Phillip Kalantzis Cope

As my last day as editor of The Local draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have joined our experiment in collaborative journalism over the past year.

Since our launch in September, many of our neighbors have accepted our invitation to tell their own stories about the community that we all share and the blog has served as a showcase for the richness of voices and images and perspectives that makes the East Village what it is. Even more of you have visited the blog or paused to leave a comment in our forums or speak with us via Facebook and Twitter. We are grateful to you all.

The hard work that we have put into the site speaks for itself — and by “we” I mean community contributors, NYU students, and everyone else who has generously shared their talents in this effort.

And happily that work will continue under the exceptional leadership of Daniel Maurer, who on Monday will formally assume the editorship of the blog with all of my best wishes.

To my neighbors and friends here in the East Village, to the extraordinary students whom I’ve had the pleasure of teaching, to my wonderful colleagues at NYU and The New York Times, again, thank you all.