1943:Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia addresses the people of Harlem in the wake of a violent episode between the police and a soldier. Speaking in the very early morning hours, he asks that the neighborhood's residents go home and go to bed in order to avoid further violence.
1989: John Schaefer features several artists who cross the musical boundaries between cultures. He includes: Dutch flutist Walter van Hauwe; American composer John Hassell and several pieces by Australian composer Michael Atherton on this edition of New Sounds.
2004:Leonard Lopate talks with Dr. Bruce Weinstein, “The Ethics Guy,†about the ethics of apologies, as well as public apologies from past and present.
Analog Fun in Your Pocket
Long before Pong, Pac Man, Game Boys and the myriad of other electronic stress reducers and murderers-of-time, there was the simple creative pleasure of the promotional WQXR Pocket Etch-A-Sketch. (Photo: Amy Pearl)
LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS
A Vision of Major Growth in 1986
"Having proved that she has a very green thumb when it comes to revitalizing dying public tv stations --notably WNYC-TV New York --Mary Perot Nichols is now bent on making WNYC-FM into what could be the first noncommercial radio superstation in the U.S.
"In conjunction with this plan, the director of the N.Y. City-owned WNYC-TV-AM-FM has set her sights on starting up a news service to be distributed to radio outlets in the state or metropolitan region; launching a catalog of merchandise tied to the FMer's various programs, and setting up an ongoing exchange of cultural radio programming with a French radio network ---a feat no other U.S. pubcaster has managed..."
Source: An excerpt from Janet Stilson, writing in "Gotham's WNYC-FM Is Just Super-Duper," Variety, April 9, 1986, pg.47.
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We bet you didn't remember that this week marked the 39th anniversary of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance. To mark the occasion, we've posted a 1967 Eleanor Fischer interview with the outspoken teamster chief before he went off to jail. See: HOFFA.
WNYC first day of broadcast, July 8th, 1924 (Municipal Archives Collection)
“It was here that I heard Tosca for the first time. Sol Belinsky was an opera lunatic. Nights, he studied Italian at New Utrecht High School; and during the day, as he kneaded dough, he sang along, in perfect Italian, with the WQXR Morning Opera broadcasts. He was best, though, with Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. The walls of the diminutive bakery trembled with the mad scene! Yet it is Tosca I most remember. Whenever I hear Floria Tosca's lament before her suicide, I weep, recall Sol, himself teary-eyed, sobbing in a tray of warm challah."
Source: Vince Clemente writing in "Memories of a Jewish Boyhood," Italian Americana, Volume 11, No. 2, Spring/Summer, 1993, p. 239
WNYC's 90th anniversary has passed. We're now officially a nonagenarian radio station. In this space we'll be linking to various historical WNYC champions and milestones. This week: Henry Wei: Pioneering Asian-American Engineer.
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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) This week: 1923.
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Check out the @mayorlaguardia Twitter feed straight from the WNYC broadcasts! His Honor now has 546 followers.
The WNYC Archives is on Twitter with 2,112 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 9,400 followers. Check it out at:
