And one day, out of the blue, a letter appeared under our doors. To paraphrase: This building [
this historic building] will be closed and locked by July 31st. My eyes blinked a few times, I swallowed, then read the letter again. I held confirmation in my hands.
"You can't close the building by the end of the month!" a tenant shrieked on the fifth floor, supposedly, at the owner. But the owner did. Until I saw the letter, as I watched people carrying boxes out of the building, I couldn't believe anyone would act on only a shriek heard, allegedly, by someone in the elevator down the hall. A kind of Exodus began.
Even MyMrMallory took action, he who refused to move, and found office space the very morning he read the letter.
Finally, it sank into my head: We had to move out. We had to find other office space. And we only had four weeks so to do.
Because, we were informed, the elevators could not be repaired.
Maps and boxes were brought out from the offices to crowd the hallway on our floor.
Our maps, gently, though messily, placed in the back seat of my sedan.
Bob brought out more maps and more stuff to be packed.
The moving company, Albert's, surrounded the building with large trucks.
One of our movers told me that on July 30th,
they loaded from seven o'clock in the morning to midnight.
We had to buy boxes, bubble wrap, and wrapping paper. More boxes. More bubble wrap. The moving company brought more boxes and wrapping paper. We did very little for four weeks but pack, pack, and pack.
Only one elevator was in use during those four weeks, and could only be operated manually, to serve twelve floors of tenants moving out. With every trip, arms and dollies loaded with boxes, we had to phone one of the men downstairs to bring the elevator up to the seventh floor; and when we needed to go up, we waited in the lobby for the elevator to finally come down and be unloaded, piling stuff that crowded the small lobby area.
Desks, tables, chairs, filing cabinets . . . coming down with the elevator, its malfunctioning engine ever-present in our minds. At times, I had to go outside to take three deep breaths.
As I packed, I struggled to accept the historic building closing, but I comforted myself with the thought that someone, someday, would buy it and renovate it, turn it into an apartment building, or something like that, a Quixotic thought, perhaps. I longed to be in the countryside with my camera.
At the same time, I felt elated to leave, for the maintenance was indescribably bad, and the maintenance crew surly in attitude. It was, I see in retrospect, as if a disdainful youngster found himself saddled with this building, as if saddled with an older relative, a member of the "greatest generation," and then left her to the uncouth, unreasonably reliant upon their concern to care for her.
The service was the least of the problems, for we all learned to live with it, somehow. It was the air circulating in the building, more significantly, that was not healthy. I stopped going to our offices years ago because I could not breathe.
Once a month, when I did go, I pointed to the black ring around the air vents in our offices, my face contorted with horror. "Really, we must move," I would say, knowing MyMrMallory would not undertake the inconvenience unless there was a catastrophe. And a catastrophe did occur.
We moved out of the First Wichita, known as the "Big Blue" . . .
. . . into the diagonally opposed building, the City National, just as historic,
but in contrast managed professionally.
A fellow from the telephone company surrounded by wires
as he installed our lines at the City National building.
iPhone photos.
From our corner offices at the City National, we gaze now at the "Big Blue," its shiny facade reflecting under the sun, its color an attractive saturated blue that conceals the disaster within. I noted this with not much sorrow, but my sorrow deepened when I realized the gravitas of the loss to the city.
My thoughts drift often to the security officer who worked at the "Big Blue," a burly, sweet man, named Blue -- and by the size of him, he could also be called "Big Blue" -- for what will become of him? He made coffee every morning and at mid-afternoon, too; and he could tell the weather as well as an educated weatherman.
"Will it rain this week, Blue?" I would ask him, and he would mumble a "Yesh," or a "Naw," shake his sweet head, his white teeth sparkling in his smile, and resume reading the newspaper. It rained or it did not, depending on what Blue said.
He was always kind to me, and cheerfully pressed the elevator button when he saw me walking through the front doors. So kind was Blue, that MyMrMallory reciprocated by taking the newspaper to him every day of the week.
The local newspaper, Times Record News, published an editorial on Sunday, July 28th.
Update:
Inside the Big Blue, as I walked down the hall toward the mailroom, I could see on the floor a sheet of paper. I recognized it right away. My heart jumped. It was the letter written by Womble to his tenants telling us we had only thirty days to vacate, and that thereafter he would turn off the air and lock the building. I reached down to pick it up. The letter had foot prints on it. I don't recall what I did with my copy, though, knowing me, I surely tore it in half and tossed it. I had forgotten its harsh message. See its image below:
