Newspaper Row

Newspaper Row. Exploring Lower Manhattan. , Back in the era before radio, television or the Internet, when the newspaper was the principal medium of communication, the tall buildings along Park Row formed “newspaper row,” the great district of the city’s – and the nation’s – newspaper trade. Here, Joseph Pulitzer presided over The World in the gilded dome of the Pulitzer Building, hoping to scoop his neighbors, the New York Times, the Tribune and the Sun. Convenient to both Wall Street and City Hall, they printed the stories of business and politics. On nearby streets the Evening Journal, the Evening Post, the Herald, and the Mail and Express competed – back when New York supported some 20 English-language daily papers, not to mention the weeklies, and countless foreign-language sheets. The very sidewalks vibrated from the constant thundering of the presses., By the turn of the century however, as businesses began to move uptown, the papers began to follow. The Herald moved to Sixth Avenue and 34th Street (which became Herald Square), The Times to Broadway and 42nd Street (Times Square), and by the 1930s newspaper row was empty. of the buildings originally housing the big dailies, only the tall, gray stone Times tower at 41 Park Row survives.