Today the Village Voice announced that it is closing, 63 years after its founding and one year after ending its print edition:

Owner Peter Barbey told the remaining staff today that the publication will no longer be posting any new stories. “Today is kind of a sucky day,” Barbey told the staff, according to audio obtained by Gothamist. “Due to, basically, business realities, we’re going to stop publishing Village Voice new material [sic].”

Barbey said that half of the staff, which is around 15 to 20 people, will remain on to “wind things down,” and work on a project to archive the Voice‘s material online. The rest of the staff will be let go today.

Here at AAN, we’re beyond saddened by the closure of the publication that for decades served as a beacon for alt-weeklies across the country.

The economic environment in major coastal cities has been especially difficult for the news industry, and alt-weeklies have not been immune to that. New York specifically is a media market unlike any in the world, and the Voice itself faced unique challenges.

Its role in journalism will never be replaced. The Voice launched the careers of countless journalists and also inspired people to launch alt-weeklies in their own hometowns, most of which live on today.

We believe that its legacy remains alive in the 100-plus alternative publications across the the continent that still fight every week to uphold the values the Voice stood for: A paper that “put into words the things people actually think and say when they are being honest with each other,” that spoke truth to power in a city filled with corrupt institutions, and told stories — sometimes beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, and yes, sometimes profane — that needed to be told, but weren’t being told by anyone else.