ARN demolition: Views from across the street
Sidney Levesque
Marketing director, Abilene Cultural Affairs Council
Levesque is a former ARN staffer (1999-2009), and from her ACAC office, she can see the former newspaper site.
"The Abilene Reporter-News building at 101 Cypress Street has been an anchor in downtown Abilene for 100 years. I spent 10 years there as a reporter and later as one of the editors. We laughed, cried and stressed in that second-floor newsroom. We watched romances and breakups within its walls.
We caught mice and bats. From the single window overlooking Cypress Street and sometimes from the roof, we witnessed parades, floods, gatherings and all kinds of humanity and inhumanity happening. I learned a lot of lessons working in that building, many the hard way. I matured, grew as a person and as a reporter. I made lasting friendships.
The newsroom was a second family, and the ARN building was a second home.
Watching it come down these past few weeks from my office window at the T&P Depot, I can’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia, but also a sense of hope as downtown Abilene enjoys a rebirth. The ARN building may be gone, but the ARN remains, in new digs, delivering news new ways, but always watching over our city and sketching our world exactly as it goes."
Laura Moore
Executive director, The Grace Museum
Moore works across Cypress Street from the ARN. In 2018, she and her staff welcomes newsroom and advertising personnel to the fourth-floor meeting room, which became our office for five days after our fire.
"A part of that plot of land was the first plot sold to make Abilene. To me, that is impactful because on that plot of land, since the inception of Abilene, there has been life and there has been commerce. This new chapter is continuing in that vein. It has been part of our history since the beginning of our history.
Since the building was going to be sold and it no longer was the newspaper, I came home to the fact that it would have new life. I saw the demolition as the next chapter and very positive.
It also has been intriguing to watch and that many people have talked about it. They come to The Grace and stood on the sidewalk to watch it come down."
Glenn Dromgoole
With his wife, Carol, owner of Texas Star Trading Co.
Dromgoole was editor from 1986-97. He also works across the street from the old ARN.
"I enjoyed my 12 years as editor of the Abilene Reporter-News and was sad to see the building bulldozed. That building held not only a lot of great memories for those of us who worked there, but it also represented the newspaper’s giant footprint on Abilene history as the oldest business in town.
People like Bernard Hanks, George Anderson, Frank Grimes, Stormy Shelton, Ed Wishcamper, Katharyn Duff, Dick Tarpley, Frank Puckett and others too numerous to mention made a huge difference in the life and culture and economy of Abilene. That legacy will live on even with the building gone.
The ironic thing about it is that at one time the newspaper wanted the city to demolish the old Drake (Grace) Hotel and make it a parking lot for the paper. Now, at least part of the ARN property will become a parking lot used by people visiting The Grace Museum."
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: ARN demolition: Views from across the street
