The newest member of the Huffington Post family has a distinct Big Apple flavor. Huffington Post New York launched Monday, with blog posts from Nora Ephron, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Frank Serpico, former Mayor Ed Koch, Lizz Winstead and Chris Durang.

HuffPost also announced partnerships with more than one-dozen local outlets and named longtime New York Daily News reporter Dan Collins editor of Huffington Post New York.

And the site will employ the Eyes & Ears citizen-reporting unit.

Ariana Huffington’s blog post introducing Huffington Post New York touches on the timing of the site’s debut:

This promises to be a very eventful year in The Big Apple, with the city gearing up for a mayoral race, Wall Street scrambling to figure out what's next, new stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets, the post-Plaxico Giants and the post-Favre Jets, the opening of the new High Line park on Manhattan's West Side, Times Square being turned into a pedestrian mall (aka Beach Chairs on Broadway), and the state government in the midst of a major meltdown (it's been a long, long, time since so many New York dinner conversations have focused on the state senate).