Weekend Column: How We Came to Run the Rag and What We Plan to Do With It

By Carol Tannenhauser 

The idea was first raised by the founder and original owner of the site, a man who hides his identity behind the pen name West Sider. It was December, 2019, after the Rag’s annual Christmas party at Han Dynasty on West 85th Street. West Sider and I were walking home together — actually, he was walking me home, planning to catch the subway on my corner — and it was the first chance we had gotten to talk all night. The restaurant was so loud and our round table for twelve was so oversized that it was virtually impossible to hear anyone. Out on the street, though, I heard him clearly.

“You and Bobby should buy the Rag,” he said.

I’m sure I laughed out loud and said, “yeah, right,” but he said he was serious. “You’re the heart of the Rag,” he told me. “You’d run it right.”

I went home that night and told Bobby, my husband of over 50 years, a retired attorney and businessman, who unexpectedly latched onto the idea. He said, “We should do it, if we don’t, someone else will.” That got me. I loved writing for the Rag and was taking on increasing responsibility since my first story was posted in 2015. The idea of it being bought by some hedge fund or conglomerate was unthinkable.

There’s something about the Rag that gets under a person’s skin — in the early days, we used to say that we had all “drunk the Kool-Aid.” Sometimes I think it’s as simple as its name – the Rag, like, the Voice. It’s an amazing vehicle with an enormous reach that brings together many things I love: writing, editing, design, photography, and maybe most of all, instant gratification! 

And constant learning! Working with our senior editor, Ann Cooper, has grown me right up. I was totally intimidated by her at first — she’s tough — but what a writer, editor, and teacher. She’s a Columbia Journalism School Professor Emerita who headed NPR’s Moscow bureau during the breakup of the Soviet Union. She helped us build a newsroom and raised the bar on our whole operation. Intimidation gave way to a good working relationship, and I feel the seeds of confidence and friendship taking hold.  

As soon as Bobby convinced me we could do it and we told West Sider, the latter became ambivalent. Perhaps it was separation anxiety; the Rag had, after all, been his “baby” since 2011. The negotiations for the sale took longer than any other deal Bobby had ever done, he said.

West Sider was my first journalism teacher, before Ann. Like our current senior reporter, Gus Saltonstall, West Sider has an uncanny way of knowing what readers want to read. (See, UWS Mysteries: How Did This Couch End Up in This Tree?)  He also has a wonderfully dry sense of humor, irony, and timing, as displayed in the ending of a piece he wrote about Congressman Jerry Nadler bringing a Zabar’s bag to then-President Donald Trump’s second impeachment hearing. 

“Our question, of course, is what was in it?
So we reached out to Nadler’s people and a spokesman came back with the answer: “A babka and the constitution, what else?”
Also, the president was impeached.”

The pandemic was an intense time at the Rag. We made it our mission to keep our readers informed and uplifted. 2020 was the year we were recognized in New York magazine by the superb writer Justin Davidson as “The Hyperlocal Blog We All Wish We Had.” For the first time, we hit 10 million views that year.

Bobby and I took over on January 1, 2022, his 77th birthday. It is not how we envisioned spending our old age. (You know what they say about what doesn’t kill you.) West Sider stayed on as a consultant for a while, and we all still check in regularly. We muddled through, thankfully picking up wonderful and talented people as we went. In 2022, we missed 10 million views by about 46,000. In 2023, we surpassed it. 2024 is looking strong.

Someone wondered what our “end game” is. “Death,” I said, laughing. But before we get there, we want to build the Rag into a sustainable entity, and help it evolve. Then, we’ll find someone (or ones) who we think will cherish it, who knows the Rag is an Upper West Side institution that contributes greatly to a sense of community and security, and must continue to exist. We see ourselves as temporary caretakers, prepared when the time comes to pass it forward.

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