Hi everyone! When we celebrated our 10th anniversary this past June, I promised some exciting things to come. The first of those, which some of you may have already noticed since last night, is a return to our original name – Untapped New York – after many years as Untapped Cities. Our website logo, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube handles have changed (Instagram to come soon). Even before this change, our new logo appeared on the LinkNYC kiosks, where we’ve been curating the new column “Name This Spot.” We’re very excited to align our name with the content of our editorial coverage and our experiences. There will be no change to what we report on or the experiences we develop, and we’ll continue to reveal the secrets and hidden gems of New York City and the surrounding region. In a few weeks, we’ll also be unveiling a whole new design for our website but there will be no change to any URLs.
Within days of making Untapped New York live on the internet in 2009, I received many emails from other people who loved the idea. It amazed me how the website had been discovered so quickly and how passionate people were about the idea of rediscovering their own city. With a flurry of interest from residents in other cities, and my own eight month move to Paris in 2010, Untapped Cities became the umbrella brand for what we were experimenting with. We had subdomains for Untapped Paris, Untapped San Francisco, Untapped Detroit, Untapped New Orleans, and Untapped Singapore, and had teams of contributors not only in those locales, but in more than 50 cities around the world.
By 2012, I realized that sustaining Untapped New York/Untapped Cities was the true calling of my life. What could be better than surrounding myself with the most interesting places, projects, and people every day, and reporting on positive topics that could inspire people to discover new things? From then on, it was about how to make the company sustainable and be able to scale. One of the first decisions was to focus in on where it all began and where we were reporting most: New York City! Our subsequent expansion into tours, experiences and memberships were all here. And of course, our office is in Brooklyn (we moved into a new snazzy office in September in a former Studebaker building, come visit us!).
On occasion, we would get a snarky email about why we were called “Untapped Cities” when we only covered New York. More often, we’d get messages begging us to come to another city. A recent favorite from a reader named Rosalie: “please please please come to Los Angeles. We really need you.” So for the snarky folks, this change is for you (just kidding, who do you think you are? Untapped New York is a space for positive people). For the others like Rosalie, we still have grand plans to get to you, but we’ll be doing it in a strategic and sustainable way.
Thanks for reading, coming on our tours, or being an Insider member. There’s more exciting news to come!
Michelle is the founder of Untapped New York and the author of The Art Spy (HarperOne, forthcoming) Secret Brooklyn, Secret New York Hidden Bars & Restaurants, and Broadway. michelleyoungwriter.com
