In Queens, the “New York Times” printing plant, a monster of steel and paper

Tom de Peyret fell into trouble when he was little. His father, who gave him his first camera at the age of 7, was a proofreader in the written press. He took the opportunity to drag his sneakers into several Parisian newspaper printing houses, including that of Mondeabout twenty years ago. He kept some, he said, “a romantic nostalgia”. So, when the opportunity presented itself to delve into the bowels of the presses of the New York Timesin September 2018, he obviously jumped at the chance. At that time he was on a fashion shoot in Manhattan, and it was with a beating heart that the 38-year-old photographer went to discover “a city within a city”, in College Point, central Queens.

Taxis don’t know the way. Right across the street is the LaGuardia Airport runway. A little further, a marine training center, and intertwining expressways leading to the Big Apple, but also the tennis courts of Flushing Meadows, the silhouette of the real estate projects that made the fortune of Donald Trump’s father… And , in the middle of the East River, Rikers Island, the famous penitentiary center which has seen powerful people and various celebrities, such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Christophe Rocancourt and Harvey Weinstein, among others.

The printing press of the most famous newspaper in the world is surrounded by inaccessible places of power, “a strong symbol for a place of information production”underlines Tom de Peyret, who wrote a book about it, 1 New York Times Plaza, Queens, NY 11356 (Editions Pursuit). Of course, there is talk of reels of paper moving at full speed on rails and numerous floors to produce 80,000 newspapers per hour. But also, ink and lubricating oil, steel and bricks.

Guaranteed independence

Charlie Chaplin could easily have transformed the premises into a film set. “It’s a gigantic factory, a kind of ordered chaos which nevertheless sees its flow slow down over the yearsrelates the photographer. Enough to leave one wondering, as the end of the printed object and the professions that go around it seems inevitable, in favor of digital technology. » This is today the success of the American daily: thanks to 11 million online subscribers – an audience that jumped in the wake of Donald Trump’s first election, in 2016 – the paper version no longer depends on either broadcast scores or advertising, and thus sees its independence guaranteed.

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