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NYPR Archives & Preservation
April 25, 2014 - Volume 13  Issue 15
Edition # 603

BROADCAST ON WNYC TODAY IN…

1925: Mayor John F. Hylan talks about "The Progress of the City of New York.

1938: The Negro Melody Singers perform in the studio. Note: The group was one of many WPA sponsored music groups filling our airwaves.

1949: Dr. Iago Galston of the New York Academy of Medicine discusses the frontiers of genetics.

1950: Ida Cook and Mary Louise Cook, who rescued Jews from the Nazis in the 1930s, discuss their recently published book, We Followed Our Stars.

1993: Author Tom Wolfe delivers a Celeste Bartos Forum lecture, "Fiction in an Age of Non-Fiction," for the series Voices at the New York Public Library.

2008: WNYC reporter Siddhartha Mitter takes a walk down 125th Street in light of pending zoning changes.
Greenpoint Transmitter Clock 
 
Many thanks go out this week to retired WNYC engineer Alfred Tropea for donating this original Western Union Naval Observatory clock from the former WNYC Greenpoint, Brooklyn transmitter site. Al's generosity goes beyond this amazing artifact to hundreds of WNYC related photographs from the '60s through the '80s as well. And along with the clock came a 1920s vintage receiver from the Greenpoint site, as well as a station license plate, tube volt meter and Western Electric 639B (birdcage) microphone. Thanks again, Al. These are great additions to the collection!

LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS

 
Our Logorrheic Profession
 
"WNYC's on-air fund raising last week, though typically excruciating, brought the station enough money to keep its drive for independence going. No, WNYC is not advertisement-free; the plugs for its own programs and for its 'supporters' are incessant, and don't be surprised if the commercials grow longer and pushier. But it remains a precious source of non-rock music and of news that doesn't wallow in murders and infidelities. The WNYC-FM schedule has recently been enhanced with four afternoon hours of classical music presided over by Sara Fishko, who has the distinction in a logorrheic profession of not talking unless she has something to say, which is usually something worth hearing about the music she selects..."

Source: Walter Goodman writing in The New York Times, February 6, 1997.
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It's POETRY MONTH  and we've pulled together a lot of archive material including Dylan Thomas, Connie Converse, Jack Kerouac, Philip Levine, Natasha Trethewey, Marianne Moore, Archibald MacLeish, Robert Pinsky, Robert Frost, Vladimir Nabokov and more!  (Corrected Link!)
WNYC first day of broadcast, July 8th, 1924
(Municipal Archives Collection)

    WQXR - 'Long Reads' from WWII

 
 WQXR: The Roots of Jailhouse Rock

"The sun came out and WQXR, the classical station, played continuously. I grew up on Strauss, Shostakovich, and Sibelius."

Source: Mike Stoller, writing in Hound Dog: The Leiber & Stoller Autobiography by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, pg. 5.

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were American songwriting and record producing partners. Stoller was the composer and Leiber the lyricist. Their most famous songs include Elvis Presley's hits Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock.

 
90
 
WNYC's 90th year of broadcasting is upon us. (The actual anniversary is next July 8th.) In this space we'll be linking to various WNYC champions and milestones. This week: Tennessee Williams on Theatre Time with George Freedley.

When WQXR was still W2XR, station founder and radio pioneer John V. L. Hogan hired Douglas A. MacKinnon to program and spin discs at  the fledgling classical station. Toward the end of his tenure, he wrote an essay for the May, 1941 Program Guide:  We Know What You Like.                    

In a 1988 talk that has the easy-going feel of a conversation in a diner, Nicholas Pileggi provides an account of how the Mafia came to power in New York City. Listen at: Voices at the New York Public Library.
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The WNYC Facebook page has a station timeline (1922-present) with more than 607 milestones, photos, and links to audio. (Right hand column)

We're also working on the WQXR Facebook timeline. (1929 - present)

Do your friends want to subscribe to this newsletter? Have them sign up at: NEWSLETTERS.
 
 
Check out the @mayorlaguardia Twitter feed straight from the WNYC broadcasts! His Honor now has 541 followers.
 
The WNYC Archives is on Twitter with 1941 followers @wnycarchives. We tweet daily reminders of, and links to, WNYC broadcasts from that day in the past.
 
We’ve got a Tumblr page too! More than 9,100 followers. Check it out at:
 
WNYC Archives in the…
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