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I just finished reading Cool Machine, the final volume of Colson Whitehead’s Harlem crime trilogy. Set in Manhattan in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the book is packed with IYKYK period details about that era that I’d completely forgotten from my childhood in the nearby suburbs, such as FOWAD, the clothing store on 96th Street where my 8th grade English teacher Mr. Aversa used to buy his colorful ties.
Tucked into the book is a scene that made my print-loving heart flutter: Whitehead’s reference to the long lines that formed for the first copies of the Village Voice each week at a single newsstand on Astor Place. (Whitehead, like me, worked at the Voice, but several years before I did.)
Even in the 90s, when the Voice went free and could be found on nearly every corner below 14th Street practically simultaneously, people still waited on line to get their fresh copies from news agent Jerry Delakas and to pore over the paper’s classifieds in search of an apartment, a job, a lover, or, in the case of Max Weinberg, a chance to be Bruce Springsteen’s drummer in the E Street Band.
The Voice classifieds were a world unto themselves, a marketplace and message board with its own celebrities like St. Jude, who was thanked by someone week in and week out. And it wasn’t just the Voice: Classifieds used to run in nearly every paper and many magazines and were a part of the culture, joked about by Woody Allen and inspiring books like They Call Me Naughty Lola, an anthology of the funniest ads in The London Review of Books.
As my friend and former Voice colleague Tricia Romano detailed in her excellent 2024 oral history The Freaks Came Out to Write, classifieds were well and thoroughly disrupted by Craigslist right around the time publications like the Voice were disrupted by digital publishing. Times change. Reader habits change. I refuse to be an old man yelling at a cloud. But sometimes I wonder if anyone is thanking St. Jude anymore and whatever became of Naughty Lola.
In an effort to help our readers find apartments, jobs, love, or slots in the next E Street Band, we’ve launched Flyers, a new classified section for a new era. You can find the first installment of Flyers in our print edition. Pick up a copy at one of our usual drop spots across the city and at our newsstand on Market and First Streets. You won’t even need to wait on line like Voice readers back in the day.
And if you do find yourself waiting, I recommend reading Whitehead’s Cool Machine, which has some serious FOWAD momentum.
ONLY ON GAZETTEER SF
- LOCALS ONLY: Eddie Kim on the Bay Area artists playing this weekend’s Portola Festival.
- FAMILY BUSINESS: Olivia Peluso meets the owners of Chula Café.
- THE PLAYOFFS THE THING: Megan Rose Dickey on the Valkyries.
- HEADLINE NEWS: Joel Rosenblatt on a well-timed report and press conference.
- LIFE ON MARS?: Drinking Companion goes to Persona.
- MOCK THE VOTE: Gazetteer’s not-so serious guide to a somewhat serious election.
SEND US YOUR TIPS
Just a reminder: Your tips can go a long way at Gazetteer HQ. Got a good scoop? A fun bit of tea to spill? A nugget of gossip you’re dying to share? Send it our way. We can assure anonymity.
DISPATCHES FROM THE FOG
- BRAVE: Billionaire forgoes poolhouse closet reno, launches thing instead. (New York Times)
- FOR PEOPLE WHO THINK THE RAY-BANS AREN’T CREEPY ENOUGH: Meta has some new thing you’ll hate. (The Verge)
- COSTLY TRUTH: The city is suing Truth Social over $100k ‘early access’ membership. (San Francisco Chronicle)
- MONITAS: A16Z to open techno-optimist Hogwarts. (SF Standard)
- THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT: OpenAI can’t find anyone to be its comms chief. (Fortune)
