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The old desk is completely unpretentious.
Sixty-five inches wide and 37 inches deep, it features walnut veneers and eight drawers to store file folders and supplies. With its brass pulls and carved molding, it’s conservative but handsome.
In the past month, the desk has made a cross-country journey from a flooring company building in Dalton, Ga., to the executive suites of the New York Times building in Manhattan.
The desk, originally the property of New York Times patriarch Adolph Ochs, of Chattanooga, has been owned for the last five decades by Burton Brown, 83, a retired lawyer and carpet company CEO from North Georgia.
Brown says he bought the desk in the mid-1960s from the T.H. Payne Office Supply store in downtown Chattanooga. He was told the desk came from the office of Ruth Holmberg, former publisher of the Chattanooga Times and granddaughter of Ochs, who was remodeling her 10th Street office at the time.