The complete overhaul of The Nearby Café took place between January and May of 2004. In addition to our friends at the web-design firm Crossbeam, this process involved considerable structural and editorial input from my end (I had to learn instant messaging and blogging to accomplish it), and extensive design and programming efforts from the Café's webmaster, John Alley, who designed and/or redesigned a number of the individual menu items and also worked with Crossbeam to integrate the blogged sections into the whole.

We expect to continue making adjustments to the new, improved Café over the course of the summer, refining some of its features and variously fussing over details. However, we plan to spend most of our time henceforth adding even more content.
Meanwhile, we also plan to undertake our first concerted push to publicize the Café, which, in its present form, at long last achieves a level of design and web-worthiness to match its content. The result, we hope, will be an increased stream of visitors enjoying our offerings.

-- A. D. Coleman

A number of you have inquired about the people behind this project, so here's a brief Who's Who at The Nearby Café:

• A. D. (Allan Douglass) Coleman, the Café's founder, editor-in-chief, and Executive Director, is a writer, lecturer, teacher, and sometime poet/artist; you'll find out more about him through his newsletters here at the Café, C: The Speed of Light, Island Living, and WordWork™. He is also the founder and Executive Director of the Photography Criticism CyberArchive.
  
  Coleman, a native New Yorker, works out of a big house in a working- to middle-class neighborhood on Staten Island, one of New York City's so-called "outer boroughs." This roomy, comfortable old place was designed by noted local architect James McDermott for himself and his family; perched on a hillside, it was built in 1910. In Coleman's hands it's taken on a new identity as Villa Florentine Artists' House. For more about that, including pictures of the house and its surroundings, click here.
  
  
• John R. Alley has served as the Café's webmaster since early 2000. A photographer and teacher, John is an Adjunct Professor and holds an M.F.A. in Photography. Since 2002, he has also served as the designer and webmaster for the Photography Criticism CyberArchive.