As the waterfront building that once housed Jacksonville’s daily newspaper faces the wrecking ball, former longtime staffers of the Florida Times-Union are sharing bittersweet memories of their time working there. They recall camaraderie, competition and a deep love of newsprint that runs through their collective veins.
They first stepped through the doors of the large square building at 1 Riverside Ave. a generation ago. It was a time when many cities had more than one daily paper competing for readers. Advertising revenue was plentiful; newspapers typically had average annual returns of 12% or higher.
And the building that first opened in 1967 was a mid-century modern affair — bright, new and splashy, with a large staff and budget to match.
Darryl Swearingen spent 44 years at the T-U, retiring as production manager and newsprint inventory manager in 2008. He actually started at the Times-Union in 1964 in its former location before moving to 1 Riverside three years later. Swearingen worked in what was then called “the composing room.”
“I was very happy that we were leaving the old Times-Union Journal on Adams and Pearl and going to a new place. And once we got there in ‘67 it was so nice to have your own parking lot. We didn't have to feed the meters on the street,” he said Monday on First Coast Connect. “We had a cafeteria!”
The longtime press worker recalls witnessing decades of rapid technological change in the way the paper was assembled and printed.
“First, it was all a lot of type machines. Everything was made up on page forms, and they made them all in hot type and wrapped a news type around all the advertising. Then they made a mat of it and shrunk it down in the stereotype department, made a lead cast of it, and it was sent to the press room and put on the press.
"Well, times changed and it went to a pay stub type deal where we made paper dolls, and then they would shoot that page form onto a camera and make a negative, and they would burn the plate on a Di-Litho plate. Well, after all that, we went to pagination. Everything was built on computers. It was quite a change from when I started to when I retired.”
For former Features Department Editor Sarah Wood Hunt, 1 Riverside Ave. will always be “the new building.” She started at the T-U in 1967 just two months after it opened its doors. Hunt was originally hired to write for the Jacksonville Journal, a rival publication to the larger T-U.
This is the second time that I have felt mournful,” said Hunt, who also edited the magazine Water’s Edge.
“Because when the Journal closed, and they took the Journal name off of the Times-Union, that was a sad time for us who had been originally hired by the Journal. Because the Journal and the Times-Union staff were highly competitive.”
Wood remembers the way the Journal and T-U staff remained competitive during the time they had to share cramped office space, before the two staffs joined under one banner.
“Between the two newsrooms was the library. And then we had what we called the morgue, because it was where all of the clippings were put into file folders. So we would have to share the Xerox machine in that space, but we didn't speak to one another when we were waiting in line there.”
Carolyn Gentry first stepped through the doors of 1 Riverside Ave. in 1975. She became the paper’s public affairs director and for many years ran its signature program honoring Jacksonville women, the Eve Awards.
“I had been a high school English journalism teacher. So it was a dream job for a high school journalism teacher to come and work for the Florida Times-Union. I'm a Jacksonville native. And so newspaper readership was a habit in our home all during my era.” Gentry also recalls the paper sponsoring the Jacksonville River Run, which would become the Gate River Run, along with arts initiatives that would lead to the creation of the city’s Cultural Council.
Karen Brune Mathis, former T-U business writer and now editor at the Jax Daily Record, first started at the paper in 1978.
“It was the first time they had really beefed up the business section. I was struck by the fact this was a real newsroom at the time. I think we took for granted everything that we had at our disposal back then. But it was a big newsroom, the kind you see in the movies now.”
For Mathis and her former colleagues, the building is a reflection of the era when it was constructed.
“The building had a real ‘Mad Men’ vibe to it. And it was just a lot of fun camaraderie throughout the building. You got to know everybody so well. And we all stay in touch today.”
As the old building gives way to new development, with the current T-U staff now housed at the Wells Fargo Building, the journalists who spent decades churning out stories at 1 Riverside Ave. are feeling wistful, but also philosophical, even hopeful, about the future of local journalism.
Said Hunt: “I remember years ago, we had a meeting in what was the auditorium of the Journal building. And Carl Cannon was the publisher at the time. And he said that he had been to a meeting and that they had talked about how newspapers would someday change in the future. And then at some point, we would have something like a computer, like a flat computer delivered to our home to read the newspaper on. Funny, huh?”
“I think the building coming down, of course, is horrifying,” Gentry said. “We talk about the shrinking, struggling newspaper industry. But I think that the newspaper industry is evolving. It's developing marvelous websites like jacksonville.com. Our interactive editorial page is an innovation that I find extremely interesting. Our photojournalism is superb. There are many things that I find still delightful. And something to look forward to.”
