The new Lewiston police department sure is spiffy. 

The officer locker room is spacious and comfortable, and features lockers cops can actually fit their gear into. 

There’s a fully stocked lunch room instead of just some cramped space filled with hard chairs and battered tables. 

The criminal investigation is so sprawling and nicely lit, it almost has a corporate feel to it. If the “Law & Order” people needed to get a quick shot of a bunch of gumshoes doing their thing, they could do a lot worse than the Lewiston police station. 

The officer gym is particularly impressive; a vast space filled with the most modern exercise equipment available.  

Is this the cop shop? Or Planet Fitness? 

The evidence collection room is so roomy that all those stolen bikes, televisions and car stereos aren’t spilling out the door like they did back on Park Street. 

Yessiree, the new station is neat and clean and big enough to get lost in; a true showcase of a modern law enforcement facility. If there was a police equivalent of “Homes & Gardens,” this joint would surely make the cover. 

And yet while the top minds of Lewiston were planning its construction down to the finest detail, they seem to have forgotten one important matter. 

What about my needs? 

That’s right. I am here today to actively complain that by shuffling the entire police force out of the downtown and into some palatial section of the old Bates Mill, these people have wrought utter havoc with my sense of equilibrium. 

The Lewiston cop shop is ALWAYS supposed to be on Park Street, just across from Kennedy Park and a mere one-minute stroll from the Sun Journal building. 

Which, of course, is also supposed to be on Park Street. 

When I came aboard as a reporter 30 years ago, police officers of various rank bragged to me all the time about their grand station at 171 Park St. 

“Why, you should have seen the dump we used to work out of,” they’d tell me. “It was nothing like this modern marvel we’re in now, nossir.” 

And I didn’t disagree. In those early days, I was at the police station as much as I was in my own newsroom, because if you wanted to stumble upon news, 171 Park St. was a fine place to be. 

In 2003, I was just down the street when police opened fire on a man who had come into their compound swinging a hammer. I got there so fast, the officers hadn’t even holstered their weapons yet by the time I arrived. I could smell the gun smoke in the air and I could hear the confused mutterings of the man who had been shot. 

Hell of a story, that one. To find witnesses to the bizarre scene, I only had to cross Park Street to the basketball courts where a small group was still buzzing about it. After that, a short dash across Lisbon Street to the social clubs, where red-eyed witnesses swayed on their feet as they gave their accounts. 

To write my story, of course, I just had to make that fast trot back to the newspaper, which was always so nearby I hardly ever left its shadow. 

There was a kind of beautiful balance about the world when the newspaper and the police station were just a single block apart. The law enforcers standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the watchdogs, keeping the people safe and informed. 

The police station itself seemed to have been designed with the visiting news reporter in mind. 

At the front of the station was a little desk where I could prowl through the arrest sheets and crash reports. If I had a question about any of it, I only had to take three steps to get into the watch commander’s office. 

If the watch commander didn’t have what I needed, there was just one corner to be rounded and I’d find myself in a room occupied by police detectives working on their cases. There were no doors to be buzzed through or any frowning chief to shoo me away. 

Every now and then, I’d have to go downstairs, to the gym, to get my information from some sweaty lieutenant or detective going at it on a treadmill or stationary bike, but that was all right. At the end of their shift, sweating out the day’s rigors, those cops were a little more at ease and a little more loose lipped. 

God bless ’em. 

But the best stories of them all didn’t come out of the watch commander’s office, the detectives’ cubicles or even the gym. 

The best stories — and too often the saddest ones — were found in the police station lobby, which seemed to never be empty no matter what time of day you went there. 

Some days it felt as though all the misery within the city streamed along the downtown streets to collect in a dark, ugly pool right there at 171 Park St. 

Like the woman who came in blubbering because she had given up her baby and now she wanted to know how to get the child back. That lady talked to me nonstop about this overwhelming sense of regret and yet by the time an officer came out to talk to her, she had changed her mind. 

Just forget about it, she told the confused cop. The kid is better off without me. And then she went on her way. 

Like the hard-faced man who came in because his younger brother was a spiraling drunk and big bro wanted to know if he could force the kid into rehab. The man talked to an officer for a few minutes and when he was done, the two of us stood in front of 171 Park St., chain-smoking and talking about the unrelenting horrors of alcoholism. 

One occasion, wild groups of men and women would come crashing into the lobby, bloody and hollering in the dust of downtown brawls. Accusations would be hurled. Hair would be pulled. Police officers would come slamming out of the station, serving more as hockey refs than law enforcers until the fray was quieted. 

One night, I watched as two of the most banged-up street thumpers I’ve ever seen were transformed from mortal enemies into hugging, weeping, “I love you, man” blubbering best friends right before my eyes. 

That big block of a police station was an absolute magnet for human drama and I don’t care what you say, it’s just not going to be the same at the new location.  

Tucked in next to restaurants, pubs and health care offices, it would be easy to mistake the new PD for an insurance company, or possibly some exciting new brewery that just happens to have a couple dozen cop cars parked out front. 

In their moments of anguish, pain or frustration, the troubled souls who populate the downtown aren’t going to expend the energy to walk clear down to Mill Street just to shout their complaints at a bulletproof pane of glass. That’s too far, bro, and when you get into that mill complex, it’s not easy to find your way from one place to another, especially if you’re absolutely blinded with rage over something stupid that happened in front of Poirier’s on Walnut Street. 

The move is probably good for police. The extra distance between themselves and the combat zone may just provide them a little extra time to work on bigger problems rather than playing Jerry Springer, all day, every day, in the station lobby. 

It’s a smart move for them. I’m happy for the officers in their new digs. 

But it’s just terrible for me and I would argue that it further diminishes the character of the downtown. In every small city, the police station and the newspaper should remain right in the middle of the action and they should always be in sight of one another. 

For that matter, there should also be an eclectic store where one can buy practically anything — I still pine for you, Victor News — and a beat-up little store where one can get greasy food and daily gossip in equal measure. That goes for you, too, Speaker’s Variety. 

I think the older you get — I’m pushing 30, you know — the harder it is to accept changes, both big and small. Changes mean a loss of familiarity, and when too much of it happens too quickly, the very ground beneath your feet begins to feel unstable. 

Well, my friends, I’m doing a lot of falling down lately because changes these last few years have come quick enough to keep me forever off balance. I’m just now getting over the fact that 104 Park St. is not the Lewiston Sun Journal anymore. And now the Lewiston police station just ups and moves clear across town? 

Sorry police. So sorry, city leaders. As you can see I’ve given this a lot of thought. 

I’m afraid this one is just too much. 

I’m going to have to ask you to pack it all up and move back to 171 Park St. where you belong.