Former staffer Robert Leedy reports:

Maybe you didn't hear, but there were many things wrong with the new KPFA building from the first. When we moved in, we noticed immediately that the main studio was not acoustically isolated from the major on-air studio. Sound came through the walls, the windows and the floors. Guess they tried to save a buck by cutting out the consulting fee for an acoustical engineer.

There is an immense amount of waste space in this building, in case you have not seen it. The center of the building is dominated by "The Grand Staircase" which takes a huge bite all the way from the "Ball Room" on the ground floor right up to the plastic dome that makes up a large portion of the roof. Most people take the elevator to the second floor rather than do the climb up these ornamental stairs.

About the Plastic dome: it's motorized on tracks and can be moved aside (somewhat) during hot weather, so as to naturally air-condition the building (somewhat). It was discovered after the first few rains of the season that the dome had leaks around its periphery; the water ran down into the electronics and played havoc with the phone system in particular for a while. I sometimes wonder if the dome is still at all functional in any generally accepted sense of the word.

After the problems with water intrusion were solved (I make an assumption here), the new phone system did not work as well as the gerry-built system in the old building, and still does not to this day if one has to judge from what one hears over the air.

Work space was chopped up in almost random fashion, creating a crazy quilt effect. "Ringers" were given cozy, private little offices (as well as private parking spaces created just for Pacifica Careerists--on KPFA property which could have provided more work space within the walls of the building). But work areas for groups editing tapes, creating scenarios, etc were left open to the public byways, and this included the news room.

Of course, KPFA news being what it has become, it now deserves no special consideration, if it ever did. As to the "open pits" for working crews-- these were for volunteer producers and programmers, most of whom have since been eliminated and any question about them having been made moot; thus we need spend no more time on them.

The cherry on the cake is a really idiotic looking and really tiny balcony on the second floor which holds, at best, two Pacifica Careerists at a time. It justs sort of juts out in a awkward, irrelevant way. Sort of like fins on a 50's car. I suspect they copied it from something in Chaplin's film "The Great Dictator." I used to envision "Pol Pat" reviewing her troops from it while attended by her chief propagandist.

There are probably many other stories waiting to be heard about this architectural monstrosity that "Pol Pat" built. Perhaps they will begin to be published now. After all, these bastards are doing this with our money!

As I always say now that I have made good my escape from Pacifica, "Familiarity breeds contempt."

Robert Leedy