Apr. 7, 2011 at 9:40pm

URBAN EXPLORER 001: Tacoma Daily Index - behind the pulp

Know Your DOWNTOWN! Tacoma's Oldest, Grandest, Most read City NEWSPAPER.

THURSDAY. 

Today the URBAN POLAR EXPLORER dropped in unannounced for a snap inspection of the TACOMA DAILY INDEX, the official City of Tacoma newspaper since the early 1800's almost nearly 200 years of intense legal notices and feel good journalistic type articles!  

Here we are in the main lobby Area on the 12 floor of the historic 1920's Washington Building. Original carpet!  Typewriters pound away in the background of the smokey news room. Todd Matthews recognizes the URBAN EXPLORER and offers a supervised guided tour.  We pause for a moment to admire the vintage acoustic tile-work.  

One of the oldest graphic design departments of any newspaper in existence to date. Before landing a job at the Tacoma Daily Index, this worker hand-painted signs!  The URBAN EXPLORER enjoys the wolf and elf-quest looking figure. Nice drawings!  Has this man ever considered a career in the field of Medallic Arts The URBAN EXPLORER wonders?

Tacoma Daily Index editor in chief Todd Matthews invites the URBAN EXPLORER inside his private office overlooking the city of destiny.  From this vantage we see the top of the new parking garage thatched grass green roof.  Also many surface level parking lots.  The tidy office smells of history. Tremendous stacks of newspapers loom from every flat surface. Artifacts of mystery pinned to every vertical surface.  Mr. Matthews leans back in a creaky office chair to brood at these artifacts...   "This office tells a story." He murmurs as if to himself, "If you can follow the clues... Please, no photos."   Luckily the hidden camera in the URBAN EXPLORER'S fur aviator's top hat goes unnoticed. 

the URBAN EXPLORER was able to maneuver close enough to get a clear shot of this hodge podge "Wunderkammer Gallery" so many potent memes!  (click photo for flickr notes) 

THUS CONCLUDES THE PHOTOGRAPHED PORTION OF THE DAILY INDEX TOUR. The URBAN EXPLORER was able to safely repel from an open office window 12 stories to the street below, blending in with the civilian population without a trace.  

[end transmission]

comments [9]  |  posted under Office Tour, Tacoma Daily Index, tour, urban explorer

Comments

by Erik on 4/8/2011 @ 12:35am	Awesome tour. Todd knows and literally sees everything in Tacoma from his perch up there. You should invite Todd to join C.L.A.W.
by morgan on 4/8/2011 @ 7:16am	Cool story! I didn't know he could draw!
by TDI-Reporters-Notebook on 4/8/2011 @ 8:06am	thanks for the surprise visit to 'tdi world headquarters' yesterday, r. r. i'm glad to see we have not been boycotted. clarification: i can't draw. the hand-painted signs are the master works of our page designer and graphic artist arvid 'butch' harder. also: some interesting history on the tacoma daily index here: www.wahmee.com/tdi_tacomas_recordkeeper....
by The Jinxmedic on 4/8/2011 @ 8:45am	Nice post- but to be a wunderkammer, it must have multidimensional material culture on display- not just photos. That is the problem that modern museums find themselves in today. No stuff! Yup, that artwork is a clear indicator of its creator being potentially well suited for medallic design.
by NineInchNachos on 4/8/2011 @ 8:52am	some of those things were original handwritten kook mail. should be in a Manuscript Museum!
by The Jinxmedic on 4/8/2011 @ 9:19am	Agreed. I need to talk to you about the MoAE, by the way...
by NineInchNachos on 4/8/2011 @ 9:50am	[THE A]MoAE ? we just acquired a genuine "Creationist Atlas" btw a donation that comes from the daily index kook vault. It is very funny. Should post a image of the "a starfish did not evolve into a fish, so evolution is wrong" infographic. Mofo from the Hood would like it.
by The Jinxmedic on 4/8/2011 @ 10:06am	Whatever your official acronym is, that's what I am talking about. Besides, starfish evolved into stars, silly. That's why dead starfish are full of gas. It's HYDROGEN and HELIUM! (and don't get me started about sunfish and planetary gears.)
by NineInchNachos on 4/25/2012 @ 4:31pm	hmmmmmmmmm www.thenewstribune.com//2012/04/24/21196...