It only took us a hundred and sixteen years, but here we are. The building has been standing since 1910, the paper has been running since 2020, and now there is a place for the two to meet online — kind of a digital lobby, somewhere between the mailboxes and the cargo lift.
This site is, like the paper, a project by and for the residents. Nothing more, nothing less. Sign up below to get your name in the directory, drop into the Letters board to chat with your neighbours, post what you lost (or found) in the stairwell, and pick up the next print issue at the lobby on the first Thursday of every month.
The newsletter goes out automatically. The chatroom is always on. The classified board is yours. The building, as ever, will keep an eye on the rest.
If you have a story about the Office Specialty days, an old photograph of the south wing, or a complaint about the temperature on Floor 4 — write us. The paper, like the building, was made out of small contributions. Replace with real intro
In 1910 the Office Specialty Manufacturing Company laid the first brick of what would become one of the largest steel-and-wood factories in the Dominion. They made labor-saving office devices — filing cabinets, card-index trays, document vaults, Shannon transfer cases — and shipped them as far as London and Sydney. The advert called the place "fourteen acres under one roof," and the whistle on the chimney set the rhythm of the neighbourhood for three generations.
The presses stopped in the eighties. The whistle came down. For a while the floors were quiet — a few workshops, a few storage bays, and the kind of birds that move in when no one is looking.
In 2010 the first lofts were carved out of the south wing. The Douglas-fir beams were left in place. The pulley wheels stayed bolted to the ceilings. The cargo lift still groans like it did when it lifted ledger frames.
This paper started in 2020, in lockdown, because someone had to. It is still here. So is the building. expand with real history text
Cut along the dotted line · or just fill it in here
Where the typewriters used to clatter, now the residents write.
Open every day, every floor. Drop in to ask if someone has a 13mm wrench, to compliment the smell coming out of unit 412, or to argue politely about whether the cargo lift is haunted.
House rules: Be kind. Be brief. Be a neighbour.
Found a black umbrella in the south stairwell. Has a small dog charm on the handle.
That's mine. Bringing coffee in exchange.
Tomatoes are coming in on the roof. Anyone want a basket on Sunday?
Open mic tonight in the atrium — 7:30. Bring a chair if you have a spare.
Is the cargo lift making the groaning sound again, or is that just me?
