The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-17
Issued Today From Ruild- ing Ranking As SOuth's Greatest Architectural
 Achievement
IDEAL EQUIP M E INT FOR SERVING PUBLIC
Edifice Formally Rechristened The Age-Herald Building By
 Huge Bronze Lettering
FIRST RUN ON BIG PRESS
Departments All Arranged To Secure Efficiency In Publi-
 cation And Distribution

The Age-Herald today publishes the first edition in its new home, recognized as one of the superb and distinctive architectural triumphs of the south and ranking as one of the most imposing buildings in the United States.
 Erected for the Jefferson County bank and formally re- christened The Age-Herald build- ing last week when the name was substituted in bronze lettering around the cornice. The Age-Herald now has in this magnificent 27- story office structure by far the finest publishing quarters in the southern states and a home which is unexcelled by any newspaper in America
 When little Maritime Conner, daugh- ter of MT. and Mrs. Donald Conner, pressed the button on the big press last night, which put the great machinery in motion, another distinctive Bir- mingham achievement was recorded.
 The little lady was lifted within reach of the push button of the press control by Frederick l. Thompson, edi- tor and publisher or The Age-Herald, in the presence of an interested group of friends and employees of the paper and with a touch of her finger set the big cylinders awhir, turning off pa- pers faster than the eye could count them.
 In designing and arranging The Age-Herald's new home for newspaper plant, everything has been provided not only for the rapid and accurate assembling of the mechanical features of publica- tion and distribution of papers with the greatest efficiency and dispatch. Readers will, no doubt, be interested in brief description of the various de- 1 partments and the part they will here 1 after play in bringing their paper to | them.
 On the mezzanine floor, with it's large reception room, entered from ths five main elevators, are located the main executive offices, editorial writ CTS, advertising and accounting de- partments and the private telephone exchange, connecting all parts of the building. On the main floor is located the classified advertising department with its counters and rows of tele- phones for the rapid receiving and assembling of want ads"
 Where Worlds News Centers
 On the third floor are the terminals of wires from all parts of the world. Into the especially equipped telegraph room comes four Associated Press wires. Here also terminates The Age- Herald-Mobile Register leased wire. which daily assemblies and distributes thousands of words of Alabama dis patches. Nearby is the special long distance telephone room, the terminus of more than one thousand miles of leased long distance telephone wires, where an operator copies by typewriter the daily specials from The Age-Her-. aids special bureau correspondents, while on another floor is the leased wire from New York and the east where the dispatches are copied by an automatic machine and delivered to the telegraph editors. On this third floor are also located the men in charge of the news department, the copy read CTS, the reporters and all the necessary equipment, including teelphone booths for assembling news of Birmingham and suburbs. Nearby are special rooms for the society news department, the sporting news and other features.
 The composing room, with complete ly new equipment, is also located on the third floor. In this great room are 70 linotype. machines, type casters. matrix casting equipment for the stereotyping process and all the necessities for rapid handling of type, forms and, matrices. On this floor, the longest and finest and most per- fectly aligned battery of linotype ma chimes in the southern states. This room is so complete in it's mechanical details that it is really worth spe- cial story to describe it worthily,, When the matrices are finished by passing through the huge air-com- pressed steam tables and the big roll ing machine, they go humming down through specially constructed chute in the basement.
 The Great Presses
 In the basement is the stereotype casting equipment, where molten metal IS flowed over the matrices by biz pumps to form the semi-circular plates, which go on the presseA and from which the printing of the pages is ac. tually done.
 In the basement are also the presses. They are such as to delight the heart of the man who loves fine machinery. First of all is the big Scott double sextuple arranged in six units any one of which or any num- Der of which can be operated sepa- rately. On this press it is possible to print and deliver to the mail room at the same time two separate and distinct newspapers. The machines capacity is 9G,000 printed papers an hour, which are delivered in fast, flowing stream by specially built com.
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