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Met Opera Announcer's Career Begins in a Swimming Pool.
In this April 19, 1942 WQXR broadcast, Milton Cross and WNYC's Tommy Cowan (formerly of WJZ Newark) re-enact their chance meeting in early 1922 at a YMCA swimming pool. During that encounter, Cowan...
View ArticleFirst Live Radio Coverage from NYSE is a Woman on WNYC
April 13, 1956: A WNYC press release announces that New York Stock Exchange's closing prices will be broadcast daily from the Exchange floor, and that a woman will be featured as the reporter....
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The WNYC March!
Edwin Franko Goldman(WNYC Archive Collections)On June 21, 1954 The New York Times reported that the Goldman Band would premiere the 'WNYC March' on July 9th in Central Park to mark the station's 30...
View ArticleIdylls of the King
From the Winter 1999 WNYC Program Guide: "As we stand poised on the edge of a new millennium, travel back to another world on the verge of change. The Idylls of the King, based on the poems of Alfred...
View ArticleLancelot & Elaine
The story of Lancelot and Elaine is based on Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Idylls of the King. The production features Christopher Cartmill and Kathleen O'Grady. It was produced by WNYC's Scott Borden...
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Maestro Eugene Plotnikoff Conducting
Side 4 of 8 of Eugene Plotnikoff conducting WPA FMP concert airing on WNYC May 29, 1938.(WNYC Archive Collections)Eugene Plotnikoff conducted musical performances heard regularly over WNYC for more...
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WNYC Director Morris Novik's Tribute to Mayor La Guardia
Mayor La Guardia's tombstone at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx photographed in 2008.(Wikimedia Commons/Anthony22)On September 20, 1964 at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, a memorial ceremony was held...
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City Makes the Case for Public Broadcasting
WNYC went on the air for the first time on July 8, 1924 at 570 kc (kilocycles). It was a plumb spot on the dial, the first station on the AM band. So it was no surprise that WNYC's control over such a...
View ArticleA Novel Approach to WQXR
Over the years WQXR has distinguished itself in many ways. But perhaps most flattering have been the authors who included it as part of their fictional works. WQXR on the page helps set the scene, tone...
View ArticleBrian Lehrer Comes to Here's the Thing
Brian Lehrer is a unique figure in the public life of New York City. Beyond hosting the city's defining daily talk show, he's our conscience and our conciliator. When New Yorkers want a fair mayoral...
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Amelia Earhart Welcomed at City Hall
Commemorative stamp issued in 1963.U.S. Post Office Dept.In May 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to pilot a nonstop solo transatlantic flight. Returning to New York on June 20th, she was...
View ArticleCountry and Western Music with Dorothy Horstman
"Hello, Country fans...," was Dorothy A. Horstman's (1930-1999) welcome to listeners to County and Western Music on WNYC in the 1970s. At the time, the weekly half-hour slot was the only outlet for the...
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WNYC Keeps on Truck'n: Nearly a Century of 'Mobile Units'
Mary Whalen riding in model truck at the city's Silver Jubilee celebration at Grand Central Palace in June, 1923.(Radio News/WNYC Archive Collections)The first 'WNYC truck' actually appeared a year...
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Comment Floods WNYC With Bobby Pins in 1943
Bobby pins.(WNYC Archive Collections)In April 1943, at the height of rationing and scrap metal drives during World War II, WNYC was suddenly overwhelmed with bobby pins. Envelopes with pins poured into...
View Article“The Radio Equivalent of Muhammad Ali”
When New York radio legend Frankie Crocker died of pancreatic cancer in Miami on October 21, 2000¹, his was just the latest death of an influential African American disk jockey that year, including...
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Diane Wolkstein and Stories From Many Lands
Early program flier for Stories from Many Lands.(Courtesy of Diane Wolkstein/WNYC Archive Collections) Storyteller, author, and folklorist Diane Wolkstein (1942-2013) produced and hosted Stories From...
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Elaine Lambert Lewis and Folk Songs for the Seven Million
Folklorist and librarian Elaine Lambert Lewis O'Beirne-Ranelagh (1914-1996) began producing programs for WNYC in 1943. At that time, before her marriage, she was known professionally as Elaine Lambert...
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1937 Vision: WNYC, The Flagship Station of a Non-Commercial Cultural Network
Mayor La Guardia at a WNYC mic in the 1930s.(WNYC Archive Collections)The notion of WNYC becoming the flagship station of a non-commercial network of cultural stations was first publicly articulated by...
View ArticleGena Branscombe
Composer and conductor Gena Branscombe (1881-1977) was a prominent figure in New York City’s musical life from 1910 till her death. Her passion for composing, performing and being a mentor and leader...
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Public Radio's First Program Distribution Network is Born at WNYC
WNYC Director Seymour N. Siegel in the 1950s.(WNYC Archive Collections)Public radio's first program distribution network began in the fall of 1949. That's when the director of New York's municipal...
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When Anti-Lynching Legislation was Discussed on WNYC in 1938.
NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White in 1942.(Photo by Gordon Parks/Library of Congress)The recent unsuccessful effort to pass a national anti-lynching bill in the Senate is not new. In February...
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WNYC Airs Frank Talk on Racism in 1939
John LaFarge Jr. (1880-1963)(Wikimedia Commons)On the eve of World War II, a commentator on WNYC compared American racism to Nazi ideology. The broadcaster was John LaFarge, Jr., an outspoken Jesuit...
View ArticleTucker Carlson’s Dad Defended NPR and Then Helped Save WNYC
In 1994, Tucker Carlson was still a year away from his position at The Weekly Standard, where he first earned his conservative credentials,[1] and his father, Richard W. “Dick” Carlson, was on WNYC’s...
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"WNYC Mobilizes For Harlem Emergency"
On the evening of August 1, 1943, a riot in Harlem reportedly began after a white policeman shot and wounded an African-American soldier who had been charged by the officer with interfering in the...
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1938 WNYC Clock Radio Alarm
Jack Bruce Mercer's clock radio alarm as drawn by Leo Garel for the WNYC Masterwork Bulletin.(WNYC Archive Collections)Letter to WNYC director Morris S. Novik: Mill Lane Bronx, N.Y.C. October 27, 1938...
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Tracey Sterne
In November of 1981, an item appeared in The New York Times -and it seemed all of us in New York (and elsewhere) who were interested in music, radio, and culture in general, saw it: “Teresa Sterne,” it...
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Lola Hayes and "Tone Pictures of the Negro in Music"
Lola Wilson Hayes (1906-2001) was a highly-regarded African-American mezzo-soprano, WNYC producer, and later, much sought after vocal teacher and coach. A Boston native, Hayes was a music graduate of...
View ArticleThe First Post 9/11 Phone-In: Richard Hake Sitting-in For Brian Lehrer
On September 18, 2001, The late Richard Hake sat-in for Brian Lehrer at Columbia University's new studios at WKCR. Just one week after the attack on the World Trade Center, WNYC was broadcasting on FM...
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Paul Robeson Heard Over WNYC During WWII
Newspaper ad for 1942 Robeson concert.(WNYC Archive Collections)On September 1, 1942, the African-American conductor Dean Dixon lead a free concert in Central Park featuring contemporary Russian music,...
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Opening of the Fiorello H. La Guardia Telecommunications Center
Logo sticker made for the opening of WNYC's new studios.(WNYC Archive Collections)Thirty-five years ago WNYC officially completed four years of construction that transformed its Depression-era...
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Better Late Than Never: A Talk WNYC Censored in 1934
When discovering the article pictured above,[1] I was disappointed. In the course of my research of the station's history, I had seen the newspaper radio listings for May 27, 1934, and thought well of...
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The Hansberry Interviews
First edition of A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry(Wikimedia)Lorraine Hansberry’s career, spanning from the debut of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959 to her early death from cancer in...
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Police Honor Men
It should be no surprise that the City of New York's radio station would have close ties to the city's police department. Through most of WNYC's history, at least until its independence in 1997 from...
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Explorer Dentist Worries Big Sugar
Dr. L. M. Waugh(Geni)On April 16, 1940, Leuman Maurice Waugh (1877-1972), a dentist, photographer, and professor of orthodontics at Columbia University, sat down in the WNYC studio for an interview....
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The McCarthys Step Out: A Police Safety Program
Some of WNYC's earliest radio drama came out of the police department safety bureau. When in the 1930s 30,000 people were falling victim to street and highway accidents each year, the story of a...
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Overcoming the Limitations of Time
From the January/February 1940 WNYC Masterwork Bulletin:A MATTER OF RECORD: Mighty useful gadgets are WNYC's four new recording machines. They were used in a variety of interesting ways during the past...
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Promoting Tidy Streets and Tidy Minds: The Junior Inspectors Club of the Air
Medallion given to members of the Junior Inspectors Club.(WNYC Archive Collections)Imagine, for a moment, the Boy Scouts run by the New York City Department of Sanitation with a regular radio program,...
View ArticleA 1939 Snapshot of WNYC
Two years after WNYC's new WPA-built studios came online, the author Mary Field Parton (1878-1969) wrote a 232-page guide to New York called, Metropolis: A Study of New York. Published by Longmans...
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A Shorthand Contest on the Radio?
It may be hard to imagine the listenership for a shorthand competition on the radio, beyond a handful of teenage secretary hopefuls. Yet, these broadcasts were not uncommon in the 1920s and 1930s with...
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Einstein Listened
Former WNYC director Seymour N. Siegel suggested that WNYC once received fan mail from Einstein. As I continue to look far and wide for evidence of this alleged bit of praise, I can’t help but wonder,...
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An Award for WNYC, a Concert, and the Raised Hackles of a Times Reviewer
On Feb 12, 1954 the National Institute of Arts and Letters, in cooperation with the National Orchestral Association, presented the opening concert of WNYC’s 15th annual American Music Festival. The...
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Novik Tours Postwar European Broadcasters
Members of the 1945 post-war European radio facilities tour by American broadcasters including WNYC's Morris Novik.(Photo courtesy of The La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community...
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WNYC's New Studios in 1937
WNYC celebrated the inauguration of its suite of new studios in the Municipal Building with a five-hour broadcast featuring the play WNYC: The Voice of the People, with Mayor La Guardia playing himself...
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WNYC: The Station That Dodged Bullets
Radio Digest, March 22, 1924, page 4.(WNYC Archive Collections)By most measures, WNYC should not exist. You might even call it a radio station with more than nine lives. Powerful forces fought to keep...
View ArticleNew Yorkers navigate the risks and realities of gas stoves
A new report on health risks associated with gas stoves has sparked a conversation about their use in the United States. The study from researchers and the energy organization RMI found about 13% of...
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In the Air, On the Air: A Radio Course in Flying Fundamentals
On May 25, 1934, WNYC took off into the wild blue yonder with a ten-part series of talks on the fundamentals of flying hosted by noted pilot and plane designer Jack B. Stinson from the famous Stinson...
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Christie R. Bohnsack: WNYC's First Director
Christie R. Bohnsack (1882-1964) oversaw the day-to-day running and programming of WNYC for its first fourteen years. He was a creature of the reigning political power at City Hall and Tammany Hall who...
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Early Radio Documentary and Recording at WNYC
In early May 1941, American broadcasters gathered in Columbus, Ohio, for the 12th Institute for Education by Radio. Although primarily made up of representatives of non-commercial educational stations...
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The WNYC-WNYE Connection
WNYC and WNYE were once very close. They exchanged equipment, time, talent, and programming in various ways. In early 1946 the following account of WNYE's history was written. Although not signed, I...
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The 'King of the Twelve-String Guitar' is a WNYC Regular Through the 1940s
George Harrison once remarked, "No Lead Belly, No Beatles,". This was not hyperbole. Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame (1986) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1988), he's influenced...
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