Seattle PI holds farewell party in Ballard

On Friday night, several hundred former and newly-former Seattle Post-Intelligencer employees gathered at the Ballard Elks Lodge to mark an end of an era. Party organizers had put a ban on “working press,” which would explain why we didn’t hear about it. But David Horsey, who now works for SeattlePI.com — the newspaper reborn online — explains the scene:

“There were the friends I made when we were all young and new to the P-I newsroom, friends who have moved on but remain my closest pals. It was dizzying seeing all these people from different stages of my life in one room — sort of like a high school reunion on steroids.”

The Stranger’s Eli Sanders also attended. “I wished that the final scene in the death of this civic institution hadn’t been kept so private,” he said. The party was organized by former employees because the Seattle PI’s owner, Hearst Corporation, elected not to throw a farewell party of its own.