Metroland Magazine (1978-2015)

On New Year's Eve, an era ended in the home district. Upstate New York's only alternative newspaper, Metroland, which had gone to an online-only entity after print publication had been suspended in November, produced its final issue.

The paper's offices had been seized for back taxes in November, forcing the end of the print version of the weekly, whose staff during the course of its run included two members of the local party-rock group Blotto and local radio-TV personality David Allan. Simpsons creator Matt Groening's comic strip, Life in Hell, appeared in the pages of Metroland during the mid-80's, so readers could say they knew about Groening's brand of humor before he went mainstream.

There was a brief period when Metroland actually moved their headquarters, which had been in Albany for most of the run, across the river to Troy, but it didn't last. The constant changing of office space in the later years should've foreshadowed the end, but, in all honesty, no one saw it coming.

In a time when print media has given way gradually to the internet, it seemed as though Metroland, seeing a need to serve those readers who were without internet access, continued to publish in print, long after New York's Village Voice had disappeared from newsstands. However, the quality of writing in Metroland wasn't what it used to be, at least in this writer's opinion.

And, so, we raise one last toast. In the words of Walter Cronkite, that's the way it is.