The Area News’ former home was sold at auction for $250,000.

Staff who worked in the building went to pay their last respects on Wednesday.

Photographer Anthony Stipo worked in the building for eight years and said it was the end of an era.

“There were some great stories, and some great relationships built,” Mr Stipo said.

“Most people in Griffith have set foot in that building.”

The Area News moved from Banna Avenue into the Ulong Street building at the end of October 1936.

Wendy Sweeney has worked for The Area News for 21 years and misses the atmosphere of the staff more than the building itself.

“It was an absolute hive of activity, we had journalists upstairs, we had the general manager upstairs at the front, the big printing press out the back, printing presses in the middle of the building, it was busy all the time,” Ms Sweeney said.

“When I first started here I’d never worked in a place where there were so many people, I’d worked in a bank with half a dozen people but coming here there were 40 people.

“You’d come in that back door in the morning and the printing press would be whizzing around and the paper would be shooting through it and the girls would be there collating the papers, and you’d come up through advertising and everyone was busy busy busy, it was a hive of activity for years.

Viv Bellato, who started in 2007, said “the atmosphere was created by the people who were there.”

“We’d have our cook offs, our barbeques, if these walls could talk...” Ms Bellato said.

“You had the front office together and sales were together, Lyn’s (Urquhart, former Manager) office had windows to sales, and she had access to editorial, so she could hear what was going on everywhere and she knew everything that was going on.

“Daniel’s ear was always to his editorial team, you had the banter going on ‘I know something about that’ and always cross-referencing, someone said something in sales, and Lyn would go ‘such and such said something about that’, there was always that communication.”

Ms Bellato hoped that whoever bought the building would keep the facade.

“It would be really lovely if they could keep it, when I went to Western Australia I went to a building and they had this beautiful building, restored, and when you walked through the front door there was the new building behind that and you stepped into it,” Ms Bellato said.