Nation’s Oldest Press Club to Close
The nation’s oldest chartered press club, the 109-year-old Pittsburgh Press Club, will close its doors for good by year’s end.
“Let’s just say that the program we thought would work just didn’t come to fruition. The bricks just didn’t fall into place,” club President A. Alan Paulus said. “It takes a lot of support from the membership to keep it going. I’ll just leave it at that.”
A federal bankruptcy judge this month officially turned down the club’s attempts to reorganize under bankruptcy protection.
Officials blamed the club’s decline on a number of factors, including difficulty in attracting younger members, strife among club officers and between officers and management.
Paulus said he would ask members to pay $25 each to keep the club operating through the holiday season. As of Sept. 30, the club had $372,384 in bills and $28,988 in assets to pay them.
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