Ask a New Yorker began with a simple idea: talk to people. Ask questions. See what happens.

For more than 25 years, we’ve been talking to New Yorkers — on sidewalks, in parks, at bars, on stoops and pretty much anywhere someone has something to say.

Along the way, we discovered something that tends to surprise people who don’t live here: New Yorkers are extraordinarily open. They’re funny, opinionated, impatient, generous, caring and far more compassionate than their reputation might suggest.

That’s what Ask a New Yorker has always been about: connection.

We’re interested in the people who make this city what it is — the characters, neighborhoods, stories, arguments, obsessions and little moments that make New York New York. Some of the people we talk to are famous. Most aren’t. That’s kind of the point.

Visitors get to experience the city through the people who actually live here. And every once in a while, New Yorkers get reminded to look up, pay attention and rediscover the place they walk through every day.

The City Speaks. We just keep asking questions.

Kennedy Moore - Founder & Publisher
Kennedy Moore has always been the guy who starts the conversation. Unabashedly forward, naturally curious and rarely afraid to approach a stranger, he founded Ask a New Yorker in 1999 as a way to turn that instinct into something bigger.

Before Ask a New Yorker, Kennedy’s life took a few unlikely turns — from living in Hawaii to working at Ten’s World Class Cabaret to digging graves in his family cemetery — experiences that only deepened his fascination with people and their stories.

More than 25 years later, he’s still asking questions, driven by the same curiosity and a belief that New York becomes a much more interesting place when people actually talk to one another.

Ask a New Yorker has been featured in The London Times, Frommer’s, AM New York, the New York Post and other media.

Steve Pilon - Webmaster & Developer
Steve Pilon (code18.com) led the rebuilding of Ask a New Yorker for its latest chapter, bringing more than two decades of stories and interviews into a modern site while helping shape the design, functionality and digital home of the relaunch.

I’m especially grateful to Steve for the care, thought and creativity he brought to the project, and for taking something that means a great deal to me and giving it a new life.

A NOTE OF THANKS

Ask a New Yorker has been around for more than 25 years, and there’s no way we would have gotten here without a lot of people lending a hand along the way — friends, contributors, interview subjects, collaborators, readers and people who simply believed in the idea.

To everyone who has helped, participated, shared a story, answered a question or encouraged us to keep going: thank you.