nell Casey grew up in New England; grew up some more at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts; and grew up even more when she got her cat, Gandalf. She's a recovering actress who loves drinking whiskey, playing along with Jeopardy!, and watching Star Trek reruns (Picard4Eva). She has questionable allegiances when it comes to baseball teams, an insatiable lust for cheese, and a divine love for He-Man. Most of all, she has an endless curiosity for trying all the myriad kinds of foods and drinks that NYC has to offer.
Rebecca Fishbein was born and raised in Manhattan where, at the tender age of two, she was fed her first H&H; bagel. It was all downhill from there. After a brief stint in Baltimore (a city with no good bagels) she defected to Brooklyn, and now spends most of her time watching '90s teen television shows and waiting for the subway. She has never been to the Statue of Liberty and she intends to keep it that way.
Emma grew up in Arlington, Massachusetts, and no one was surprised when she wrote a long paper about Walden. She sublet her way into New York City in 2012, where she met the Bed-Stuy YMCA. Her work has appeared in New York magazine, the Awl, and Collector's Weekly.
Nathan Tempey grew up in a hard-luck town called Saginaw, Michigan and, at liberal arts college in western Massachusetts, he wouldn't let his friends hear the end of it. Living in New Orleans reaffirmed his appreciation of drinking outdoors, and moving to New York forced him to tone it way down. He enjoys learning things about rent regulation, long bike-rides to the beach, and books with actual pages. He last worked as deputy editor at The Brooklyn Paper.
VIDEO PRODUCER
Jessica Leibowitz
Jessica was born in Bedford, New York, to two Brooklyn-born parents who worked very hard to raise their children in the "country." She previously was the in-house videographer for Serious Eats and a freelance filmmaker and photographer. Her work brought her everywhere from the sub-Arctic to South America before she landed at Gothamist and narrowed her travel radius down to NYC.
Sports
Having grown up in the Finger Lakes, Dan's exposure to sports was limited to grainy VHS tapes of international soccer matches. He once organized a rebellion during a high school trip to go to the Meadowlands and watch the Metrostars play their second ever home game (of course, they lost). He moved to the NYC area in 2003 and can't imagine living anywhere else. When he's not apologizing to his wife for watching too much soccer, he can be found running a web development team, trying new restaurants, and trying to convince people Jersey City really isn't so bad.
Weather
Joe Schumacher grew up in lake effect snow country in upstate New York. Joe liked the snow so much he majored in meteorology at college. When not enjoying the weather, Joe is busy blogging, eating Mexican food, and buying more CDs than is financially prudent.