My last day at the Seattle P-I March 16, 2009

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication today.

I worked there for three years — nearly three years to the day — covering higher education, breaking news and politics.

There are many accounts of the P-I’s last day, but the most moving is undoubtedly this one by P-I reporter Lewis Kamb.

Early on a cold, gray morning of the final day, before the announcement came, online producer Jake Ellison entered the half light of a second-floor office on the edge of Elliott Bay, fired up his computer and began the first scheduled work shift of a mortally wounded icon.

The sound of Ellison’s fingertips on the keyboard — emanating in the vacuous newsroom surrounding him — struck the lonely first chords of another workday at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap.

“Just like any other day,” Ellison, a news veteran here of nearly a decade, would later recall.

But slowly, as the morning wore on, and a handful of other journalists and staffers joined him in the newsroom, the clarity that this day was anything but normal for the Seattle P-I — unlike any other day in its history dating to the Civil War — began to take form.

I thought I was prepared for this day — I’ve known for two months that it was coming. But it turns out my goodbyes weren’t over after all.  I’ll miss the P-I culture, my colleagues, my beats and my blog. I’ll miss pulling into the parking garage every morning, taking the elevator to the second floor and walking into the newsroom.

There was a small rally outside the P-I this afternoon, coordinated by employees from the Seattle Times. A few pictures:

Times and P-I employees gathered outside the P-I building.

Kind words at the rally.

I start as a business reporter at The Daily Herald in Everett Monday.