EDITORIAL: Farewell to Jersey City (10/19/97)

EDITORIAL

Farewell to Jersey City

When we began writing this editorial a week ago, the memories and the history were already packed away in boxes, neatly labeled. The sadness was palpable. We were leaving Jersey City, bound for Parsippany (that's in Morris County, New Jersey). It was difficult to leave the place we had called home for the last 23 years. After all, this was where The Ukrainian Weekly grew up, literally.

The UNA's former headquarters on Montgomery Street holds many precious memories, for it was there that our paper's first 16-page tabloid issue came on July 4, 1976, on our new offset printing press; it was there that we published our book dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine and countless special issues dedicated to the Ukrainian Helsinki Monitoring Group, Ukraine's independence, the Chornobyl nuclear accident; it was there that our paper grew to 24 pages.

We loved our neighborhood and our neighbors. The view from the UNA building - well, it was simply the best. From our vantage point less than two blocks from the Hudson River, we could see the twin towers of the World Trade Center directly across from us, plus all of Manhattan from the Battery to the George Washington Bridge. Many of us still remember the breathtaking sites of Operation Sail 1976, marking the U.S. Bicentennial, which we witnessed from the rooftop of our 15-story building. And, of course, there was our famous neighbor, the 111-year-old Statue of Liberty whose ideals and name were so closely tied to that of our 104-year-old sister publication, Svoboda. Another link to the past - to UNA history - was located just three blocks away. What we used to call the "old UNA building" at 81-83 Grand St. was comfortingly close by, a connection to our roots. The UNA's color emblem depicted in bas-relief on stone still adorns the facade of that historic building.

Because of our proximity to New York (and our accessibility) we enjoyed many visitors - many of them historic figures. But there was so many other stories that walked right into our offices at 30 Montgomery Street ... so very many. The visitors came from all around the world: from throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and, more recently, from Ukraine, as our building became a regular stop for visitors in the heady days of sovereignty and independence.

How do you say good-bye to a building, a neighborhood, a period of your life and the community's life? Indeed, how do you bid farewell to an era in history? You make an effort by making your rounds on moving day, saying your goodbyes to the people who will remain in your old neighborhood. (Friends in the neighborhood were a large part of our wonderful Jersey City experience: the Greeks, Irish, Poles, Jews, Portuguese, Chinese, Koreans and others, including the Ukrainians). You snap some photos, you carefully take down the bulletin board and lovingly put away each and every photo of people - mostly staffers and others who had or have a connection to The Weekly - for they will reappear on that same bulletin board in another place 30 miles away. While pointing to yellowed issues of the newspaper, you tell a younger co-worker how it used to be, try to impart a feeling for the old days, recreate a smidgen of the atmosphere. But mostly you recall how it was, and your co-workers or superiors who are no longer there.

You realize your colleague next door is right: very few of us "originals" (i.e., those who moved from the old "old building") remain. Before closing the door to your office, you take a last look at the changing cityscape of Jersey City - this area that once was full of warehouses and piers, and today is home to the tallest office building in all of New Jersey. You remember with such indescribable pride that it was the UNA that began the urban renewal in this part of the city when it broke ground in 1970 for its new headquarters building. You study the tall factory building that is the most prominent feature outside your Jersey City office window with its smokestacks and high arched windows - and the wild "roof garden" that sprouted atop the now-abandoned structure. It, too, is a link to the past that will never be forgotten.

And you wonder: how will it be in the new place? You know many things will change. That is inevitable. But life goes on.

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