Fading Icons

“Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.” --Satchel Paige.

And I thought they’d last forever.

Two iconic buildings where I spent a total of nearly 10 years of my life are empty shells now and I’m still a little shocked.

I worked at newspapers in Pennsylvania and Connecticut from the late Eighties to the mid-Nineties, where I had plenty of thrills, laughs and temper tantrums, and I learned recently that one is up for sale and the other is for rent.

Time moves on, nothing last forever, all things must pass. I get all that, but it’s jarring when it happens to you.

The two structures could not look more different.

The now former Pocono Record building on Lenox Street in Stroudsburg, PA, where I started my first daily newspaper job in 1988, is a 21,000 one-story building on a 1.79-acre lot.

The Waterbury Republican-American building at 389 Meadow Street in Waterbury, CT is a landmark in the west-central Connecticut city.

The building is a former railroad station that was designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White and built in 1909, and it is known for its 240-foot-tall clock tower modeled after the 14th-century Torre del Mangia located in Siena, Italy.

The clock tower was added in 1916 at the request of the railroad company's president, and the four Seth Thomas clocks have a diameter of 16 feet each.

I didn’t want to work at either one of them.

I had convinced myself that I was going to become a famous novelist-screenwriter-filmmaker at any minute and then would proudly march out the respective doors and start the brilliant career I had been ordained to have.

Yeah, well, that didn’t quite happen.

And that streak continues to this day.

The Party’s Over

I worked 5 years at the Pocono Record as a police reporter and another 4 ½ years at the Republican-American and managed not to become famous during the entire time.

I met some wonderful people at these newspapers, many of whom I keep in contact with until this day; and I ran into some real card-carrying scumbags. Welcome to life.

The news of the changes came in rapid succession. Friends from Connecticut posted photos of the Republican newsroom, which was once so active, is now barren.

The newspaper was bought by Hearst Connecticut Media Group last year.

Last month, CT Insider reported that there would be a public sale of items remaining in the building, including. memorabilia, desks, chairs, filing cabinets, tools, storage racks and other items.

The Connecticut State Library, the Mattatuck Museum and several other historical groups had already toured the building and selected items of historical or archival interest.

I have to stay that it’s strange to picture librarians and museum curators walking through my old office.

A short time later, a friend who is a former Pocono Record reporter, posted photos of herself outside the building on Lenox Street in Stroudsburg.

The paper continues to operate out of the location as a tenant, alongside local contracting and business offices, according to local news reports.

From what I’m seeing online, the Pocono Record has scaled back significantly — it closed its Stroudsburg printing facility in 2018, moved production out of state, and now operates with a small staff and mostly digital content.

I’m long out of both these companies, and I was extremely happy to see them in my rearview mirror, but I never wanted to see them shuttered.

Both buildings represent failure and success to me.

Failure in that I gave into my fear of being unemployed that I didn’t aggressively purse my dreams and wound working with people who didn’t necessarily have my best interests at heart.

But they also are signs of success because I had to push myself to do things I had never done before.

So, I am grateful for those experiences, and I am truly sorry that these buildings have now gone dark.