• by Paul Gough , October 7, 2003

After success in Boston, Chicago and elsewhere, a new model of daily newspapering will storm New York City on Friday.

That's the launch date set for amNewYork, a free weekday tab aimed at the 18- to 34-year-old city commuter who's short on time and light on reading. The tab will be available throughout the city's five boroughs and in selected commuter hubs in New Jersey. Initial circulation wasn't available late Tuesday but amNewYork plans to ramp up to 200,000 circulation shortly, said the paper's spokesman, Floyd Weintraub.

The tab was started by Russel Pergament, who had been publisher of a free weekday tab called the Boston Metro. It has been funded in large part by Tribune Publishing, owners of the Chicago Tribune, Newsday in Long Island, N.Y., and previously owners of the New York Daily News. It also owns a New York City WB affiliate, WPIX-TV. But Tribune's recent experience in attracting the younger demographic might be a better measure of expectations. Last year, Tribune started RedEye, a low-cost tabloid newspaper aimed at the 18- to 34-year-old market.

The new tab joins a crowded slate of daily newspapers in the city, which includes high brow Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, along with tabs New York Post, New York Daily News and, for the eastern portion of the city in the borough of Queens, Tribune's own Newsday. Last year, another daily newspaper, the broadsheet New York Sun. There are other alternative weekly newspapers that also vie for readership, including the Village Voice and the New York edition of The Onion.

Weintraub said amNewYork's first edition will be between 28 and 30 pages, with a number of advertisers that he declined to identify for competitive reasons. A marketing effort, including a four-page color brochure handed out throughout the city, is beginning.

About 40 employees have been hired for the newspaper, Weintraub said. The newsroom is led by former Daily News editorial writer Alex Storozynski. Other amNewYork journalists have worked for US Weekly, The New York Times, the Associated Press, Village Voice and AOL Digital City.

The newspaper is expected to cover local, sports, national and world news, only shorter, along with special columns focusing on straphanger commuting, gossip, dating and adventures in New York. It will also feature United Features cartoonist Bill Schorr, an entertainment section called PM New York and movie reviews by former Boston Globe film critic Jay Carr. The paper also promises to track code violations in New York City's restaurants and to be a consumer watchdog.

"I think the key part of this publication is that it's going to be a very New York sort of thing," Weintraub said. "It's going to be quite different than anything people have seen before."