Buildings
In 1894, the Evening News’ home was the “Flatiron” building, which still stands at 5901 Sixth Avenue, at the corner of Main and Park. Initially, the newspaper used only the first floor offices, and the pressroom was located in the building’s small basement. A few years later, it expanded to the upper floor, where a newsroom was established.
By 1903, the Evening News and Telegraph-Courier had outgrown the “Flatiron” building and moved to a building on the north side of Wisconsin Street. The building, which no longer stands, was located on today’s 600 block of 58th Street. With this move, the daily newspaper modernized, installing a Cranston perfecting press that could simultaneously print eight newspaper pages. Within five years, though, it already was outdated and was replaced with a web press that could print 8,000 copies per hour.
On March 7, 1913, in a front page story, the Evening News announced plans to erect a new newspaper plant one block west, on the opposite side of Wisconsin Street, today’s corner of Seventh Avenue and 58th Street. “It is proposed,” the story said, “to make this the permanent home of the Kenosha Evening News.” Though the building has undergone three major remodelings and several additions, it remains the current home of the Kenosha News.
The new fireproof brick newspaper plant was designed by Head, based on his experience in the printing business. In August 1913, the Kenosha Evening News moved into its new home. The offices, business and editorial departments, were located on the first floor, along with the job printing department, which had become an important income source for the Head-Simmons Publishing Co.
The job shop was responsible for printing, illustrating, cutting and binding of all kinds of labels, circulars, booklets and programs. It handled local publications like the Women’s Club bulletin and the high school newspaper, Kenews. Customers could have stationery, posters, handbills and many other items printed.
Installed in the building’s basement was the newspaper’s own brand-new high speed rotary color press, which printed 18,000 copies per hour and was the first of its kind in Wisconsin.
The entire second floor was built as a lodge hall and, for a number of years, was home to the Loyal Order of Moose. During World War I, the newspaper’s hall was turned into a recreation center for soldiers and sailors who visited from the northern Illinois training camps.
The Evening News again outgrew its facilities and an addition was constructed west of the existing building. When it formally opened February 19, 1924, the newspaper plant’s floor space doubled and the building’s general layout would continue for a quarter century.
The composing room, editorial and advertising offices were moved to the second floor. The job printing department was housed on the first floor. The basement area was used for storage, including a fireproof vault to store bound copies of local newspapers, some dating back as far as 1840. Amenities were impressive, a ladies rest room, tiled toilets, ample natural skylighting, a marble stairway and attractive decor.
In the addition’s basement a new Goss Straightline press was installed. It was a 30-ton, 13-foot (4.0 m)-high behemoth capable of printing 32-page newspapers with various color options at a speed of 25,000 copies per hour.
In 1948, the News building underwent a complete remodeling. The job printing shop disappeared, its first floor space given over to the business and advertising departments. The composing room was enlarged and a photo darkroom was installed.
Highlighting the renovation was the installation of a five-unit color press, three times the size of the one it replaced. It could print up to 80 pages at once, while cutting the press run of 18,000 copies to less than two hours. Through a large picture window fronting on 58th Street, passers by could watch the daily being printed.
The 1980s also saw the construction of a 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) distribution center, including insertion equipment to accommodate the growth of preprinted advertising sections.
Read more about this topic: Kenosha News
Famous quotes containing the word buildings:
“If the factory people outside the colleges live under the discipline of narrow means, the people inside live under almost every other kind of discipline except that of narrow means—from the fruity austerities of learning, through the iron rations of English gentlemanhood, down to the modest disadvantages of occupying cold stone buildings without central heating and having to cross two or three quadrangles to take a bath.”
—Margaret Halsey (b. 1910)
“The desert is a natural extension of the inner silence of the body. If humanity’s language, technology, and buildings are an extension of its constructive faculties, the desert alone is an extension of its capacity for absence, the ideal schema of humanity’s disappearance.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,—faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)