By Brad Flory
JTV
An old newspaper geezer feels an odd mixture of delight and sorrow while watching festivities like those staged in downtown Jackson Aug. 5.
The event was a groundbreaking ceremony for a project to turn the empty Citizen Patriot building into residential apartments. Assembled dignitaries used six ceremonial shovels to throw dirt on the grave of my career.
“It’s a great day!” declared the main developer of what will be called the Albert Kahn Apartments.
For nearly 30 years, I worked inside the Citizen Patriot building as a reporter and opinion columnist. I climbed the stairs to the second floor at least 25,000 times, which is the best explanation for why I do not weigh 400 pounds. I saw feuds and weird behavior and torrid office romances inside those walls. I also saw a special camaraderie and sense of shared purpose.
It sounds pretentious, but old newspaper geezers used to think our work was important.
The Citizen Patriot building was beautiful and rock solid, and it proclaimed its importance in capital-letter inscriptions facing Jackson Street. “HE WHO MOLDS PUBLIC OPINION GOES DEEPER THAN HE WHO ENACTS STATUTES,” it said, and more.
Perhaps we exaggerated our importance. In any case, the Citizen Patriot could not escape the swift and brutal decline of its industry, and its building was vacated in 2012. By then, the office built in 1927 was far too big for what remained of the company.
Times and technologies change, but people of my professional background are convinced our communities lose a vital part of their own identities when they no longer need newspaper offices. That sense of loss explains the sorrow felt at the groundbreaking.
The delight is simpler and more direct.
I am delighted that the Citizen Patriot building will have new life instead of decaying until it is torn down. No one wanted that ending. The apartments will also encompass the former Beffel Lighting store, and a new addition will be constructed.
“I am so excited for the people who will be able to live at the Albert Kahn Apartments!” declared a City Councilwoman.
What is happening to the Citizen Patriot building is not particularly rare. The project started with a company in New York that buys empty newspaper offices around the country because those structures tend to be cheap and well-built.
Old newspaper geezers are saddened to learn such business opportunities even exist.
Still, we cannot change the flow of history any more than canal-boat pilots could stop the railroads. The Albert Kahn Apartments will be good for Jackson, and that’s a nice legacy for a proud old newspaper office.