*I didn't realize that was the title Dowd gave to her column when I first posted this. I have now put it in quotes.
I'm not going to excerpt this as I usually do, it's too good, too heartfelt. Two things I will just add: Maureen Down, with a photographer in tow (or vice versa) went back to the Times building when the country was just opening up after COVID. She has been in mourning about the disappearance of the newsroom for some time. Second, the lack of lived, collegial engagement in a shared enterprise is a loss felt in all similar offices, in my field, in prosecutors' offices and public defender's offices.
