As The Atlantic rolls southward, toodles to all that
Canvas garbage bins of bookish rubble occupy the main hallway. A sprinkling of workers quietly attend to business in offices mostly emptied. On the walls, relics of another age, such as a letter from Madame Chiang Kai-shek inquiring about her subscription, await removal and relocation.
In characteristically subdued style, The Atlantic Monthly has officially vacated its offices on North Washington Street. Most of the approximately 40 magazine staffers have left the premises except for a few staying behind to wrap things up as the storied periodical relocates to Washington, D.C.
For the first time in 149 years, a new year begins without The Atlantic publishing in Boston.
In the cultural cosmos, the loss of this local literary landmark is huge. The Atlantic may not be as vacuously trendy as Vanity Fair or as highly polished as The New Yorker, but the native-born magazine has had a deeply felt impact on our life and times. The journal famously named by Oliver Wendell Holmes gave breadth to intellectual and literary history while its legacy weaves into the lives of many indigenous creative thinkers. Even the magazine's real estate reflected the bricks-and-mortar market because, over the years, The Atlantic's editorial offices occupied prime locations in historic downtown, the Back Bay, and the North End.
Owner David Bradley cited the high price of Boston real estate when he decided to absorb the magazine geographically into his National Journal Group. The irony pinches as The Atlantic loses its New England compass and resettles this month into Washington's Watergate complex with a new roster of editorial personnel.
For many of us who came to Boston with stars in our eyes, The Atlantic was a first big chance to work in writing and publishing. The place provided a golden bowl of opportunity to brush up against authors, editors, and other young dreamers in the long shadows of legends who used quill pens and typewriters -- from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Edwin O'Connor.
''Hello, Mr. Barthelme, I have Mr. Curtis on the line." Such is my vivid memory during the six months, in the mid-1970s, when I was a secretary at the magazine, then located in a grand brownstone at 8 Arlington St. I placed a call on my boss's behalf to Donald Barthelme. The wisp of phone contact with the brilliantly peculiar author was thrilling at the time.
When I recently reenact the moment for C. Michael Curtis, who has been an editor at The Atlantic for 43 years, he smiles and rolls his eyes. His office, with windows overlooking North End rooftops, is sparse in his last days at work in Boston before he moves to Spartanburg, S.C., to teach at Wofford College. ''I bet you've never taken a picture of an editor with no books on his shelves," he comments to Globe photographer David Ryan. The empty space gives stark visual testimony to the brooming of the Atlantic.
Curtis, 72, holds a modern longevity record at The Atlantic. He served four editors: Robert Manning, William Whitworth, Michael Kelly, and Cullen Murphy. He discovered and fostered numerous sterling writers. ''When we were seeing their work, no one had ever heard of them," he says and mentions Raymond Carver, Ethan Canin, Ann Beattie, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Cunningham. Last year, when The Atlantic stopped publishing monthly short stories, Curtis lost some of his bearings at the magazine. He says he will continue to help choose fiction for special issues.
Curtis estimates he's had 15 assistants during his long tenure. Many of his helpers came into their own as assistant editors who ascended from the ranks of intern. They read manuscripts, worked with writers, proofed, fact-checked, and did much more than type his letters, as I did when I went through pints of Liquid Paper. Curtis ticks off his proteges' post-Atlantic accomplishments: books, screenplays, reviews, and the directorship of a Harvard writing program. ''This was a useful apprenticeship," he says. ''They learned how to read quickly and develop opinions and defend them and it qualified them for jobs in other places."
The month I started in Curtis's office, Mopsy Strange Kennedy splashed in The Atlantic with an essay about the social phenomenon of turning 30. The piece generated a pile of letters to the editor. I know this because I pecked out each one on my
The Atlantic has been an important hothouse for local talent, even if conditions could be stifling. In my time, the magazine was still a snobby preserve where support staff often felt like underlings. Charlotte Kahn, who now works for a Boston nonprofit, says she and her colleagues employed the term.
Kahn started at The Atlantic as a proofreader and freelance editor for The Atlantic study guides under Curtis. She remembers how the offices at 8 Arlington St. mirrored the antiquated social structure. ''It was like a rabbit warren and the physical layout reflected almost exactly the office hierarchy," says Kahn, 57. ''There were four men at the top and a sea of women in the middle and mail room guys in the basement. The business office was off to the side and never seen."
Kahn recalls how ''we underlings really tried to rock the boat." One year, they accomplished this by organizing the first companywide holiday party, the highlight of which was a secretary's doggerel poking fun at the insular top editors. Kahn recites from memory: '' 'Here we are in Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where Manning speaks only to [Michael] Janeway and Janeway speaks only to [Richard] Todd.' " Kahn remembers the moment as a much-needed ice-breaker, which may have permanently changed the standoffish internal tone.
Since then, 8 Arlington was sold as expensive condos and The Atlantic moved to 745 Boylston St. and, finally, to 77 N. Washington, a former industrial plant reborn as a word factory. New generations of editors, writers, and staffers came, went, or, in the case of many admired names on the masthead, stayed anchored at the magazine for years. These Atlantic spawn will continue to make their contributions. ''I think Boston was a place to come and learn, a breeding ground, a testing ground and The Atlantic was part of that," says Kahn, director of the Boston Indicators Project, which tracks trends in the city for The Boston Foundation.
Boston without The Atlantic ''is as if milk decided to stop being made," laments Kennedy. Those whom the institution nurtured and touched might have their own homegrown sentimental similes. Or not. After all, recent changes such as the imminent shuttering of Filene's have left many of us inured to saying toodles to tradition.
''It's part of Boston like baked beans, Boston Garden, and the Celtics, but things change," says Curtis. ''It's surprising to see us moving. It would have been more plausible for us just to end."
E-mail Monica Collins at mcollins@globe.com 
