Hello and welcome to OhioNYC!

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Stephen Slaybaugh. Since graduating from high school, I’ve been splitting my time between New York and Columbus, Ohio, where I grew up. I am a freelance writer, and currently, I live in Brooklyn, in the northern portion of Red Hook (or what the real estate agents are trying to call the “Columbia Waterfront District”).

Anyway, a few months ago I was asked to write a cover story for The Other Paper, an alt-weekly in Columbus until it recently became part of the Dispatch media monopoly. The feature was to be about musicians who had relocated from Columbus to Brooklyn. I was already aware of quite a few Columbus ex-pats, but in doing the article, nearly every one of the people I spoke to suggested yet another person that I could have interviewed. As such, it was surprising just how many people I knew—or someone I knew knew—from Ohio who were living in New York.  And that was only musicians specifically from Columbus!

Since writing that feature, I’ve had it in the back of my mind that it would be cool to connect everyone in some way. Hence, what you see before you, which admittedly probably doesn’t look like much right now. But in the coming weeks, anticipate OhioNYC taking shape with information about Ohio-related events happening throughout New York, as well as profiles of your fellow ex-pats and a message board to really connect, at least in the virtual sense. I hope you dig it and  encourage you, if you’re of Ohio descent, to drop me a line and let me know what you’re up to.