The stand is small, about six square feet. Empty coffee cups, rolls of quarters and notepads litter the desk. A calendar featuring models with cars hangs next to a rusty saw. Newspapers cover the front of the shack. Stan Hallmark’s weathered hands lift his wooden pipe to his mouth.

“I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t think that for democracy to work, you have to have an informed public,” says Hallmark, 75, of Alameda. He has been working in newspapers for decades — 25 years delivering with his wife, who passed away in 2013, and now five years at historic Paul’s Newsstand.

Hallmark knows stands like this are numbered, but is afraid that something is being lost with the decline of newspapers. “The truth has been taken hostage and is being held somewhere in the clouds, because we don’t get a lot of it.” He says television and the Internet assaults our reason and often stories in all media outlets remain half-told.

He says he’s one of the few people who still reads the newspaper front to back everyday. “There are some young people who really have never read a newspaper.”

Back to Gallery Vendor sticks by historic Alameda newsstand 8 1 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle 2 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle 3 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle 4 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle 5 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle 6 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle 7 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle 8 of 8 Photo: Tim Hussin / The Chronicle















The small shack has been around since 1939, when Paul Manning, a wheelchair-bound newspaper salesman garnered sympathy from John J. Mulvany, the vice president of the Bank of America across the street. “When the rains came it was pretty difficult for him, holding an umbrella and shuffling newspapers,” Hallmark says.

So the shack was built. And it has survived through bouts of neglect and the more recent changing climate for the printed product.

Hallmark admits that selling a newspaper is not that interesting, but talking to the patrons is what he enjoys most. Regulars trickle by, bring him tangerines and coffee, make jokes and chat about current affairs. “We’re talking less and less now face to face and I think that’s a bad thing.”

Despite his grim outlook on the industry he has made such a large part of his working life, Hallmark sees a future for the stand. “I always thought it would make a good information center,” he says. “ I kinda do that on the side anyway.”

The Regulars is a weekly photo and video column by Erin Brethauer and Tim Hussin that offers a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people in the Bay Area, caught in routine activities of modern urban life. If you know a regular, e-mail regulars@sfchronicle.com.