If you died, got married, bought a gun or had a kid who did anything worthwhile in Raleigh, the Times was your newspaper.

Legend had it that the afternoon paper was so locally focused that in 1945, it printed news of the atomic bomb on the bottom half of the page. (Not true.)

That was before Raleigh became part of a Triangle or a Metropolitan Statistical Area.

That was before the city center died, tried to revive itself by closing off Fayetteville Street to become a mall, then died again.

Now downtown Raleigh is attempting another renaissance, and, fittingly enough, the Times building from the '20s is being turned into a watering hole (The Raleigh Times) and a next-door coffee shop (The Morning Times) on Hargett Street.

On Friday night, dozens of Times alumni, including Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, gathered to hoist a few beers and talk about the days when all newspapers thrived on competition -- none so much as The Raleigh Times.

"We lived to compete with The News & Observer," said Karen Tam, a photographer who still freelances in the area. "We were so much smaller, but we were scrappy, and we tried harder."

While The News & Observer focused on state government and the "big issues of the day," one reporter told me, the Times "covered everything that moved like the dew on Dixie."

It was in tone that the Times and The N&O differed most.

Where The News & Observer was sober and serious, the Times was wide-open; its staff took chances, and Lord knows, those folks had fun.

When the first seat-belt laws were passed, Times city editor Harold Muddiman sent reporter Lucy Daniels Inman to police headquarters to see how many officers were obeying. (Answer: Not many.)

When it was "hot enough to fry an egg," a Times staff member went to see whether it was true, said N&O business writer Dudley Price, whose parents met at the Times in the 1930s.

Tam remembered heading to Benson Mule Days in the '70s on the back of Sulzburger's motorcycle, with her cameras packed in his saddlebags.

Sulzberger often refers fondly to his days at the Times, where he cut his journalistic teeth writing obituaries. So often did his daily work involve speaking with loved ones of the recently deceased that his wife made him a set of business cards that read, "Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., Friend of the Dead."

Working for the underdog paper, hustling to cover four beats at once, created a special kinship that has brought former Times staffers together more than once over the nearly 17 years since the paper closed.

What a stark contrast to these days. Instead of competing with other newspapers, which was straightforward and fun, we're competing with every source of information under the sun.

On Friday night, at the bar's preview for Times staffers, the stories of a paper and an era, lost forever, started rolling.

"I know where the bodies are buried, but I'm sworn to secrecy," quipped Treva Jones, who was hired at the Times in August 1967 and wrote the paper's 110-year history (in 25 inches) on its final day of publication, Nov. 30, 1989.

Jones was a reporter for The N&O (which owned the Times in its later years) for almost a decade before her retirement. Still, the Times holds a special place in her heart.

"We put out a prize-winning newspaper on a shoestring budget with two knots in the middle and half the staff to do it," Jones said. "We worked as a team because, by God, we had to. It was the only way to get the job done."

Ah, The Raleigh Times: "To-day's News To-Day."

What a fine piece of history to commemorate in a re-emerging downtown.