….and most assuredly, there will never be another! The reference is to WNEW 11-3-0 in New York which was the radio home to some supremely talented air personalities, aided and abetted by a stellar news operation!
Those voices that appeared between the records belonged to a fraternity of personalities who had one tradition: To offer amusing chatter and incisive comments about the records they played.
At the same time, those news broadcasters (some of whom still write for this website), did their level-best through sharp editing and impeccable writing to keep the New York metropolitan area informed up to the minute!
Sadly, that all came to an abrupt end thirty-two years ago on December 11, 1992 and was only amplified by the Nor’easter walloping New York, New Jersey and Connecticut at the time.
As I have said before and meant sincerely, the heavens were weeping for what we will always recall as the Big W!
Article contributed by Bob Gibson
WNEW-AM on-air roster (partial) originally posted 12/10/2012
–MCP–
As sure as most Americans are wondering what lies ahead for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and the next four years under President-elect Trump, they’re also facing a grim anniversary! Yes, you know this one, dateline Dallas, gunfire erupts at the Texas School Book Depository and America’s 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is dead.
As it was 61 years ago in 1963, the day that changed America forever, is again a Friday. America mourns, America is angry and yet while it all seems impossible at the time, we are all aware that life must go on. And with that, the nation learns that Dallas police collar a loner, 24-year old Lee Harvey Oswald. We were told he was charged with multiple crimes including firing a high-powered rifle at President Kennedy and killing the Commander-In-Chief while wounding Texas Governor John Connelly who was riding in the same top-down limousine through downtown Dallas.
Breaking the unthinkable news first on network radio was ABC’s Don Gardiner. While over on ABC-TV, a daytime re-run of “Father Knows Best” was interrupted by the voice of ABC News Correspondent Ed Silverman. Both remained on the air for several hours inter-acting with fellow reporters in the field, in an effort to assemble as much information as possible on this story that shocked the world!
As if what happened were not enough of an emotional jolt, a day after the gunfire in Dallas, suspect Oswald was being escorted from the City to the County lock-up by deputies when he was approached by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby who opened fire, mortally wounding Oswald. Among the numerous reporters standing in the hall witnessing this shocking scene first-hand was WNEW’s Ike Pappas who promptly remarked, “Holy mackerel!” This was also something seen by millions watching the transfer on television, and assured that the American people would never get to hear Oswald tell his story. There would be a trial for Ruby, proceedings covered by Ed Silverman in Dallas, where he grew up. Ruby was convicted and sentenced to death for the Oswald murder. But the verdict and sentence were overturned on appeal and before he would stand trial a second time Ruby died in prison of cancer in January, 1967. Mr. Kennedy was succeeded in office by Vice President Lyndon Johnson as Secret Service security was substantially beefed-up.
So much had happened in such a short period of time and one thing was obvious, America’s age of innocence was history!
Yes, it’s the 19th of November and my head flashes back to the fact that during the course of the forties and fifties, thousands of New York City kids hung out on the sidewalks near their homes around the corner!
One man used to mention that, often and frequently, on his coast-to-coast, late-night talk show. One of those kids was Larry Zeiger of Brooklyn, who came to be known to many Americans as Larry King of radio and television talk show fame!
Like Larry, I too had a favorite or two hang out spots on my native turf of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It was right near 93rd and Lexington and if the then-pavement picked up the regular footprints of long ago, mine would be there.
Larry and I never met, never even had an unexpected telephone conversation. The common thread for us was the broadcast industry and like many others, I became a fan of Larry’s after his work resulted in his leaving his 21-year home of Miami in favor of Washington, DC, where he was recruited by Mutual Radio for an overnight talk show.
Roughly seven years later in 1985, Ted Turner wanted to have him on CNN in prime-time with famous guests five nights a week. It made for long nights, alright, but Larry did it starting at 9 in the evening Eastern time on television, and finishing up at 5 in the AM following SIX hours of network talk radio! By my count, he did that for about 9 years until 1994.
But, as for “Larry King LIVE” on CNN, that turned out to be one for the cable history books, 25 years with the same host on the same network and in the same time slot!
I mention all of this now because nearly four years after his death, this would have been Larry King’s 91st birthday!!
By many, but not all historians’ thinking, this could have been dubbed America’s Radio Day more than a century ago! That’s when the sound medium began finding its way from the assorted cobwebs of a laboratory eventually to what we can call Main Street, USA!
It was precisely 104 years ago that KDKA, Pittsburgh (November 2, 1920) was issued the first broadcast license by the predecessor of the Federal Communications Commission.
KDKA’s logo from the 1920s. Already they were known as broadcast pioneers.
Now all of these years later, that station at 1020 on the AM dial with a power output of the maximum-allowed 50-thousand watts, is very much alive and well! For that matter, so is Detroit’s WWJ which is reported to have first put out a signal a year earlier in 1919. Like KDKA, that Detroit all-news station is still in business, and like its Pittsburgh counterpart, is part of the radio company known as Audacy. Yes, radio preceded television, but don’t try to convince a true radio broadcaster that TV is better or more important than its sister medium!
Article contributed by Bob Gibson
Editor’s Note: Among Bob’s many prestigious credits, he was a news anchor for KDKA-AM during the late 60’s and early 70’s.
Thanks to the concept of early voting, I’m done for another four years in terms of those top of the ticket entries!!
We all, presumably, want a first-rate democracy while maintaining our position as the best and strongest nation on Earth. Of course, how we go about achieving that is at the voting booth where each of us has one, and only one, chance to make our voice heard.
Whenever you do that, make the right choice, and if you’re not sure ahead of time, read and think about it some more, rather than calling a friend, as someone whose opinion you may think is golden, could differ from yours.
Good luck and may the best people win for them, us and the world!
Editor’s Note: Abstention because you don’t like either candidate is not an option. Find something you like about one…or dislike about one-make a choice, and VOTE. It’s your right. It’s your duty. usa.gov/voting-rights
Today is a hard day as it reminds us all that it’s been a year since we lost you. A year? How is that even possible, when each day without you can feel like an eternity. I hope you know how much you are loved and dearly missed.
Edward BrownEd & Jean
Edward C. Brown, of Sun City Center, FL, and formerly of New York, NY, passed away on September 15th, 2023 at his home with his family by his side, a week before his 90th birthday.
Dad’s heart overflowed with kindness, gentleness, caring, giving, love, and humility.
The Family of Edward Brown
I share with you now, a favorite song of Dad’s.
Marianne (Brown) Palmer
-30-
Remembering This Site’s Founding Father!!
The ever-pensive and always fair Edward Brown is more than a little deserving of some meaningful ink at this juncture! Though not one to ever call attention to himself, it’s now been exactly one year since we lost this accomplished broadcast journalist, news analyst and friend on September 15, 2023, a week before his 90th birthday.
When it came to getting it said, Ed was a master storyteller, respected by his colleagues, and his listeners and viewers in a nearly half-century career that took him from suburban radio stations on Long Island before he stepped up to New York’s WMCA for a half dozen years and a full decade at WNEW. His tenure at the latter was punctuated by AP and UPI awards, particularly for his commentaries on Watergate. In addition, he made appearances on WNEW Television’s “Ten O’clock News” as an analyst. His superb writing and commanding voice also led to Edward winning a network position as an analyst for NBC’s News and Information Service, a news broadcaster on NBC Radio and an important contributor to NBC Radio’s 1976 election coverage.
Before he and wife, Jean, moved to Florida, Ed did his final news anchoring and on-air writing at WCHL Radio in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Ed’s retirement years were spent in Sun City Center, Florida and it was there, at home, where the spotlight on his labor of love focused on WNEW1130.com. Yes, that is this very site where you are seeing this remembrance and a wholesome outpouring of stories tied to that once-prestigious New York Radio Station.
I am delighted to be among a small group of gifted, retired broadcasters who are privileged to write for this web site and can only hope this flashback would have passed muster with Ed and his daughter, Marianne, who is our Editor!
Four simple words sum up this story: “MAN ON THE MOON!”
Depending upon where you lived in these United States 55 years ago late last night or early this morning earthlings by the name of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first known humans to set foot on the lunar surface. Yes, it was another case of virtually the whole world was watching and that includes Group W Aerospace.
Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon, 20-Jul-1969.
Correspondent Jim Slade who was aided and abetted by Beach Rogers of Westinghouse station, KFWB, Los Angeles. There were a multitude of places on the radio and TV dials to have followed this unforgettable story but Group W always figures in my accounts for two simple reasons: I was at the time, the morning news broadcaster at Westinghouse station KDKA, Pittsburgh, and Jim Slade’s work with words and explanations, impressed me to no end! That’s not to say that Mr. Rogers was an after-thought. Definitely not! What all started with JFK’s declaration on September 12, 1962 that “We choose to go to the moon,” included a promise to make this out-of-this-world journey before the end of the 1960s. So, less than 7 years later, President Kennedy’s vision became reality as Apollo 11 roared into the heavens carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins into history. Four days after the blast-off from Cape Kennedy, Armstrong and Aldrin were prancing about on the moon’s surface looking and observing in total wonderment as they went about conducting various experiments.
To be sure, it was a trip for the ages and featured a message left on the lunar surface that “We came in peace,” and then that memorable quote from Armstrong, Wapakoneta’s pride and joy, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!” That may be in the history books just a collection of meaningful words, but for the many millions across the Earth who were listening to their radios and watching the dramatic events unfold on television, that phrase truly packed a wallop! More than 8 days after lift-off in Florida the trio of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins made a safe splashdown in the Pacific about 800 miles southwest of Hawaii and a dozen miles from the recovery ship, the U.S.S. Hornet.
In looking back, this was another giant page in the annals of NASA’s outstanding work and an event chock-full of memories and history for skyward-watching Earthlings!
Below is a reprise of the July 15, 2019 post by Edward Brown.
Click on links below for the Apollo 11 production, a profile of George Engle by Alan Walden, Executive Producer Mike Stein; and a National Geographic feature on the Future of Space Flight.
On July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Lee’s resolution for independence in a near-unanimous vote (the New York delegation abstained, but later voted affirmatively). On that day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary
July 4th Fireworks, Washington, D.C. Carol M Highsmith, photographer
Festival” and that the celebration should include “Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”
On July 4th, the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence , which had been written largely by Jefferson. Though the vote for actual independence took place on July 2nd, from then on the 4th became the day that was celebrated as the birth of American independence.
Unanimous Declaration of Independence 1776
Did you know? John Adams believed that July 2nd was the correct date on which to celebrate the birth of American independence, and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4th events in protest. Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
