Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Death of a Journalist

In the sea of blogs that attempt to be clever, controversial, and inflammatory to raise ad revenue, Gowanus Lounge always had content. Robert Guskind was a true journalist. He went outside, he really talked to people, he cared about Brooklyn with an intensity that came from much more than its coolness factor.

Robert Guskind was found dead in his apartment yesterday. The best I can do for him now is to provide anyone who reads this with as much of his work as possible. GowanusLounge.com has been down for a few days, but there is still a lot out there to read. I'll be adding to it as the day goes on.

I never met him, but we communicated several times over email. He was incredibly helpful and supportive to me when I first started BViB. I'm sure he was inspiring to many other blogger types as well.

The most fitting memorial for him is this video posted on NewYorkshitty.com. It shows how he was able to connect to people, and it shows how he truly cared about Brooklyn and its residents.

Even though GowanusLounge.com is down*, you can check out the old site on blogspot.
*It's back up now.

Videos on AOL. Robert Guskind also did a great interview with Jimmy Prince, the Coney Island butcher featured in several news arenas. RG did it first, and he did it better. I'll try to find it.*
*Thanks to a reader for forwarding the link to me!

His photostream at flickr.

Xris, aka Flatbush Gardener, has a post with a link to his photostream.

CUNY TV has Robert Guskind on Brian Lehrer Live here. And here.

Brownstoner, The Brooklyn Paper (don't read if you're feeling fragile about RG's passing), and OTBKB (with several very informative stories) have posts.

Curbed has a lengthy post with links to RG's early work on Curbed.

PardonMeforAsking and Crazy Stable also have tributes. I'm sure there will be more and more as Brooklyn bloggers find out and react.

BRIC has a post that includes RG's "Walk Around the Blog" visit.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

He was very supportive of my now-defunct blog on Sunset Park, publishing excerpts and photos. I didn't even know who he was, but other people found out about my blog through him. He said he was glad that Sunset was finally having its issues addressed on the web.
So sad...these are hard times.
Stay strong people.