As I write this, there are boxes all around me.  I need to pack.
Outside the office, summer interns are busy clearing cabinet files. Documents containing business transactions and editorial matters are being stored in cardboard boxes as they are made ready for another move of The Tablet’s office.
As you should already know, there is no Tablet published on the Fourth of July weekend. This year we will use that time to physically move our Macs and PCs to our new home.
Our new home is actually two sites. Some of us will be located in the diocesan TV studio building on Tenth Ave. in Park Slope. The others will be in newly renovated offices in Bishop Ford H.S. in Park Slope. The only thing separating us will be the Prospect Expressway.
The relocation is part of two different movements. First, the diocese is consolidating its own administrative offices from Douglaston into 310 Prospect Park West, where The Tablet has been located for the past 11 years. Second, we are merging all the communication ministries of the diocese into a single entity (more about that in a later edition).
Our new space will become the eighth home of The Tablet. In 2000, we moved from 653 Hicks St., the former Diocesan Seamen’s Institute building, to 310 PPW. At first, we did not like the move. We were being cramped into a smaller space. But there was a spirit of camaraderie among all the new tenants as a new diocesan building was being opened. We were part of something new. Eventually, we embraced each other with respect and good humor.
There are far fewer of us here today than there were 11 years ago. Financial concerns and the expanding costs of doing business led to cutbacks in personnel and space. We were challenged to do things in more creative ways. We were asked to imagine things in ways we had never thought of before.
We were here at 310 PPW less than a year when the tragedy of 9/11 struck.  It was from these windows that we watched the World Trade Center light up like a Roman Candle and whirlwinds of paper blow across New York Harbor.
It was from this roof top, only two months later, that I watched the smoke rise from the Rockaway Peninsula in the aftermath of the crash of Flight No. 587 into Belle Harbor. It wasn’t until hours later that I learned that the crash had taken the lives of Kathy Lawler, who worked here with us in this building, and her son.
It was here in this building that we greeted our new bishop, Nicholas DiMarzio, in 2003, and the announcement was made in 2005 that we had three new auxiliary bishops, Guy Sansaricq, Octavio Cisneros and Frank Caggiano.
What adventures await us at 1712 Tenth Ave. only time will tell.
We complete our time here with this double summer edition. There is expanded editorial space in this week’s paper to make up for the lack of a paper next week. We prepare this edition not knowing the fate of the dangerous same-sex marriage bill in Albany. Stay tuned to our website for the latest on the proposal and reactions to it.
Otherwise, we’ll see you in two weeks. We’re not on vacation. We’re just setting up shop in a new place. We’ll look the same when we come back. It’s only that our personal surroundings will be a little different.