"Can’t Get the Word Out: 50 Years of Trouble for Brooklyn Publications" by Alex Grunde

The 1950’s were not a good decade for Brooklyn. The introduction of the interstate highway system destroyed many of the borough’s harbors, for centuries the center of commerce in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Dodgers made a cross-country migration to Los Angeles, leaving Brooklyn without a professional sports team. And on March 17, 1955, Brooklyn lost its daily newspaper, The Brooklyn Eagle, silencing what had been a vocal supporter and citywide voice of the borough for 141 years.

Since then, nothing has filled the void The Eagle left. Other Brooklyn-based magazines have come along, such as Brooklyn Bridge, BKYLN, and The Brooklynite, but have faired badly as well. Those magazines went under as well. For some reason, Brooklyn-oriented publications, starting at the downfall of the 19th-century Eagle, have had trouble staying afloat.

The Eagle was established in 1841 by Isaac Van Anden, who was just 23-years-old at the time. While it was originally intended to last only for the length of the upcoming election, Anden bought the magazine from Henry C. Murphy, who funded the paper as a Democratic propaganda paper, after the elections. When it went out of business, its publisher at the time, Frank Schroth, said, “So the Pulitzer Prize-winning paper of Whitman, Van Anden and McKelway has been silken forever, and Brooklyn, the largest community in America without a voice, will indeed be doomed to be cast in Manhattan’s shadow.”

Ironically, it was an editorial decision by one of Schroth’s predecessors, Cleveland Rogers, that helped Brooklyn “to be cast in Manhattan’s shadow.” Rogers, who served as The Eagle’s editor in the 1930’s, was closely connected to New York Park Commissioner Robert Moses. Together, they made a vocal, public push to win support for the highway expansion in Brooklyn, an event that many point to as a major cause for the economic and cultural decay of Brooklyn in the latter half of the 20th century.

Then in 1937, the writing staff of the Eagle was unionized by the Newspaper Guild and conflict built between the writers and management. The writers demanded more pay, especially in the light of the Eagle’s purchase of the Brooklyn Times-Union, while management accused the writers of being communists. Both sides were convinced that they were representing the best interests of the borough of Brooklyn. The anger came to a head on September 13, 1937, when the writers went on strike. “This was the beginning of an Eagle wound that would never heal,” said Eagle historian Raymond Schroth, in his book The Eagle and Brooklyn.

The strike ended three months later, settled by a state labor negotiator, but it would not be the end of the fight between the writers and management. Almost 20 years later in 1955, the writers went on strike again, this time demanding as much pay as the Manhattan dailies. This time, however, the owners simply declared that they would shut down the newspaper. The writers assumed it was a bluff, but the owners were dead serious, and the paper closed down on March 17, 1955.

While The Eagle’s demise was publicly attributed to a labor strike by writers wanting as much pay as the Manhattan papers, Paul Moses, professor of journalism at Brooklyn College and co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize, thinks the owners had economics on their minds. He believes that they saw the general economic direction Brooklyn was going, and decided to take advantage of the strike to “cut their losses.”

As far as the impact of the Eagle’s closing, there’s “still a gap from the closing of that paper,” says Moses. “It deprived Brooklyn of an advocate,” he laments.

Forty-five years, another Brooklyn publication went out of business. First published in September of 1995, the Brooklyn Bridge magazine lasted five years. Despite winning the City & Regional Magazine Association gold medal for general excellence in 2000, the magazine closed in September of 2005.

It was not for lack of content or readership that hurt the Bridge. According to former Bridge owner and current civil rights and liberties activist Melissa Ennen, “Brooklyn Bridge had a diverse readership, both racially and economically.” Unlike most city magazines, the Bridge was not aimed at suburban readers, instead embracing Brooklynites of all types.

According to Ennen, it was lack of advertising dollars that did the Bridge in. “For the quality of magazine I wanted to make, Brooklyn advertisers could not sustain it,” said Ennen. That, combined with competing salaries from Manhattan and the hiring frenzy of internet start-ups, led to an overworked staff. “We broke even while killing ourselves,” said Ennen.

With a lack of Brooklyn publications, don’t look to citywide papers for comprehensive coverage of Brooklyn. “They [Manhattan-based newspapers] never did an adequate job of covering a county of 2 million,” said Moses.

For someone wanting to start a Brooklyn publication, there is advice. “A city-wide paper focused outside of Manhattan would be possible,” said Moses. Ennen’s advice for anyone starting a Brooklyn publication is “Don’t sacrifice quality, but keep your expenses low.”