Dennis McCarthy columnizes on the weekend move from the DN's (formerly) own building on Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills to rented space beside the freeway on Burbank Boulevard. It was old, ugly and windowless, he writes, "but it was home for the last 21 years."

I won't have to wonder if the freeway is jammed up anymore when I slip out of work early. I can just look out the window.

I'm going to miss the old place, which is really weird to say because I didn't particularly like working there most of the time.

It was falling apart, but what the hell, so am I.

One of our former owners, Jack Kent Cooke, bought the building for $8 million in May of 1987 and proclaimed it a new state-of-the-art facility for newspapers.

Cooke was the king of hyperbole, whether he was talking about his Washington Redskins football team, his stable of racing thoroughbreds or his newspaper's facilities.

We had moved from the heart of the Valley in the downtown Van Nuys Civic Center, following many of our readers and advertisers west as the Valley expanded.

In '87, Woodland Hills was still pretty much the sticks. You could walk a mile and not bump into anything resembling a news story.

In Van Nuys, we were a block from the police station and county courthouse. We had more good, local stories than we had space for in the newspaper every day. All a short walk in any direction.

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The new offices are nice. The elevators work and there are plenty of windows. It has a good feel to it. Now we just have to fill the room up with stories.

McCarthy says he'll be off for minor back surgery until Oct. 6 or so.