response from rob tallia! head of not for tourists!

hey folks! guess what? rob tallia wrote me back. a really good letter at that. so if you haven't read the "give 'em their own guide" post, read that, and then read this letter from the big man himself...(check the job offer at the end of the letter!)

Dear Chad:

Awesome feedback. I've been waiting for four years for someone to call us on
this stuff, and it's finally happened. I have a lot to say in response, so here
we go:

I want to start off with giving you a bit of the history and theory behind NFT.
My partner and I started planning the NYC book in 1997, and it took us 2.5 years
to make and publish the first guide. Unlike EVERY other NYC guide that you'd
care to name, NFT is the ONLY one that covers every single neighborhood of
Manhattan--all the way up to Inwood, including Harlem, East Harlem, Washington
Heights, Manhattanville, etc.

The few people who DO read and use our guides that live in those areas are
always very thankful and appreciative that we cover them, and send us good
feedback about new shops, landmarks, etc. Communicating with them has been a
blast. My partner and I have taken many scouting trips up to those areas
reconfirming gas station locations, good food, street geography, etc.--they are
rich and vibrant neighborhoods and we love them.

However, some of our commentary on those neighborhoods isn't all positive--there
are a lot of bombed-out buildings, crappy stores, and desolate/unsafe blocks--so
that's what we tell people about them. And five years later, we're still waiting
for people to slam us about our descriptions up there. Is it because some of
those descriptions are accurate? Or people are so pissed off that they don't
even write us, like you did? Who knows?

Now let's move on a bit...in 2002, we released the first guide to Los Angeles.
The LA guide is a totally different animal, covering over ten times the amount
of square mileage that we covered in the first NYC guide. Here, we were first
confronted with the problem of "coverage area", because covering all of LA
County was not an option from a practical standpoint. So we chose a middle
ground--cover all of the west side, downtown, pasadena, and PARTS of the San
Fernando Valley, South Bay, East LA, and South Central.

Then, we said to ourselves, let's see who squawks about being left out. We were
very adamant from the beginning that after the first edition of each book, we
wanted USERS to begin guiding the content and coverage area of our books. Three
editions of LA later, and we've added more of the SF Valley, and some pages on
Long Beach. Still haven't heard anything from people in Watts, and just a few
folks in Palos Verdes. We've gotten occasional feedback from people in South
Central, and I think one person from East LA--the rest of the LA folks who
communicate with us are from South Bay, Santa Monica, Hollywood, and the SF
Valley. It was through a bunch of folks clamoring for more valley coverage (I AM
assuming that most of these folks are white, but who knows?) that we added, for
2005, five new Valley maps and 20 pages of content. This is exactly what my
partner and I think should be happening--people kvetching about coverage area,
and us changing it over time (remember that we update almost all our guides
every year--they are never "done" in the conventional sense!).

I am still waiting for ANYONE from Watts or Compton or Bellflower or Downey to
communicate with us. If that happens, chances are we'll add at least SOMETHING
on those areas.

Now let's move on to Chicago, our third guide, first published in 2003.. We
covered all of central and northeast Chicago--yup, where all the white people
who buy our books live. But instead of just doing a small cut-out of Hyde Park
on the south side--which is what EVERY other Chicago guide does--we covered
everything between downtown Chicago and Hyde Park. We got some great feedback
from folks down there and again, while the blurbs of the South Side
neighborhoods aren't necessarily all peaches and cream, we at least a) cover and
b) are honest about the quality of those neighborhoods.

Fast foward to the current 2005 edition of Chicago. Enough folks in Chicago
(possibly the NFT city where people are most eager, communicative, and positive
about themselves) who live outside our initial coverage area complained that we
covered the ENTIRE rest of Chicago in a 24-page section. People from the extreme
northwest to folks from the far southside wrote us, and now we cover, in a
somewhat radical new way, EVERY street and neighborhood in Chicago. If you look
at a 2005 Chicago guide, you'll see what I'm talking about. We're anxious to get
some feedback and see what people think.

We then (in 2003) went ahead and did something a little different, for a little
borough called Brooklyn. We decided to do a small pocket-sized guide, have
foldout map of the whole borough, charge $6.95, and do a handful of
neighborhoods, and wait for the response.

Well, the response was overwhelming---people loved the Brooklyn guide. Many
folks from East Williamsburg, Midwood, Sunset Park, Dyker Heights, Bed-Stuy,
etc. were totally pissed off that they weren't covered. So, we JUST uploaded the
second editon of the Brooklyn book to our printer's FTP site yesterday--it's
gone from 48 pages to 144 pages, with eight new neighborhoods, including all the
areas I just mentioned. Methinks you'll like it...

Wtih San Francisco, our fifth guide, the city has a small enough footprint that
we were able to cover all of it in the first shot. Chances are, in future
editions, we will begin covering parts of Oakland, as well as expanding our
Berkeley coverage.

With Boston, our sixth guide, we again had "coverage area" issues. We decided to
cover all of Somerville and Cambridge (yup, predominantly white towns on the
north side of the city), and blow off some of Boston's nastier areas such as
Dorchester, Roxbury, etc. We DID include all of Southie, and went as far west as
Brighton, and covered all of Jamaica Plain. And of course we're the ONLY guide
that has ANYTHING about Somerville at all.

What's happened so far? People from Dorchester and West Roxbury have been
complaining. So, for the second editon that we are about to start working on, we
are going to add these neighborhoods--probably not as full "front half" maps,
but we will cover them to some degree. And then we'll see what happens with
that.

As for DC, our seventh guide, the same "coverage area" issue was at hand. We
advertised for city editors, hired folks, had discussions, and the first edition
is as you see it--once again, covering a bunch of white northern neighborhoods,
ignoring some of the southern neighborhoods. But again, we cover WAY, WAY more
of Virginia, east DC, and Maryland than ANY other guide. Can you show me another
guide that covers Brookland? Please.

So what's happened so far with DC? Good response, some great feedback about
Baltimore, and now your email about Anacostia. Guess what will happen with the
second edition? Yup, we'll probably cover Anacostia in some way, possibly add
another grid to northeast DC (though i think we cover over 90% of it already, so
maybe not), and see what else happens.

We'll also now have a much better field to choose from for hiring new editors
(it's always very tough to find people the first time around, and in fact, one
of the two people we did hire bagged halfway through the project), who may (or
may not) be more sensitive to some of the existing areas you mentioned.

I've driven down New York Avenue and actually stayed out there--pretty crappy.
I've cruised around to many other areas and seen similar things (the area around
RFK, for instance). However, a few points to consider:

--is our commentary on many white suburban neighborhoods any less "insensitive?"
We slam those places too, for being generic and boring. Take a look--you'll see
what I'm talking about.

--how is it racially insensitive to call a neighborhood with bombed-out
buildings, check-cashing joints, bulletproof-glassed liquor stores, disgusting
grocery stores, and almost no other amenities, "crappy?" You've said yourself
that you've had to go to other parts of the city to find good stuff...so what do
you expect us to say? What would YOU say? We all know the underlying causes of
urban poverty, we all understand that our government is a ridiculous organism
committed to spending hundreds of billions on an ignoble and bloated military
instead of investing in underserved urban areas, etc. etc. However, we just
haven't felt (to date) that there is a place to discuss these issues in our
guides--they are supposed to be snapshots of neighborhoods AS THEY CURRENTLY
EXIST. They are not historical guides nor are they some sort of blueprint for
revitalization or anything else.

All this aside, I can't WAIT to get more feedback like this on the areas you've
mentioned below. We're now going to call your bluff and ask you to contribute to
the 2006 guide, as well as ask you to get your friends to help too. We'll be
down in DC in January for a gift fair, and perhaps we can set up a meeting
during that time. If you're interested, please provide some more contact info,
have a good holiday, and we look forward to hearing from you again!

best regards and wishes,
Rob Tallia
Managing Editor
Not For Tourists
212-965-8650 x228