On Topic: No time for nostalgia

The building — no matter that we ran the home office of 13-county business-to-business newspaper out of it for more than a dozen years — was known, for always and ever, as the fur vault.

It was situated just about where you could notice downtown Kalamazoo, Mich., fading into its outskirts — long, squat and one floor, and located across the street from a food co-op, a Friday-night rowdy concert hall and, for too-short a time, a corner diner that served the best pancakes I've ever eaten — as wide as your plate, they were, and as thick as a healthy stack of half-dollar coins.

But I refuse to get nostalgic over a building — not this building, certainly. And far more people I hear from back there are saddened that more than half of an adjacent edifice, the longtime home of the Kalamazoo Gazette daily newspaper, is being torn down to make way for an ever-sprawling hospital campus. (The original 1925 structure, along with a 1941 expansion, will be rehabbed and/or retained, I've read. Later additions to the building are slated for the wrecking ball, if they've not already met their maker by the time you read this.)

A friend sent me and a few other former colleagues a photo taken a couple weeks ago of what they've done thus far to the fur vault: They've knocked it down to rubble.

See, even I call it the fur vault, which is what it was for many years before we got there. The first time I went in that building, during my job interview, Bill Clinton was president and the fur vault's floor was littered with coat racks and hangers from its previous tenant. (No, all the furs were gone. Everyone always asks that.)

And for years — years, mind you — after we moved in and set up shop, we regularly were visited by women draped in luxurious fur coats, even in summer, as well as animal-rights activists. We found humor in that they generally would make it several strides into our office before they noticed the lack of furry merchandise displays and the chockablock abundance of desks, computer monitors and not-as-fashionably dressed newspaper staff.

Then they would stop in their tracks, blinking as they looked around. 'This isn't the fur vault anymore …

?'

We eventually convinced our publisher to put a sign out front to advertise our presence within.

We had many visitors over the 13 years I toiled in that building, from business owners aiming to make a pitch or lay a beef, to politicians — notably U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, the mastermind behind the lengthening of Daylight Saving Time and whose office for a time was one tall building over — to door-to-door sales people hoping to dispose of anything from wristwatches to kitchen-knife sets, to — frequently enough — locals who'd spent too much time at one of the bars down the street and decided this was an ideal time to stop by to see if we had any jobs open.

My own office was way in the back, and it was of decent size — large enough to get in my ancient wooden desk (complete with a 'hidden' drawer where I liked to image a predecessor might have kept a bottle of whiskey), a long table for my computer and the sort of detritus one gathers over the years of being in one place, one filing cabinet, a conference table and more chairs than one needed.

Remember, though, our building was constructed as a retail showroom, so its only window was at the front — with a display stage designed to attract passers-by. The only light back near my office was from the bulbs overhead.

I never knew if the sun shown or heavy rain fell outside. I used to joke there could nuclear fallout, but I wouldn't know it. (OK, in hindsight the allusion isn't that funny, but you get the point.)

The only thing of note father back in our building was the vault itself, rarely visited and empty of furs but still guarded by a thick door with its outsized spoked handle.

We were instructed when we first moved in always to keep the door closed and locked, to prevent miscreants who somehow might manage to break into the rear of the vault and then gain access into the newspaper's space. How they would manage that I've absolutely no idea.

And for the contents of the vault itself? It held little of consequence, unless you were a coat hanger hoarder.

New Year's Day though it is, this is no time to get wistful over 2016. A little less drama and bit more certitude in the new year would be fine with me.

The Corridor has a lot on its plate for 2017, plenty of unresolved business from 2016 and who knows what to come — including more debate about flood protection, a possible casino along downtown Cedar Rapids's busiest street and whether the mayor will make good on the speculations he'll run for governor.

On the state level, we're going to have to settle, one way or another, such as the calamitous Medicaid managed-care situation Gov. Terry Branstad will leave behind once he decamps for Beijing, and if we'll fulfill the promises made by many to better fund kindergarten-through-grade-12 education.

Hang on to your daily planners. It could be another bumpy ride.

You can watch a 1990 TV commercial for the fur coat store Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbUOqkaC5i0. The business' actual name was Three Rivers Furs, but hardly anyone ever called it that during my tenure in the building.

l Michael Chevy Castranova is business editor of The Gazette; (319) 398-5873; michaelchevy.castranova@thegazette.com