Hell Gate NYC


Hell Gate NYC is an online worker-owned publication focused on local New York City news. The publication is named after the Hell Gate Bridge, due to the bridge's reputation for tenacity. Hell Gate covers a wide range of topics that include, but are not limited to, political corruption, local street performers, and strange subway advertisements. The company is headquartered in a co-working space in Brooklyn, and has five reporters and two editors, all worker-owners.

History

The founders of Hell Gate began developing the idea for the publication in 2021. Many of them were former coworkers at New York City publications such as the Village Voice, The New York Times, and Gothamist, as well as non-New York publications such as Jezebel and The Intercept. Pinto, Robbins, and Rivlin-Nadler had all faced job instability as journalists due to companies mismanaging resources, lacking funding, and cutting budgets. In January 2022, they pitched the idea of Hell Gate to fifty local journalists, and recruited Pereira and Wang. The team decided that their publication would have a snarky tone like pre-acquisition Gothamist, and that they would approach stories from a human rights-oriented perspective.
Hell Gate launched the website as a test on May 2, 2022, and launched in full two months later.

Business model

Hell Gate's initial funding came from two New York-based organizations for the arts: a $25,000 grant from The Harnisch Foundation, and a $50,000 grant from the Vital Projects Fund. A further $300,000 in grants was given between 2023 and 2024. It supports its journalism with tiered subscriptions to access its articles behind a paywall. The founders believed that a subscription-funded business would work., the site had 9,000 paid subscribers making $70,000 per month, accounting for two-thirds of revenue, and costs around $81,000 per month to run.
To keep costs down, they wrote from home and published online, using the same provider as Defector Media, another worker-owned cooperative.
Hell Gate is a worker-owned cooperative, where the journalists have the job of reporter, editor, and managing the business, with aid from an marketing and external relations manager and an operations and finance manager. They also hire freelancers., all reporters were paid $75,000 per year. The company offers tiered and annual subscriptions. As of November 2025, Hell Gate said it was profitable, expecting to earn approximately $850,000 in revenue in 2025. Hell Gate also offers free newsletters, with tens of thousands of subscribers each. Advertisements are a minor source of revenue. A third of its revenue comes from donations, down from half in 2024.

Reception

Hell Gate has been identified by several outlets to be part of a resurgence in indie publishing. They have been favorably compared to other worker-owned sites like Defector and 404 Media.
The New York Press Club awarded its 2024 annual journalism award in the category "Political Reporting – NYC Metro" to "The Eric Adams Table of Success," a collaboration between Hell Gate and Type Investigations.