About
Greetings. I’m Ira. I’m originally from Queens and currently reside in Brooklyn, New York with my wife and our dog.
By day I'm a freight elevator operator in a commercial building in Manhattan and by night I'm occasionally a floor manager at a bar in Brooklyn. I didn’t come here to write about that though. That stuff is to pay the bills so I can do stuff like this.
So, why a blog? For starters, I don’t think the medium is dead. I love the form, and I love the world wide web. There’s still a whole blogosphere out there and lots of other interesting stuff if you’re willing to do a little deliberate searching. It’s an ugly habit, allowing oneself to get taken for a ride by whatever endless scroll site gets placed in front of you. I know this because I find myself all the time not being deliberate enough in deciding how to spend my time, or, paying enough attention to.. what I’m paying attention to. I don’t know off hand who coined that phrase, “You have to pay attention to what you’re paying attention to.” Part of the intention of this site is for me to do just that.
I wouldn't say I have a “beat” like writers tend to do, but lately I'm fascinated by the earlier days of the internet before things like infinite scroll or like buttons existed, and that's the kind of place I want the internet to be, and it does still exist in that form in places, you just have to look for them. And I enjoy simply sharing links to stuff that interests me. I'll try to keep it mostly to those kinds of places.
Additionally, you can expect brief posts, link blogs, and the occasional essay and photo journal here.
tl;dr: Ira Cogan is a self described blogger from New York City.
-Ira
Contact: ira at iracogan dot com
This page was last updated on August 21, 2025