Four years ago today (May 30, 2020), I drove from Dover Township to the LNP | LancasterOnline newsroom at 8 West King Street in downtown Lancaster for the final time, to clean out my desk.
No, not that kind of desk cleanout.
It was my first time back in the newspaper office since mid-March, when we had abruptly begun work-from-home protocol because of COVID-19, with no time beforehand to gather anything but the absolute essentials.
By late May, we were granted short windows to return to the office, one by one, and do a more deliberate cleaning and boxing-up of our workspace. We were boxing-up because, even before the pandemic, the plan for mid-2020 was to relocate to a brand-new, state-of-the-art newsroom a couple of blocks away in downtown Lancaster.
But because of the pandemic, we never got to have an official farewell for 8 West King or a full-staff welcoming event at the new location.
In fact, I've never been to the current LNP | LancasterOnline newsroom for a work shift.
I'm still working from home (50 months and counting) — only home is now the southern Arizona desert, instead of Dover Township, Pennsylvania. From here, I still do the same job I did in 2020, editing letters and columns about Trump and guns and democracy and public health. I just get up a lot earlier in the morning to start doing it on East Coast time.
Anyway, I took some photos four years ago today for posterity and am sharing them now for this four-year anniversary.
And this is a photo of a very green stairwell at 8 West King that I took in 2018. The building will live only in memories. The site is being turned into Mosaic by Willow Valley Communities, a residential high-rise for active adults ages 55 and over. I hope they include a plaque somewhere about all the amazing journalism that once took place at that location.