I walk in the footsteps of giants

My newspaper's new newsroom occupies a floor of Philadelphia's old Strawbridge's department store. It's a spooky feeling to walk to my desk through a corridor identical to the one where, one floor below, I had once pawed piles of socks, T-shirts, and boxer shorts.

The Beaux-Arts-style building dates to 1931 and was the second store the Strawbridge & Clothier company built at the site. Before that, Thomas Jefferson had his office here when he was secretary of state, across the street and a block up from where he had earlier written the Declaration of Independence (with some judicious copy-editing help).

But neither Jefferson nor his doubtless stream of important visitors captures my imagination as immediately as does another figure who once worked here and who is even more intimately associated with Philadelphia.

(That's an introduction to my new newsroom. Read and see my farewell to my old one.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2012