{"id":24320,"date":"2016-05-05T00:01:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T07:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=24320"},"modified":"2016-05-05T00:01:46","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T07:01:46","slug":"oakland-tribune-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/oakland-tribune-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland Tribune: The Trib Is Dead, Long Live the Tribbers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
On the Oakland Tribune’s last day of publication, dozens of former employees marked the day with\u00a0a trip to the top of the 1923 Tribune Tower. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Another\u00a0newspaper has bit the dust. The last edition of the 150-year-old Oakland Tribune with its familiar gothic nameplate was stuffed into local news racks and tossed onto driveways around San Francisco’s East Bay on Monday morning,\u00a0April 4. Twenty-four hours later, the\u00a0Oakland Tribune would be no more.<\/p>\n

It would be subsumed,\u00a0along with a handful of\u00a0other Bay Area newspapers, by\u00a0what is now known as the East Bay Times, owned by the Bay Area Newspaper Group.<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>
Tom Henderson was a Trib paperboy. Now his businesses occupy the Tribune Tower. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Trib is gone. But dozens of Tribbers live on. Some have gone on to community\u00a0relations jobs or\u00a0in-house corporate publications.\u00a0Some have retired or resorted to freelancing. Many have written books. A few, a very few, continue on as newspaper staff reporters, photographers, editors and printers.<\/p>\n

Mourning the Oakland Tribune<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Clearly, the\u00a0demise of a major metropolitan daily<\/a>\u00a0calls for a wake. And, sure enough, emails were exchanged, and long-time sportswriter and author Dave Newhouse<\/a> put an event together. Tom Henderson, a former Tribune paperboy now in possession of\u00a0the old Trib Tower\u00a0at 13th and Franklin in downtown Oakland, graciously opened the Tower’s doors for a tour.<\/p>\n

It had been a while since my stint at the Tribune — 1980 to 1992 — but I wasn’t going to miss this wake.<\/p>\n

Henderson\u00a0treated us all to an elevator ride to the top of the Trib Tower. As a working stiff back in the 1980s, I’d never had the privilege of checking\u00a0out the view from way<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>
Tribbers held a lunch-time wake for their old paper at the Tribune Tavern in honor of the paper’s last day of publication. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Kevin<\/a>
Kevin Fagan, now a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, sang at lunch. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Kathy<\/a>
Kathy O’Toole, former metro editor, snapped photos from the top of the Tower. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Former<\/a>
After lunch, Tribbers lingered under the facade overhang of the Tribune building in downtown Oakland. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

up there. It was spectacular. And the old city room — where a baby had been born in the women’s room some years before my arrival at the Tribune, and where, during the ’80s, staff diversity was said to match the diversity of the city it represented — had been beautifully renovated, complete with a cushy employee lunch room. Where reporters had sweated out their deadlines at mismatched desks on rickety office chairs under dingy ceilings, office workers now enjoyed tidy cubicles and bright, industrial-chic\u00a0decor.<\/p>\n

The Tribune Tavern\u00a0— Hipster Hangout<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The\u00a0tech boom is pushing young creatives out of San Francisco and across the Bay to Oakland these days, which means trendy restaurants are now replacing the quick and predictable\u00a0sandwich shops I frequented\u00a0in my Tribune days.<\/p>\n

After our tour of the Tower, we\u00a0Tribbers treated ourselves to lunch at one of the new, spiffed-up places — the Tribune Tavern. The bustling place is\u00a0owned by Trib groupie<\/p>\n

\"Brass<\/a>
The brass and marble bank of elevators on the Tower’s first floor hadn’t changed a bit since my Trib days. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Name<\/a>
Neither had the familiar gothic typeface of the paper’s name plate. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Henderson, and the food is great.\u00a0We former Tribune staffers\u00a0might not be able to report for duty at our old newspaper any more, but at least there’s one congenial place in town that we can still call home.<\/p>\n

Note to readers: You may have noticed that from time to time I’ll\u00a0post (with permission) one of my old Oakland Tribune columns. They’re\u00a0all\u00a0about my days\u00a0as a woman with a job, a husband, a couple of kids and a much-needed sense of humor. <\/em><\/p>\n

Some of my favorites are: “How Much Life Is Enough? A Friend Dies,”\u00a0\u00a0“Kindergarten Looms for a Five-Year-Old and His Mom”<\/a>\u00a0and “‘Madman’ Exposes the ’60s Girdle — But Will She Get It Off in Time?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Downtown<\/a>
Downtown Oakland, 13 Street. Photo\u00a0by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"On<\/a><\/p>\n

The Oakland Tribune is dead. But dozens of Trib staffers live on. On the California paper’s last day, they gathered for a wake. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[1711,34,1712,671,479,1713,1714,1323,1251,81,82,1715,1716],"class_list":["post-24320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-bay-area-newspaper-group","tag-dont-miss","tag-east-bay-times","tag-journalism","tag-journalists","tag-kathy-otoole","tag-kevin-fagan","tag-newspapers","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-tribune","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-the-tribune-tavern-restaurant","tag-tribbers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}