This undated photo shows the first floor of the Times Leader’s old headquarters at 15 North Main Street sometime after the then-new building opened.
                                 Undated file photos from Times Leader archives

This undated photo shows the first floor of the Times Leader’s old headquarters at 15 North Main Street sometime after the then-new building opened.

Undated file photos from Times Leader archives

15 N. Main will house King’s College doctoral program

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<p>This is how the first floor, gutted and being prepped for new use by King’s College, looked at 15 North Main Street during a tour arranged by King’s for current and former Times Leader employees this week. King’s will use the venerable building to house a new doctoral program in occupational therapy.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

This is how the first floor, gutted and being prepped for new use by King’s College, looked at 15 North Main Street during a tour arranged by King’s for current and former Times Leader employees this week. King’s will use the venerable building to house a new doctoral program in occupational therapy.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

<p>And undated photo shows the Times Leader presses in operation in the basement of the old 15 North Main Street headquarters shortly after they were installed. These presses were removed before King’s College bought the building to house the school’s first doctoral program. Note the parallel tracks in the floor on the right, an extensive sytem of such tracks ran the vast space of the basement, apparently to help move rolls of paper to the presses.</p>
                                 <p>Undated file photos from Times Leader archives</p>

And undated photo shows the Times Leader presses in operation in the basement of the old 15 North Main Street headquarters shortly after they were installed. These presses were removed before King’s College bought the building to house the school’s first doctoral program. Note the parallel tracks in the floor on the right, an extensive sytem of such tracks ran the vast space of the basement, apparently to help move rolls of paper to the presses.

Undated file photos from Times Leader archives

<p>The basement space where the presses once stood at 15 North Main Street, now cleaned of all ink, grease and other grime from when the Times Leader was printed there several decades ago. King’s College intends to turn this space into an expanded gross anatomy space complete with cadavers for health care students. Note the space in the floor to the left where a system of parallel rails helped move newsprint to the presses, which where anchored in the large rectangular holes.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

The basement space where the presses once stood at 15 North Main Street, now cleaned of all ink, grease and other grime from when the Times Leader was printed there several decades ago. King’s College intends to turn this space into an expanded gross anatomy space complete with cadavers for health care students. Note the space in the floor to the left where a system of parallel rails helped move newsprint to the presses, which where anchored in the large rectangular holes.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

<p>This undated photo shows the entrance to the second floor newsroom from the main front staircase of the newspaper’s former headquarters shortly after the building opened at 15 North Main Street.</p>
                                 <p>Undated file photos from Times Leader archives</p>

This undated photo shows the entrance to the second floor newsroom from the main front staircase of the newspaper’s former headquarters shortly after the building opened at 15 North Main Street.

Undated file photos from Times Leader archives

<p>The second floor newsroom, gutted by King’s College, as it appeared during a tour for current and former Times Leader employees this week at the old North Street headquarters, becoming new space for expanding King’s health care program.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

The second floor newsroom, gutted by King’s College, as it appeared during a tour for current and former Times Leader employees this week at the old North Street headquarters, becoming new space for expanding King’s health care program.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

<p>The same newsroom in 2016, with staff writer Bill O’Boyle working in the photo’s foreground.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

The same newsroom in 2016, with staff writer Bill O’Boyle working in the photo’s foreground.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

<p>Former Times Leader feature and music writer Alan Stout, wearing the face mask, stopped in what was a break room/conference room in the former Times Leader building and recounts being in the building when he heard, with disbelief about the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

Former Times Leader feature and music writer Alan Stout, wearing the face mask, stopped in what was a break room/conference room in the former Times Leader building and recounts being in the building when he heard, with disbelief about the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

<p>A view from a fourth-floor roof access platform of the former Times Leader Building on North Main Street shows the King’s College Richard Abbas Alley Center for Health Sciences. King’s bought the former Ramada Hotel and converted it to house health care programs and students. King’s is now converting the former Times Leader building to hold expanded components of health care education, including its first doctoral program.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

A view from a fourth-floor roof access platform of the former Times Leader Building on North Main Street shows the King’s College Richard Abbas Alley Center for Health Sciences. King’s bought the former Ramada Hotel and converted it to house health care programs and students. King’s is now converting the former Times Leader building to hold expanded components of health care education, including its first doctoral program.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

<p>The Times Leader Test Kitchen was reborn at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with writers and married couple Mary Therese Biebel and Mark Guydish trying new recipes in their home. But cooking for the original TL Test Kitchen nearly 20 years earlier actually happened in a small kitchen on the third floor of the paper’s former North Street headquarters. Here’s what it looks like now, stove and counter space removed.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

The Times Leader Test Kitchen was reborn at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with writers and married couple Mary Therese Biebel and Mark Guydish trying new recipes in their home. But cooking for the original TL Test Kitchen nearly 20 years earlier actually happened in a small kitchen on the third floor of the paper’s former North Street headquarters. Here’s what it looks like now, stove and counter space removed.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

King’s College now owns what was once The Times Leader building at 15 N. Main St., and as a group of about 20 current and former TL staffers toured their old stomping grounds on Monday, college leaders told us we should return for another tour — when the place is ready to open as the home for King’s first doctoral program, in occupational therapy.

They’re right. It will be great to see the building all spiffy and ready for a new chapter.

At the moment, it’s a gutted, dusty shell. But it was still interesting to see.

“I hesitate to say that I was seeing ‘ghosts,’ ” TL history columnist Tom Mooney said via email after the tour, which had been organized in response to his request. “But I will say that the memories were so strong that from time to time I felt that I was reliving those wonderful years.”

As soon as Tom mentioned “ghosts,” an image of our late managing editor Bill Griffith popped into my head. Griff tended to bark rather than speak, and I can still hear him barking at a 22-year-old obituary clerk (me), telling me to type into our computer system the contents of what I recall was a 17-page letter to the editor, written in cramped penmanship by a convicted child killer.

Of course I would have to touch the letter itself to proceed from page to page. Which is why Griff added the fatherly advice, “and then wash your hands!”

That spot where the obit desk used to be is also the spot where, about 18 years later, I walked into the newsroom on a Monday, and suddenly found myself surrounded by about six co-workers, each of them intently curious about my weekend. As my co-worker/ husband Mark Guydish later admitted, he’d confided in former managing editor Dave Iseman that he was going to ask me to marry him that Sunday. Dave apparently spilled the beans.

No doubt everybody who worked there has a wealth of memories — good, bad and, well, unusual, because a newspaper isn’t an ordinary business. At its best, it can be the lifeblood of a community. And, even though, as Mooney mentioned, a lot of us seem to be feeling “nostalgia tinged with sadness” for a place where the walls seemed to shake when the presses ran, we don’t have to be sad.

We have a new building. We have our memories to build on. And we have each other. And every day we can still strive to be the lifeblood of our community.