We're building a classifieds and community platform for New York City. That's the one-sentence version.
The longer version is that we looked at the tools available to 8 million New Yorkers for buying, selling, finding apartments, hiring help, and connecting with neighbors, and none of them are good enough.
The Gap
New York has always been a city of word-of-mouth. You find your apartment through a friend. You find your plumber through a neighbor. You find your barber because someone at work told you about them.
The internet was supposed to make that easier. Instead, it made it worse. The platforms that exist are either overrun with scams, buried under algorithms, or so generic that they treat NYC like any other market.
There's no platform built specifically for New York City. One that understands the boroughs and neighborhoods. One that verifies users are actually here. One that combines classifieds with genuine community features. One that's free and plans to stay that way.
That's what we're building.
What It Is
The NYC Classifieds is a free platform for New Yorkers to post listings, find what they need, and connect with their neighborhoods. It has two core components:
Classifieds. Apartments, jobs, stuff for sale, services, free things, gigs. Organized by category, borough, and neighborhood. Every poster is geo-verified, which means every listing comes from a real person who's actually in NYC.
The Porch. A community space where neighbors share recommendations, ask questions, post alerts, announce events, and have the kinds of conversations that used to happen on the front stoop. Think of it as the neighborhood knowledge base that's always existed in people's heads, finally written down and shared.
Who We Are
We're a small team of New Yorkers who got tired of the options. We're not funded by venture capital. We're not trying to become the next big tech platform. We're building a useful tool for the city we live in.
What's Different
Three things separate us from everything else:
- Geo-verification. Every user proves they're a real person in NYC with a GPS check and selfie. No bots. No scammers from out of state. No fake accounts.
- Neighborhood-level organization. Everything is structured around NYC's actual neighborhoods, all five boroughs, 126 neighborhoods. Your experience is local by default.
- Free. Actually free. No listing fees. No premium tiers for basic features. No paywalls on community features. Free to post, free to message, free to browse.
What's Next
We're going to build this thing in public. This blog will document the process: what we're building, why we're making the decisions we're making, and what we learn along the way.
If you're a New Yorker who wants a better way to connect locally, you're in the right place. We're just getting started, and the best part is yet to come.
Stay tuned.