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 of New York City.

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. You can read a recent profile of us in the Village Voice article, “I Blog New York: Your Guide to Gotham’s Best” here.

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.