This is what all the hoopla is about, with stories on TV and in the paper, announcing that this 105-year old structure is to be converted into 21 more downtown loft apartments. Good for the Foshees. The building was built in 1905 to hold the printing presses of the then 18-year old Alabama Journal, the brash, upstart competitor of the 80-year old Montgomery Advertiser. The Advertiser bought the Journal in 1935, and let it operate as an afternoon edition, but retaining some of its rambunctious character. By that time the staid Advertiser had won a Pulitzer, and took itself too seriously. The Journal was folded in 1993, and things were never the same again. I still remember the sadness I felt when I stepped out into my front yard to retrieve the final edition. My picture of the building was taken in 2011 when I was merely wondering what story the old remnant had to tell.

-Charles Humphries