I’ve been a New York Times subscriber for as long as I remember — like magic, every Saturday morning a hefty stack of freshly printed newsprint sheets arrive at my doorstep. I settle in the most comfortable chair in the house (my Muji bean bag) and flip through the sections of the paper — accompanied by a double espresso. Magic aside, I have often wondered how each and every section of the paper comes about in such coordination, when are the last edits sent to print, and how does the paper arrive to each subscriber’s doorstep, rain or shine.

On a Thursday evening, instead of popping into a gallery afterparty, I found myself in in front of a large lit warehouse in Flushing, Queens — it was 10 p.m. and the presses at The New York Times’ printing facility had just begun printing tomorrow’s paper.

To print that many newspapers a day massive amounts of ink are stored in large containers and transported to each printing press in metal pipes

Thanks for reading! If you enjoy learning about design process and manufacturing, see more of my tours like the one from Steinway Factory in Queens, and a bagel factory in the Bronx.

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