The New York Times has always been more of a national than a metropolitan newspaper; even its local coverage leans heavily on city politics and gives short shrift to human-interest stories. Last year, in an attempt to remedy the situation, Metropolitan Editor Arthur Gelb assigned Staff Reporter Joseph Lelyveld to spend a year covering the New York school system from the back row of a fourth-grade class at Harlem's P.S. 198.
Buoyed by favorable reader response, Gelb has now commissioned a staffer to devote full time to a single city block in Manhattan. The man is John Corry, a veteran journalist and...