A sad milestone in the decline of the OD

[Clipper]

www.uticaod.com/utica%20photos/x1260737891/Last-O-D-printed-in-Utica-hits-the-press?foto=6

For those that have worked there, and for those that have read that publication for many many years, it is a sad milestone in it's decline.

That 60 year old press has been a millstone around the neck of those trying to put a newspaper on the streets in an expedient manner for years. The money and time invested in keeping that old relic running has simply grown to be more than the load can bear.

There have been efforts to have the press replaced all the way back to the Gannett days, and it was simply wayyyy too much money and effort to do it. It would be a MAJOR capital project to take that old press out of there and to put a new one in place, and the cost of the press itself would be only a portion of the cost. The present press room addition was literally built around the press. The monstrous components were craned into place as the building was being constructed, and then the building was completed and closed up around it.

Look closely at the photos. The sheer size of the press and the complexity of the operation always amazed me. The pressmen at the OD are some of the most dedicated people I ever met. When one works for a newspaper, putting the paper on the streets and in the hands of the reader is the ultimate goal. Newspaper people at all levels become sincerely dedicated to accomplishing that goal. The press crew at the OD have worked for years, putting that old press back together and preparing it to make another run the next night. Some nights they were barely able to make it limp through the run, and then were there all day the next day, repairing it for the next night.

The pressmen are the only Union employees at the OD. They are an extremely dedicated group and my only hope is that they will still be employed and that the OD will continue to do some sort of printing with the old press. Something that does not carry the urgency of the deadlines imposed on putting out a daily publication.

Look closely at the size of that machine in the photos. Those pressmen are not only skilled at printing, they are skilled and experienced in babying that huge beast, and know it's every quirk, every screw and every bolt. Just setting it up and putting the plates in place is an extremely complex task. Adjusting the ink and insuring that the color and contrast is correct in every copy is also the job of the press operators. They sample copies going by at a blurring pace, and make small adjustments all night long as the press runs. It always amazed me that they could reach down and snatch two or three copies from a conveyor that was moving at a flying rate, without disrupting the flow to the carousel that inserts the advertising inserts and to the bundling machines.

While I was not happy there, and moved on, I have to say that the newspaper business is one of the most exciting jobs I have ever held. It takes a real TEAM to get it done, and any disruption along the line, can bring the entire process to a stop. From the time that the bell rings and the press roars to life, until the last copy is printed, and the press winds down and stops, the entire operation from the press to the other production operations, to the transportation loading dock and out the door has to be perfectly orchestrated for peak efficiency, or the entire process stalls and your paper is late arriving on your doorstep.

My thoughts are with the personnel that have dedicated their lives to printing and to the production of the OD. Hopefully they will all be given other opportunities and will not be simply laid off. Most of them have been there for years.

It is with sort of a sad feeling that I post this. It truly IS a milestone and an indication that the printed news is becoming obsolete, and that people like Dave's dad an others will soon be simply part of a trade that is part of history. It is also just one more blow to the decline of the city of Utica when circulation numbers are so low as to be a contributing factor in the decision to cease printing in Utica.

[dgriffin]

Boy, that brings back memories. I remember in the late 1950's hearing and sometimes even feeling the presses installed then roll up to speed as far as away as UCA (next to St. John's Church) for the "valley" edition, printed first early in the day. After school I'd often walk down to the OD and get the keys from my father to borrow his car. If you walked in when the presses were running, the sound was magnificent!

It always took me back to when I was a little boy and the first time my father brought me to pressroom.

As Brother Jesse,I remembered the presses roaring to life:

"Lights begin to blink in warning and a sharp staccato buzzer blares out from somewhere above, echoing up and down the line of presses. The presses clunk and groan and quickly get up to speed. The roar is now deafening. You want to hold your hands over your ears, but none of the men seem impressed, so you keep your hands at your side and suppress the urge to scream in delight over the thundering machinery."

From Brother Jesse's tale, Monk In The Cellar:
monkinthecellar.blogspot.com/2010/12/xxxi-ink.html

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My office as transportation manager was directly on the other side of the wall from the press room, and I actually had to have a rubber coaster under my coffee cup to keep it from vibrating off the desk. There were actually ripples on the surface of the liquid in my cup from the vibration of the press. That press may be an old dinosaur, and may have well outlived it's useful life span, but it is a magnificent beast, and always impressed me with both it's size and it's complexity. The persons that engineered that thing were mechanical genius's.

[Clipper]

It will be interesting to see how the logistics plays out, printing a paper in Binghamton and getting it to Utica for on-time delivery to the carriers and retail outlets. Winter time on Paris Hill will be an interesting ride for the poor slob that drives THAT truck on a nightly basis, and I-81 isn't much better on many nights when Lake Effect kicks in around the Syracuse area.

The OD has had enough trouble getting the papers distributed LOCALLY on time without having to wait for them to arrive from Binghamton.

[dgriffin]

I know a carrier and his experience of other newspapers shows the plan will have problems. Our local daily is now printed in Troy. The printing plant, of course, serves more than one master (customer), so that's a problem. The carriers often have other employers and I'm told they sometimes abandon their routes so they can get to their day jobs when the newspapers don't arrive on time from the new printer who is miles away.

[Clipper]

It will be a bad time to be a district manager or to work in circulation. Even back when I worked there in 2000-2001, when the papers were late, both bundle delivery drivers and carriers had to go to their other jobs and to school. That left management, district managers, and circulation department reps to deliver papers. Many times (too many) I worked all night in transportation and then was expected to deliver bundle routes, and sometimes even carrier home delivery routes. It sucks when you are salaried, have worked since 9 PM, and are supposed to be going home at 7 AM.

I don't hold out too much hope for the new printing location being an improvement to the customer. For one thing, the paper will probably go to press earlier in order to print it and get it to Utica. That will mean that you will get no late evening news, or the lottery numbers. Sports scores were also always a sticking point. Often waited for Monday night football scores before starting the press run. Election results will be another item effected if the paper is to go to press at an earlier time than it does in Utica.

When printing locally, the press crew can actually hold the press start for a few minutes while the news room and plate makers update news right up to press time. Quite often they would change one plate for one page in order to update or report a late breaking news item. That will no longer happen with the paper being printed in Binghamton.

Some of the adult motor route carriers have to have their papers in hand by midnight or 1 AM at the latest in order to complete their huge motor routes and get to work on their other jobs.

I wish them all luck, and success, and hope it all works out okay. I damned sure am glad that I am not working there any more, and won't be the person trying to coordinate that chaotic mess if the papers come into Utica late, lol.

[dgriffin]

When looking at the local daily down here, I'm often struck by the thought that we're in some kind of a twilight zone of customer acceptance that prevents the newspaper from completely losing it's readers and forcing the paper to shut down. The paper has the twin advantages of being the only daily in town and of being read by those who will evidently put up with a lot because they really want a daily paper and have had one for so long. By the advertising (among other indicators) you can tell the readership is older, likes reading a paper in the morning (if it arrives) and wants to read about local political news, etc.

But the younger crowd is fast taking over and they get their news elsewhere, are not addicted to a daily paper and commute around the valley and don't really care about local issues. Frankly I'm surprised local daily newspapers are still in business in towns the size of Utica, let alone in nearby Kingston. I don't think it will be too much longer before both newspapers write their own obits.

[Clipper]

www.uticaod.com/features/x536844681/VIDEO-Last-O-D-printed-in-Utica-hits-the-press

Great video. Follows the paper from the press through the insert carousel that puts the flyers into the paper, down the conveyor to the bundle tying machines and finally to the dock where it is loaded and out the door.

[dgriffin]

Hey, neat! Brought back memories.

So the assembled papers still travel the conveyor "up and over." The insert carousel replaced me and the crew on Monday nights when we did that by hand, "supplementing" they called it at the time. We worked from when the mailroom cleared about 5 pm until about 9 one night a week, Monday, with a half hour break at seven, at which time we'd either run down to Donalty's for a ham sandwich, next door to Butch's for just a beer or to some place that served spaghetti on Jay St. that would have it waiting for us if we called ahead. 1962 or '63. I made about $12. The guys who really pushed it made $15 to $17. Never a person with an athletic build, I nonetheless developed a Charles Atlas right arm, complete with bulging muscles from what we would today call isometric exercise as I repeatedly slammed Family Weekly's into the comics section. Unfortunately, the rest of me would invite sand kicked in my face.

I don't think those presses are as loud as the old ones I remember. Are they hybrids? I'm having trouble remembering. I remember my Dad told me he thought they were going to get offset pressses in '72 or '73, but they wound up getting an old clunker (this one, I guess) from another Gannett paper, and I think it had an odd impression type, some sort of modified letterpress or maybe it was very early lithography?

If that's the same press they installed in '72, it's got to be a lot older than 60 years. Of course, with proper care, any machine will last. My job press here at Windswept Press was built in 1913. I am missing it and the hobby already.


www.windsweptpress.com/images/shop right light.jpg[/img]

[Clipper]

There are actually two conveyors feeding the carousel, and there are something like 8 stations around the carousel where there are people stationed to keep the machine fed with inserts, and as the papers travel around the carousel, they are opened by "fingers" on the machine, and each station drops an insert into the open fold. They then travel to the bundle machine that counts them into bundles, designated for a specific route or destination and counted out in accordance with a computer program, where a person stands and puts a computer generated "topsheet" onto the machine counted stack of papers, which then goes on down the conveyor belt to a machine that wraps nylon strapping around the bundle, and kicks it down the belt to the loading dock. There are two conveyors, feeding two ends of the loading dock, allowing for loading up to 4 vehicles at a time. The bundles come down the belt to the dock about 3 to 4 feet apart, and the dock worker is responsible for reading the bundle top and insuring the bundle is placed in the right vehicle. If a bundle route driver is not right there to back in as soon as the space is vacated, his papers go onto the floor in a stack and he has to carry them outside himself and load his own vehicle. There is no stopping the press for slowdowns on the loading dock. IF there is a delay on the loading dock, the dock workers soon find themselves ass deep in stacked bundles. There IS a red button on the wall over the conveyors on the dock, but if that button is pushed to stop the press, the transportation manager will be standing tall at staff meeting the next morning, explaining where the failure occurred that caused a press shutdown. In the entire time I worked there, we were fortunate enough to have never needed to hit the button on the dock.

If the press is shut down, paper is wasted and the procedure to get it back up to speed is quite involved and tedious. Usually at least a 1/2 hour delay.

The process from press to dock is usually a finely tuned and orchestrated symphony of motion and simply flows at an amazing pace. When it doesn't? It is mass confusion and turmoil. It becomes very stressful for the lead pressman, the production supervisor in the mailroom and carousel area, and the transportation manager. Not a job for the meek or weak of heart, lol. It is a place where supervisors and managers have to be confident and knowledgeable, and able to make quick decisions and give orders. The employees that work in those areas have to be ready to take those orders without dispute and to act quickly, in order to keep the entire process from breaking down. It is an intense and stressful work environment for everyone involved from the time the press starts until the last paper goes out the doors.