Supporters of the Militant throughout the country are organizing to collect the remaining pledges, and to get new contributions from those who were not able to attend the meeting, in order to meet the goal by the target date of April 7.

Naomi Craine, the chairperson of the SWP in New York, told the meeting of 270 people that volunteers had completed the frames for the walls in the new offices over the previous day and a half. As well, she said, an electrical crew had gotten a good start on running the wiring for electrical power, computer terminals, and phone lines.

By the time this Militant "goes to bed," said Craine, work will have progressed substantially in setting up the new office. "The paper won’t miss a beat in campaigning against the imperialist slaughter in Iraq," she said.

Craine explained that the new offices are located just blocks from the current hall of the New York SWP, right in the heart of Manhattan’s Garment District. Thousands of sewers toil in factories in the area. The hall is the venue for the weekly Militant Labor Forum and the Pathfinder Bookstore.

"This move will help to build on the accomplishment of the New York branch, forum series, and bookstore," she said.

For decades the socialist publications and national party offices have been located in the six-story Pathfinder Building on the southwest side of Manhattan. "When we started this process almost a year ago," said Mary-Alice Waters, the president of Pathfinder Press and editor of New International, "we said we were not just moving a building, but that in the process of moving we would also transform our functioning to serve the needs and maximize the effectiveness of a movement of our size and capacities."

The Pathfinder editorial staff moved to another Garment District location a day after the meeting. "No desk, no piece of equipment, not even one file--whether paper or virtual"--had been taken from the building without being reviewed and a decision made about what to do with it, Waters said. The same process will now be completed at the Militant and SWP national office at their new locations.

"When the Gulf War started just 12 years ago," said Waters, "We had not yet started to use computers in our publishing work." Today, with the support of hundreds of hardworking volunteers around the world, all of the work related to Pathfinder’s publishing program is done using e-mail, computer networks, and the Internet, Waters said.

What had been accomplished over the weekend and will be completed soon "registers one of the historic achievements" of the communist movement, said the SWP leader.

Contributions to the construction fund should be mailed to the Militant at 152 W. 36th Street, Suite 401, New York, NY, 10018. Checks or money orders should be made out to the Militant.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home