Page:Oregon Exchanges volume 5.pdf/217
PORTLAND TELEGRAM MOVES INTO FINE NEW HOME OF ITS OWN
SINCE October 14 the Portland Telegram has been in its new home at the corner of Eleventh and Washington streets, where all departments of the paper have ample room to work and grow after months in the cramped old quarters in the Pittock block where the Telegram was published from February 27, 1915, until last October. Practically all of the three-story building, 100 by 100 feet, in which the evening daily is now housed is given over to the Telegram, a few store locations on the street floor being the only space not occupied by the paper.
The pure colonial architecture of the red-brick-faced structure which is topped by a replica of the tower on Independence hall stands out among the surrounding buildings and is distinctive among Portland business blocks. The architectural entrance to the building faces diagonally across the intersection of the streets, but this leads only into the business office. The real entrance is about the middle of the Eleventh street wall through an unimposing door which leads into a narrow hall. Here are the elevator and the stairways to the upper floors and the basement.
News Room on Second Floor
The feature of the second floor, especially from the reporter's standpoint, is the large, airy news room with its ample light and spacious accommodations. This room, 40 × 73 feet, fronts on Washington street. The copy desk occupies the east end of the room and is connected by a pneumatic tube system with the composing room on the third floor. The Associated Press occupies the corner room adjacent to the news room, and adjoining it on the Eleventh street side are the offices of J. E. and L. R. Wheeler, owners of the paper. The managing editor's office opens on the northwest corner of the news room, and adjoining it are the offices of the political editor, editorial writers and of the classified advertising department. The library is along the west wall of the news room. Other features of the second floor include the roomy quarters of the circulation department and an auditorium which is a general utility and rest room.
On the third floor are the seventeen Intertype machines on which the news is set, and the other adjuncts of a thoroughly modern composing room. The art and engraving departments are partitioned off in ample quarters along the Eleventh street wall. A speedy little elevator carries the mats from the stereotyping department to the casting room in the basement.
The two presses on which the Telegram is printed, sextuple Hoe presses with a combined capacity of 24,000 papers an hour, occupy a part of the basement, although there is yet room for two more presses of like size and for paper storage. Moving these presses without suspending publication was an interesting operation. It was done by moving one press at a time, the dead lines on all editions being moved ahead a few minutes to allow the one press to handle the circulation. It kept the press humming over time, but things went off without a hitch. The composing room equipment was moved between the time the last edition came out on a Saturday afternoon and the first edition came out at 11:30 the following Monday.
The growth of the Telegram as evidenced by the new home of the publication and progress of the state at large were commemorated in a special edition on November 15
Visiting newspaper men and friends of The Telegram have a standing invitation to come in and inspect the new building and to see the staff at work in the newest of the homes of Oregon newspapers,
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