Piloting a transition and saying farewell to a good friend

TONY DODERO

A week from Monday, the Daily Pilot will have changed locations for

the first time in nearly 50 years.

That’s right, in case you haven’t heard, at the end of this week,

the staff is packing up its bags at our longtime home at 330 W. Bay

Street and moving up the road to a new office within the Times Orange

County building at 1375 Sunflower Ave. in Costa Mesa, right behind

the new Ikea building. Some of you were probably hoping otherwise,

but yeah, I’m going too.

It’s going to be a tough change for me. For pretty close to 15

years, give or take a few sabbaticals, I have been making the trek to

the Bay Street office, the longtime home of the paper. It’s also

going to be tough on some of our readers, many of whom I see dropping

by the offices during the day to pick up the day’s paper.

Here’s a little background on why we’re making the move.

About 10 years ago, the powers that be sold this newspaper’s

offices and agreed to lease it back, signing a decade-long lease.

With that lease now expiring and our staff much smaller than it was

10 years ago, we tried to negotiate a new lease in this building but

couldn’t make a deal.

We tried a number of other spots around town and just couldn’t

make anything work. With space available at the Times offices, we

took the opportunity to work a deal with our parent company that

would be good for the paper overall.

Now, it’s time to make that happen, and by the end of the week,

we’ll be moving out of here and into our new offices.

We also will have a satellite office. We’re looking at a spot on

17th Street, where we hope to keep our classified and legal

advertising staff and newspaper racks for those aforementioned

readers.

While this building has many a memory for me, I fired off an

e-mail to former Daily Pilot Managing Editor Chuck Loos, who’s now

retired and spending his quality time on golf courses instead of

newsrooms.

Loos had some rich memories to share:

“When I went to work for CM Globe-Herald and Newport Harbor Pilot

in March 1961, the Bay Street building was a one-story affair,

housing everything save the offices of the publisher (Walter

Burroughs) and ad chief (Paul Nissen), which were in a converted

garage off the Thurin Avenue entrance to the parking lot on the west

side of the building,” he wrote. “Editorial offices were in the west

wing just off the parking lot. We typed our stories on aging Smith

Coronas and the papers were produced in the old hot-type fashion.”

The paper was owned by Burroughs, who sold it to the Los Angeles

Times (for the first time) to legendary Times publisher Otis

Chandler.

“After Burroughs sold the papers to Otis Chandler in, I believe,

late 1962, Otis came to visit, driving down from L.A. in his powder

blue, 1930s-era Packard sedan,” Loos wrote. Otis was touring the

building on his own when he mistakenly stumbled into the dark room,

apparently exposing several rolls of film and drawing some choice

words from darkroom chief Dick Drake. Realizing his mistake, Otis

beat a hasty retreat before Drake saw him. When told who the culprit

was, Drake said he didn’t give a damn who it was (he) had just ruined

a bunch of film. Or words to that effect.”

Loos wrote that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, then parent

company Times-Mirror decided to upgrade the building with an

architect named Will Jordan. Bob Weed was the publisher at the time,

he said.

Interestingly enough, as the building was being refurbished and

the press removed, the printing was done at the Times Sunflower

offices, the exact spot of our new home.

Loos noted that he left the paper in 1982, before computers were

installed in the newsroom. We would probably cease to exist today

without computers.

So to our dear readers, I ask for your patience. The transition

will be difficult for us and probably difficult for many of you.

But hopefully we’ll make it as seamless as possible for you and

our staff.

The biggest change with the move means we will be going from the

9-4-9 area code to 7-1-4. In the meantime, here is some information

to jot down, but remember, this won’t be effective until a week from

Monday. Use the old numbers until then:

* New mailing address: 1375 Sunflower Ave. Costa Mesa, 92626

* New main phone number: (714) 966-4600

* New main fax number: (714) 966-4679

* New newsroom fax number: (714) 966-4667

* New city desk number: (714) 966-4619

* New sports number: (714) 966-4616

* New sports fax number: (714) 966-4668

* New photo number: (714) 966-4692

* New photo fax number: (714) 966-4698

* My new number: (714) 966-4608

* Publisher Tom Johnson’s new number: (714) 966-4605

Our e-mail addresses and website address will not change.

Also, look for advertisements in the newspaper in the coming days

that will provide readers with key information about the changes.

I look forward to the readers visiting our new offices soon.

*

Speaking of the Times Orange County. I was looking forward to

seeing some old friends over there, one of whom was Stan Allison, a

Times staffer, who I had worked with in the past and had immense

respect for.

Sadly, we learned this week that Stan died at the early age of 53.

Stan was a gem of a man and always had a good word for his

colleagues. When I asked him last year to be a guest speaker for my

class at Orange Coast College, he never hesitated to raise his hand.

As he spoke to the class, Stan told them that while reporting is

hard work, he was having the time of his life.

He told them of a recent assignment that had him driving down the

73 Freeway to MacArthur Boulevard and heading south toward the coast

and seeing the ocean before him as he cruised down the hill toward

Coast Highway.

He told them how he turned left and headed south to his assignment

to spend a few hours at Crystal Cove State Beach.

“What could be better?” he asked them.

Stan was a walking advertisement for journalism and the students

really took to him.

Not only will the staff at the Times and the Daily Pilot miss

Stan, but he touched lives throughout Orange County.

Buon fortuna my friend.