About Us

The Lo-Down is a community web site dedicated to covering news, events and – most significantly – the people who live and work in one of the world’s greatest neighborhoods, the Lower East Side.

We are Ed Litvak and Traven Rice, a television news producer and filmmaker (in that order), who live in the neighborhood. We launched The Lo-Down to help provide our community with a constant source of information about current events, culture, real estate, food and entertainment.

Rather than serving a single segment of our diverse neighborhood, we are a resource for all cultures and groups on the LES to share information and ideas and to engage in a meaningful dialogue about issues that unite and divide us. We are not a blog that espouses a particular point of view or has an agenda. We work hard to reach out to people and organizations that are not often heard from – and to solicit multiple points of view and new perspectives. It is most important to us that everyone has an opportunity to tell their own story.

The Lo-Down is committed to covering politics and government – including community board meetings and our representatives on the City Council and in the State Legislature. We report about the many social service organizations doing important work in the community. We focus on the issues that are transforming the LES:  gentrification, affordable housing and preservation of the neighborhood’s distinctive character and history. But The Lo-Down also celebrates the creative people who have made (and continue to make) the LES great. We are a forum for artistic expression and experimentation.

We Want You To Be Part Of The Conversation

The great thing about news on the internet is that it’s a two way conversation. We encourage your comments, questions and concerns about specific stories. If you’d like to weigh in on a particular story, just click on the headline and leave us your thoughts. We also love story submissions. If you have something on your mind, send us an opinion piece. If there’s a specific story you’d like to write, if you’ve snapped an interesting picture in the neighborhood or shot some video your neighbors might want to see, send us those, too. Or, perhaps you’re not exactly sure how you would like to be involved, but you’d like to talk it over. In any case, email us at info@thelodownny.com or call 646-861-1805. If you just want to get a conversation going, try out the Lo-Down message board.

We hope you’ll join us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Comment Policy

Comments on The Lo-Down are moderated. While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not
abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We do not edit comments- they are either approved or not approved. A few
things that will very likely result in your post being rejected: personal attacks, obscenity,
commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence and SHOUTING. Also, comments that make unsubstantiated allegations about another person or an organization or business, will very likely not be approved.

Advertising

You can reach your specific Lower East Side community through an ad on The Lo-Down. Our base of regular readers as well as new viewers is growing by the day. Click here for information about advertising on The Lo-Down.

Who Works on The Lo-Down

Traven Rice (co-editor) is an award-winning filmmaker and theatrical director. You can visit her film and theatrical web site here. She is the co-founder of Say Something Productions.

Ed Litvak (co-editor) has more than 20 years of experience as a television news producer in local stations, cable properties and broadcast networks. He was a supervising producer at NBC’s Today Show and the executive producer of CNN’s morning program.

Mark Ward designed The Lo-Down banner and the topical logos you see on the web site. He can be contacted at mward@threeoeight.com.

Leo Kin is The Lo-Down’s design and tech consultant.

A. Jesse Jiryu Davis is The Lo-Down’s Chief Photographer.  He is a photographer and software developer living on Orchard Street.  Visit his website at: http://emptysquare.net  and view his photos on Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/emptysquare/.

Production & Consulting Services

Lo-Down Productions LLC offers a wide range of media services, including video production and media consulting. We produce small and large scale video projects, including advertisements, image spots, promotional videos, instructional tapes and web series’. For more information, email us at lodownny@gmail.com or call 646-861-1805.

Third Party Links

Our website contains links to other sites and resources on
the Internet controlled by third parties. These links are provided
solely as a convenience to our visitors and do not constitute an
endorsement of
any third party resources or content. We reserve
the right to terminate links with any third
parties or other websites that are inappropriate or inconsistent
with our website. The Lo-Down makes no representations about the content, functionality or practices
of such third party sites and resources.

The Lo-Down possesses a Creative Commons License.