Hitotoki New York is now live. Over the last few days we've managed, covering them in sweat and blood and Dotour Iced Coffee, to break many keyboards in our Tokyo offices.

Putting a site like this together is sort of like finding out you're giving birth to triplets in the middle of the birthing process. That is to say, something that seemed like it should have been a simple process was anything but simple.

The stories for this launch are fantastic. Thanks much in part to the diverse and delicious literary community in New York, and to our New York editor Matt Rand's word kung-fu. Matt was so scarred by the production process, he's run off to Africa for two weeks, freeing himself from email and computers fast enough to load hitotoki's home page.

Some highlights from the launch include:

Hitotoki New York 007 by Khoi Vinh: "Port Authority is an ugly building. About that there can be no debate. It has the kind of facade people can’t bear to stare in the face of for very long, like a scarred victim. But that perceived repulsiveness is rooted, I’m sure, in the services in which it deals. Is there a form of transportation known to Westerners that’s held in lower esteem than the bus?"

Hitotoki New York 002 by Kseniya Melnik: "A boy threw a ball my way, but I was too slow to catch it. The chess-playing men looked at me with suspicion. A pack of pigeons took off into the sky. I felt suspended between worlds."

Hitotoki New York 008 by Michael Maiello: "Lying on the cement steps across from us, shirtless Boris Yeltsin’s skin reddens as he reads a book. His lips move as he peruses the pages. We sneak toward him to see what he’s reading. It’s a book about how to flip real estate for profit."

Hitotoki is a collaboration with the pixel pushin', sushi eatin', monkey slappin' folks at AQ.