SACRAMENTO MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2021

Falcons, boats, food, history—even a gold mine

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END O F TH E RUN

WHE N MA RK WALTERS starte d his job at Th e Sacrame nto Bee about two decades ago, rou ghly 3,00 0 em ployee s filtered th rou gh th e b uild ing th at was open seve n days a week, 24 hour s a day. Whe n all four massive pres s units were runn ing, Walter s re called, th e b uild ing s ho ok . For five months, sinc e th e presse s last rolled Jan. 30, th e b uild ing th at housed Th e Bee at 21st an d Q street s underwent a massive dec ommi ss ion ing process. I n th e wee ks th at foll owed, cutting torches rippe d apar t th e th ree-and-a-hal f-s tor y presse s into sc rap metal. Huge machines reached th roug h a gap ing h ol e in th e s id e of th e pres s room to lift out th e stee l unit s that littered a fo rme r park ing lot like tombstones in a western graveyard . B y July 31—when th ere wa s no t rac e of The Be e le f t ins id e—th e 390,00 0-square-foot build ing had becom e a g ho s t town.

PH OT OGRAPHY B Y DIC K S CHM IDT

J ul y 29, 2021 A wor ker us es a metal sc rape tool to rem ove decades of pressroom ink sludge in the fi nal days of a fi ve-month project to rem ove the

massive Be e presses for sc rap metal.

TH E SACRAMENTO BEE co ns isted of adjoining fac ilities oc cupyin g 7 acres, two full cit y blocks—the 21st and Q S treet buildin g that op en ed in 1952 , w hi ch housed administration , sales an d the newsroom, an d th e newer production buildin g wi th printing presses built in 1982.

Walters, the Be e’s fac ilities manager, has overseen th e taking apar t afte r “being responsible fo r the physi ca l building—every nu t an d bolt,” h e said. “I didn’t get a chanc e to count ’em , but the re’s a lot of the m I was respo ns ible for HVAC, compresse d air, vacuum systems , all systems. I wa s a ls o in charge of securi ty an d fire, life and safety Wh at didn’t I do?”

After The Bee building wa s s ol d in 2017 to Shopoff Realty Investments, a S ou thern California c om pany, the newspaper becam e a tenant in it s own home W he n the pande mi c sent betwee n 600 and 70 0 employee s hom e in March 2020, the building sat mostly empty, Walters said, until th e dec om m issionin g began in Febr uary 2021.

By th e en d of J uly about 10 people roame d the cavernou s spac e w he re a full press once h el d 96 rolls of newsp rint—each one weighing up to 1,500–1,600 pounds , about 8 miles of paper.

“If you pu t all the pape r we ran end to end, i t woul d go to the moon and back twoand-a-hal f times,” Walter s said, re ca lling that at on e point th e paper’s sl ogan on its delivery trucks read , “Miss a day, miss a lot.”

In re ce nt ye ars , though, he added , “We were printing DTE—dead tree e di tions. We all know pape r is fragile, but if you tuck it away in th e dark, it’ll survive for a lo ng time. W ill this digita l stuff b e he re in 2,00 0 years?”

The Be e has moved to mu c h smalle r offices at Th e Can ne ry on Alhambra Boulevard wi th most of its staff wo rk ing offsite . Th e pape r is n ow printe d in Fremont and trucked to Sacramento fo r da ily distribution.

As th e last man out the door, Walters spoke wi th great pride of the en d of th e run.

“I t was th e be st job I eve r had in my life,” Walters said “The o rganization was great I love all the people. I had a wonderful tim e every day.”

July 21, 2021 Once a hotbed of frantic action, noise and activity, the post-press facility had everything removed and cleaned for the

May 6, 2021 “The pressroom is bleeding”: After removal of an entire line of presses, magenta ink remains where supply lines feeding one unit had been cut in preparation for demolition.