“I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future.” – Jorge Luis Borges
Today we at the Index-Tribune leave behind life as we know it at 117 W. Napa St.
We’re moving for a few months to temporary offices across the street, while our longtime digs enjoy a much-needed freshening up – a redesign to plant us firmly in the 21st century, as far as office spaces go, anyway. We should be back home at some point early in 2017.
As staff this week busily boxed reporter’s notebooks, red proofing pencils and AP style guides, many a moment was spent reflecting upon work-a-day life at the I-T HQ, a place few would argue has a particular je ne sais quoi entirely its own. If you’ve been to the I-T you know what I mean; if you haven’t, well, I’ll let the I-T staff put it in their own words:
Weirdness. Mazelike. Dark. Claustrophobic. Elusive.
These are just a few of the adjectives offered when staff was asked to describe the interiors at the Index-Tribune.
How many offices does one work in that would accurately be described with “weirdness” and “elusive”?
The paper has operated at this address since the 1920s, and the last major renovation was in 1957. But, as my Grandma would say, “this and that” has been added to the offices in the ensuing decades and I’ve no doubt the space we leave today is a far cry from how local contractor John Moll left it at the sunset of the Eisenhower administration.
All week long, Yvonne Soto-Pomeroy has snapped dozens of photos of the office; she wasn’t sure what she’d do with them, but felt it had to be done. Yvonne has worked here for more than 30 years – since when she was simply Yvonne Pomeroy – and she, like few others, has given much of her life’s work to this address.
“The building itself has the feeling of the Winchester Mystery House,” says Yvonne. “So many added rooms – and having to go through a room to get to different room or to the hallway; the upstairs at the front of the building vs. the upstairs at the back of the building.”
She recalls giving tours of the facility to schoolkids or other community groups over the years and that they would weave in so many directions through all the different departments it was almost dizzying.
As we move the last vestiges of thesauruses and staplers this week, I’m sure we’ll unearth some hidden enclosure in the back where we’ll discover several lost Kiwanis who have been trying to navigate their way to the front lobby ever since separating from a group tour in ’92.
Reporter David Templeton says he’ll fondly remember bonding with coworkers “while they were on their way to the bathroom.” It’s not as creepy as it sounds. David’s office, as it happens, is also the main thoroughfare to the hallway with the restrooms.
“It has been a great way for the new guy to get to know everyone,” says David.
Writer Christian Kallen has been lucky enough to have the only office that receives natural light – with a small porthole looking out at the Red Grape’s back dining patio. Christian has thrived in the natural light, putting to rest ongoing whispers of vampirism, however he is quick to point out that the windows don’t open. Even double-paned glass is a Siren’s song around here.
Longtime Managing Editor Bill Hoban has a more phantasmal relationship to the building and some of its now-defunct operations.
“Sometimes as I’m locking up in the early evening, I can swear I can hear the presses churning back in what used to be the press room,” says Bill.
The ghosts of what come and go in our lives can be haunting indeed.
When I first came here 10 years ago as a features writer following a five-year stint at the corporate-ish Marin IJ, the office seemed touchingly homemade. The most striking thing was the winding nature of the design – at that point 50 years in the making – which seemed to have evolved from a “we need more walls and dividers” perspective.
I remember having been here about six months when one day an employee from one of the admin departments, a pretty blond woman whose name escapes me, asked if I could sharpen a box of pencils for her – as she suffered from carpal tunnel and I sat near a wall-mounted hand sharpener.
After about 20 minutes of pencil sharpening, I embarked upon a Quixotic quest to return to her the bounty of pointy No. 2’s. I must have spent half a day wending throughout the building trying to figure out where the Yellow Pencil Lady sat and, in the end, returned to my desk with a year’s worth of pencils at the ready. “For all I know the woman didn’t even work at the I-T; I swear I never saw her again.”
Borges, the renowned Argentinean writer quoted at the top, wrote often about how the universe itself is a labyrinth of time and memory in which what we have done, and where, will always be a part of who we are – and we will inevitably circle back to those places, to be the same person.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same person who would waste a day on a quest for a pencil-needy blond with chronic hand soreness.
But I’ll always remember him, timid and unsure in those hollow, lightless corridors.
Farewell, 117 W. Napa St. as we knew you. Our footsteps will forever echo down your winding halls.
Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: