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For years Long Island Wave has been our regional title for Nassau and Suffolk. This fall it gained a sister. New York City Wave launched in October 2026, a free local news and lifestyle publication for all five boroughs, from Riverdale to Tottenville, on the web and as an app on iPhone and Android.
It starts from the same idea as its older sibling. Most coverage of New York City is written from somewhere else, about somewhere else. New York City Wave covers the city the way locals actually live it: where to eat this week, what is opening and what is closing, who is building what, and how to spend a Saturday. Every story has to pass one test before it runs. If it would not matter to someone who lives here, it does not run.
Every borough, every day
The archive already holds more than 480 local stories, and the five boroughs are the entire beat. On a single day this week the site ran a Persian street grill opening on Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, a kunafa shop arriving on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, the new season at the Lehman Center in the Bronx, Min Jin Lee coming to Queens College, and a Tottenville-raised artist opening her show at the Staten Island Museum.
The news sits in seven sections: News, Business, Food & Drink, Health, Beauty, Lifestyle and Events, with the full archive searchable. All of it is free. There is no paywall and no subscription, now or later.
Neighborhood by neighborhood
New York is not one place, so the site does not treat it as one. Fifty-two neighborhoods have a page of their own, each carrying its latest stories, what is coming up there, and the weather right now. Readers with a free account can follow the neighborhoods they live in and love, and those stories and events lead their front page.
Places goes a step further: more than 61,000 places to eat, drink, play and get outside across the five boroughs, organized by neighborhood and by what you are looking for. The listings come from public sources, and the ones we have checked ourselves are marked as checked.
Today, and the weekend
Two pages answer the questions people actually ask. Today shows what is on right now, later and tonight: events from the calendar, plus the trivia, music and happy hours that run every week at places we have checked, with filters for live music, food and drink, family, free and outdoors.
Your Weekend does the same for Friday to Sunday. Pick the boroughs you are happy to travel to, add the events you want, and put the whole plan in your own calendar. Behind both is the events calendar, which anyone can submit an event to.
For readers who would rather have the week come to them, The Weekly Wave lands every Friday: new openings, the events worth the weekend, and the stories neighbors are talking about, in one free email. There is also a directory of local businesses, a marketplace of offers from local makers, and a community for member conversations.
The app, on iPhone and Android
New York City Wave is also a native app, called NYC Wave on the home screen. It went live on Google Play on October 19 and on the App Store on October 22, free on both.
It is the whole publication built to be read on a phone. The News feed opens on the day’s stories with a filter for the section you came for. Today shows what is on block by block, with directions, add to calendar and share. Stories are typeset in the publication’s own type, at the text size you choose, in light or dark. Saved stories stay on the phone, so they open on the subway or anywhere the signal gives up. The whole archive is searchable.
No account is needed to read. Signing in takes a six-digit code sent to an email or a cell number, with no password to invent, and it lets saved stories follow you across devices, lets you follow neighborhoods, and turns on the Listen player for stories. Alerts are kept to a handful of stories worth interrupting a day for, chosen by an editor rather than sent as a stream of pings.
The same platform as Long Island Wave
New York City Wave runs on Wave Publisher, the same platform behind Long Island Wave: the website, the apps, the calendar, the newsletter and the tools our editors work in every day. That is the point of building a platform rather than a site. When a feature lands for one title, it is ready for the others, and a new publication starts from everything the first one already learned.
It is also why we can say plainly what it takes to run a local publication well, because we run several ourselves. If you live in the city, start with today’s front page or get The Weekly Wave. If you run a business there and want to reach New Yorkers, New York City Wave would be glad to hear from you.
