100 Years of 100 Things: WNYC

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone, and happy birthday to us. Today as you may have heard is WNYC's actual 100th birthday. The station signed on for the first time on July 8th, 1924. We'll be celebrating over the next year with all kinds of radio treats and in-person treats for you our listeners, including something really fun tonight, a reimagining of WNYC's first ever broadcast live on the radio and in-person on the green space stage, featuring John Schaffer as the station's first announcer, Brooke Gladstone as Mayor John Hylan, the versatile actor Sarah Jones in a variety of roles, and WNYC president and CEO LaFontaine Oliver as Commissioner Grover Whalen, the city official known as the father of WNYC because he conceived of and pushed the idea of WNYC into existence.

We'll get a preview from LaFontaine in just a minute. I also want to announce that for this show, we've decided to go big with a centennial year that kicks off today with a series beginning right now called 100 Years of 100 Things. Over the next year, we will literally do 100 year history of 100 different things, everything from 100 years of global fascism to 100 years of New York City ice cream. I learned researching that segment that Carvel Soft Serve was apparently invented by accident here in the city. We'll get to that story later this summer.

We'll have 100 years of prohibition, of immigration. 100 years of Robert Moses, also of Democratic and Republican convention speeches, with those conventions coming up with archival audio and, of course, hooked to this year's conventions this summer. We'll have 100 years of James Baldwin, born 100 years ago this summer, 100 years of New York City baseball. Yogi Berra would be turning 100 soon. His legacy would be part of that conversation. 100 years of the Catskills and the Jersey shore. All of these segments with all kinds of archival audiotape from 100 years of radio, plus lots of oral history from you on the phones, listeners of all ages, and always an element of looking forward to the next 100 years.

Because today is our actual birthday, we begin our series 100 Years of 100 Things right now with thing number one, 100 years of WNYC. Here to kick it off is our president and CEO, LaFontaine Oliver. Hi, LaFontaine. Welcome back to the show and happy birthday to us.

LaFontaine Oliver: Hi, Brian. First of all, thanks for having me and yes, happy birthday to us.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start off like this. Here is the guy you'll be playing at the green space tonight, a city official named Grover Whalen. This clip is from 1950. He was retired by then. Looking back on why he wanted to make a thing called WNYC back in the early 1920s.

Commissioner Grover Whalen: Since I was the father of it, I felt that one of the things that was most important in New York, that there should be a station that didn't have to follow the dictates of any commercial sponsor in order to use the air for the benefit of the people of this great city.

Brian Lehrer: Former city official Grover Whalen, known as the father of WNYC and thanks to the New York City Municipal Archives for that clip. Reminiscing in 1950 about why he wanted a municipal city government-owned radio station. LaFontaine, from studying up to play Grover Whalen tonight, what else might you want to add about the reasons he or the city government as a whole stood up a radio station?

LaFontaine Oliver: Thanks, Brian. First, this is a momentous day for all of us, and not just those of us who work here, but for our listeners and for all of New York. Change is constant in the world and it feels like change is happening even faster now. To have something persist and to be preserved like WNYC, I think is really powerful and wonderful and just a great thing for us to celebrate.

As for Grover Whalen, I'm really inspired by his vision and foresight as you could hear in that wonderful clip. You realize that from the get-go, WNYC was meant to be of service to the people of New York, and that it was meant to tell stories and to reflect the city back to itself and movingly, to create a sense of possibility for all those who tuned in.

Obviously, he faced a number of hurdles, as I read in preparing for this evening's performance, including pushback from some corporate telecommunications companies that he had to overcome. It is just really exciting to also think about the context of what was happening at the time and the fact that, we were just 25 years into New York City officially becoming a five-borough consolidated metropolis. To think about the immigrants that made up the city and the Great Migration into the city with the Black population. A number of just really interesting things I was able to uncover in preparing for the role.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned the opposition by some commercial radio station owners at the time. Some other brand new radio stations were owned by Western Electric and AT&T already at that time. We heard it in the Grover Whalen clip. I'll talk more about this with Andy Lanset, our archivist later in the segment. Grover Whalen was already articulating the case for public radio, when radio was a tiny little infant that it shouldn't all be controlled by commercial interests. I don't think they use the phrase public radio when they invented WNYC, but that was the point, right?

LaFontaine Oliver: That was absolutely the point. It's great that 100 years later we are still in many ways fueled by that idea and fueled by the community. When you think about the fact that when they were going to sell the station, they essentially sold it to the people of New York. We then transitioned it into the member community-supported organization that it is today. That's really powerful and it's the reason why we're still here.

Brian Lehrer: Since you referred to that moment, we'll play that clip. This is relatively recent, folks, 1997. Some of you will remember this, when the city under Mayor Giuliani, decided to stop owning a public radio station, and we were reinvented as the not-for-profit organization that had to raise all its own funding, as we do to this day. Here's the moment from the official ceremony in 1997, when Mayor Giuliani handed off WNYC to our first station president, not appointed by a mayor, Laura Walker.

Mayor Giuliani: I am very, very honored to present to Laura-- I'm going to present it to Laura, right? I'm going to present you with the certificate that creates you. This is like a declaration of independence.

[laughter]

The United States Federal Communications Commission, the AM/FM broadcast Broadcast License, City of New York Municipal Broadcasting System is transferring it to you to operate independently to this board and to all of you. I'm very, very happy, very proud and feel that not only is it in good hands, it's in better hands than it's ever been before. Thank you.

[applause]

Laura Walker: On behalf of the WNYC community, we accept the licenses for 93.9 FM and AM 820 and present you with our check for $3.3 million. The first payment.

Mayor Giuliani: Look at that. Isn't that great?

[applause]

Laura Walker: By the way, Mayor Giuliani, would you like the mug or the umbrella?

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: Ha, ha, ha. Even though he wasn't taking out a membership, he was forcing us to pay $20 million over six years for the right to continue existing. LaFontaine, can you talk about the job for WNYC? I think there have been other public radio stations like this, that used to be government owned and now have to pay our own bills.

LaFontaine Oliver: Brian, first of all, that is a great clip and just wonderful to hear that moment and to be able to play that back. Going independent, it really meant that we were going from being 100% funded by the city to being primarily funded by the people who listen to us. That's one of the things that distinguishes public media, not just here in New York City, but across the country. It's our funding model. It's our members who are voluntarily choosing to pay for something that they could otherwise get for free.

We're also supported by philanthropic and foundation support and also corporate sponsorship to try and help us to create a diversified revenue base in order to support the work that we're doing. It's just really critical right now for a functioning democracy and for a healthy civic culture and we think that it's still worthy of supporting. I'm extremely happy because we continue to have foundations who support us, we continue to have members who support us, and that's what keeps us alive.

Brian Lehrer: On the fundraising aspect, the economics of all media, public radio included, are becoming so different than they were even 10 years ago, never mind in 1924. How do you see the future in that respect?

LaFontaine Oliver: It's an extremely dynamic space right now. When you look at the last few years, even the biggest national players, from cable television to national publications like the Washington Post, everyone is facing challenges right now. Social media has continued to accelerate the fracturing of our audiences and that has impacted advertising sales in a dramatic way. Then when you think about big tech and its impact on traffic online, Meta, and its move away from journalism, and the reliance on audiences using social media instead of traditional journalism outlets for news, it has deeply affected traffic and discoverability.

It's having a big impact on audiences and the way that publishers can pursue and serve audiences. All of these things are affecting us in public media right now. It is one of the toughest times in public radio and we're seeing impacts, unfortunately, across each of those revenue streams that I mentioned. The membership, the philanthropy, and also the sponsorship. Stations across the country are feeling that.

What you'll hear, I think, a lot from media executives right now is part of the future is forging and developing these one-to-one relationships with the audiences. For some, that means through subscriptions. For us, that's our membership model. We know we need to double down on that and continue to create that stickiness and that impact of our work so that people will continue to say, "Hey, I want to give money to support something that I could otherwise give for free."

Brian Lehrer: We are observing and celebrating WNYC's 100th birthday, which is today. If you're just joining us, we are with WNYC president and CEO, LaFontaine Oliver. In a few minutes, he's going to switch seats with our archivist, Andy Lanset, and we're going to go through some other historical audio and have a lot of fun with that. Listeners, you can call up. We'll take phone calls during the Andy Lanset part of the segment with anybody who thinks you're the longest listener to WNYC.

What's your oldest memory of listening to something on WNYC? Maybe we'll go fishing for that since this is 100th birthday show or anything else. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. I'm going to take a phone call right now, LaFontaine, because I see someone who we do know who has been a guest on the show, who is a local public official, is calling in and also celebrating a birthday today. Here is State Senator Andrew Gounardes of Brooklyn calling in. Hello, Senator Gounardes.

Senator Andrew Gounardes: Good morning, Brian. Happy birthday to WNYC. Hello, everyone.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. You told our screener this is also your birthday?

Senator Andrew Gounardes: Today is, in fact-- I'm glad that I found out today that we share this birthday. Today is indeed my birthday, as is our comptroller, Brad Lander. We all share a birthday together.

Brian Lehrer: I did not know about Brad Lander being born today as well. You're not 100, though, are you?

Senator Andrew Gounardes: I am not 100, though. With two kids, sometimes I feel it running up and down the stairs, but certainly not 100 yet.

Brian Lehrer: Happy birthday to you. Thank you for wishing happy birthday to us. Tell Brad Lander I said happy birthday. LaFontaine, this is the kickoff of a year of centennial programming. My 100 Years of 100 Things series, basically two per week for the next year, is just one of the ways the station is getting ready to observe. Would you tell us about some of the other things that are coming up this year?

LaFontaine Oliver: Yes. Absolutely, Brian. I would say I'm really looking forward to the 100 Years of 100 Things. The history of baseball. I hear you're going to get into James Baldwin. You mentioned earlier ice cream. Of course, looking forward to that. Also, we've cooked up another interesting way for folks to get around the city and make it a little bit more bearable in the next few days. Listeners are going to be hearing you and Michael Hill and Brooke Gladstone reading announcements on the L train and on 350 subway platforms around the city. So excited about that.

Also, you can look up into the night sky this evening and see the iconic Empire State Building. It will be illuminated in WNYC's red to commemorate this once-in-a-century anniversary. Obviously, you're going to talk with Andy Lanset, our archivist, who's put together a wonderful timeline that folks can see. We hope that folks will visit that. We have radio spots. Then you're going to be hosting another event at the Central Park SummerStage, and we're going to have folks like Brooke and Micah from On the Media, Ira Glass from This American Life, John Schaefer, storytelling from The Moth, and so much more for a free event.

We're also going to have a special Centennial Gala in November, and we're going to be hosting a pretty special after-party to go along with that. Listeners can check out all the information online at wnyc.org/100. Brian, if I could just say one other thing, which is that we have this wonderful opportunity for folks to get involved. Obviously, we are fueled by the support of our listening community who decide to become members. We also have a major challenge grant in place from one of our most long-term foundation supporters, and that is a challenge grant for $5 million. They are going to match large-scale gifts of $50,000 or more. That is really, really powerful.

We are also kicking off our legacy-giving challenge. We're calling it 100 Intentions for 100 Years. It's an effort to strengthen our planned giving program and to get at least 100 new giving intentions over the course of the year. That's an opportunity for folks to help ensure the long-term legacy of WNYC and New York Public Radio by thinking about their own personal legacy and thinking about their wills and trust and things like that.

Brian Lehrer: That is so great and so hopeful. I'm glad you mentioned the SummerStage event. I hadn't mentioned that on the air yet. I'll just put a pin in that for Brian Lehrer Show listeners. Yes, I'm going to be hosting a Central Park SummerStage birthday party event for WNYC. That's going to be on Monday night, September 9th and that'll be free. Mark your calendars if you want to come celebrate with us, with Micah and Brooke from On The Media, as LaFontaine said, with Ira Glass, who so many of you are fans of, Monday night, September 9th at Summer Stage for free. That's a few months from now.

Obviously, we've got a lot of time for that. We'll talk about it a number of times before that comes about, but there it is and I can't wait. You, LaFontaine, to let people get to know you just a little better. You're a third-generation radio person yourself. We've talked about this a little bit off the air. You've been in charge of public radio stations in Orlando and Baltimore and now here, where you've long had family ties.

Thinking about your family's history, as it may have been handed down to you, as part of a bigger picture and your own experience, what do you think about as you consider the evolution of the medium over time? Not just from the financial standpoint, which we were talking about before, certainly a challenging time as the media economic models change in public and commercial, but radio's changing place in the city or the world.

LaFontaine Oliver: Brian, I think that the thing that I think about most growing up, there's a saying out there that service is the rent that we pay for the space that we occupy. I think that when you think about the space that we occupy as broadcasters, it is tremendous. We get into people's homes, into their workplaces, into their cars. We're now infiltrating their mobile phones and all of those things. It means a lot of responsibility as it relates to service to the community.

I then tie that back to the passing of the Radio Act of 1927, which happened just a few years after our first broadcast at WNYC. It talked about the fact that we have an obligation to serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity. Again, it goes back to that idea of service. The last part I would just say is when I think about my family ties, when I think about our founder, Grover Whalen, when I think about the leaders whose shoulders I now stand on, it was for them about service. I also think about how I can serve and how I can honor their trailblazing, their risk taking and their audacity. It really is by becoming their student and learning what they did, what challenges they faced. Yes, there is considerable evolution in the medium right now, and quite honestly, some days, it feels a little scary, but I think it goes back to service to the community. Grover Whalen in that clip that you played talked about that.

I think as we think about more ways that we can impact our community with service and making what we do impactful to their everyday lives, to their community, to the world, that we will find a way through this evolution of the medium in order to hopefully meet audiences on whatever platforms they may roam on going forward through our powerful brand of public media that's been produced now 100 years on WNYC.

Brian Lehrer: So great that you have that moral core of service as you lead us into our second century. Before you go to get back to tonight's event with the recreation of our first broadcast-- Again, I'll tell the listeners I will be hosting the recreation pregame show, you might call it, beginning at seven o'clock tonight. Then the theatrical part at exactly 8:54 PM 100 years to the minute. You're playing Grover Whalen, the city official most responsible for making WNYC a reality. How have you been prepping for a role like that?

LaFontaine Oliver: It's interesting. Some little known fact about me, my first love before broadcasting was acting, and so I've been able to dust off some of those acting chops and looking forward to joining folks on stage the way it was done back in the day when folks gathered around the radio to listen and to experience the broadcast together. I'm excited about that. I hear, in fact, we've got maybe not mics from the '20s, but we've got some props from maybe the '30s and '40s that we will be using to help us all get in and stay in character for that period so I'm really excited about that.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you'll be able to watch that recreation from the Green Space stage at wnyc.org when that starts at exactly 8:54 tonight. Again, I'll be on from seven o'clock until then leading into it, but you will actually be able to watch a live video stream of the recreation with LaFontaine. If you've never seen him in person, you get to see our president and CEO. If you've never seen Brooke Gladstone in person, she's going to be playing Mayor John Hylan, John Schaefer, as well, the actor Sarah Jones in a variety of roles tonight on the Green Space stage. Can people still get tickets if they want to be in the studio audience or is that all full?

LaFontaine Oliver: I think it's all full at this point, Brian. We're really encouraging everyone to join us online if you were not lucky enough to snag tickets to the live event.

Brian Lehrer: LaFontaine Oliver, president and CEO of WNYC. Thank you for kicking off this 100th anniversary day. Thank you for kicking off our 100 Years of 100 Things series on the show. Can't wait for tonight.

LaFontaine Oliver: Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Part two of this segment coming up right after a break with our archivist, Andy Lanset. We'll talk more station history, play more station archive audio. Stay with us.

Ira Flatow: Hey, Ira Flatow here from Science Friday. I never heard Mayor La Guardia reading comics to the kids, but I have enjoyed the other great stuff WNYC has sent our way. Congratulations on your first 100 years on radio.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Thank you Ira Flatow for that spot. We're actually going to play that Mayor La Guardia clip in a couple of minutes as we continue with our brand new series 100 Years of 100 Things, two a week, Mondays and Wednesdays for the next year as part of our WNYC centennial celebration on this show as we look back at one whole century and speculate about the next, play lots of archival audio that will make you laugh and cry and wonder about things, and take lots of your oral history phone calls, and as I say, look toward the next 100 years of all kinds of things in this universe in the course of this series.

We are kicking it off today with 100 years of WNYC itself. On Wednesday, we'll go on to 100 years of radio overall. Next week, during the Republican Convention, we'll do 100 years of Republican Convention speeches and presidential nominees and on from there. With us now, WNYC's amazing archivist Andy Lanset. We'll talk about and play some fun audio from La Guardia and a couple of other moments from WNYC history. Hey, Andy.

Andy Lanset: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Can you introduce yourself a little to our listeners? We on the staff know you so well and adore your work. How long have you been the archivist here, and what are the WNYC archives people may be wondering?

Andy Lanset: I started here 24 years ago as the department head, starting the department. Just prior to that, I worked on the 75th anniversary of the station in 1999, but the department got going on the 33rd floor of the municipal building, as you probably recall, in the tower. We decided that at that time it was really important that the station needed to have a central repository for its productions and its assets because up until that point, things were stored in nooks and crannies, different closets, literally a dozen different places in the tower for many years just by whoever decided to store something away.

There was no order and things needed to be cataloged and preserved. That's what we've been working at, making them available for new productions, for rebroadcast, getting material available to the public up on the website for researchers. That's really been a long-term effort here, and we feel that we've really made a dent in it.

Brian Lehrer: Give our listeners a little preview. What can they expect from the archives during the centennial year, not just on this show, but any time on the station?

Andy Lanset: We're going to have archive spot every week most written by Sara Fishko and voiced by her and Steven Smith, former Assistant Program Director here and Latif Nasser of Radiolab. I know All Of It is planning a pretty big blockbuster presentation making use of Mayor La Guardia's Talk to the People segment that was his regular Sunday show here from 1942 through '45. The station's centennial microsite, wnyc.org/100, that's the number 100, we have the timeline, which was previously mentioned, of just over 200 highlights from our history with links to more articles and sound from our collections. We're looking into expanding that further.

There'll be new blog pieces like the one I posted today, and you can find it on the station home page, a sort of Ripley's Believe It or Not compendium of WNYC weirdness, I would say, over the years. We'll be continuing to help out show producers and hosts like yourself with suggestions, need fulfillment for all your archive desires for 100 things in the coming months to come.

Brian Lehrer: Need fulfillment. I'm going to remember that promise. Here's a clip, folks, of the mayor of New York at the time the station was created, Mayor John Hylan. This clip is from three years before the station launched, 1921, as Hylan was campaigning for reelection. Listeners, I think you'll find this very interesting as Hylan is railing against private sector interests, or what he calls the private section, which he says threatened to undermine even way back then the buses and the subways. Listen.

Mayor John Hylan: The supreme issue of this campaign is whether or not we shall have home rule, whether or not a State Transit Commission, whose apparent purpose is to nullify subway contracts and take away the $0.05 fare shall be upheld or repudiated. New York would today have thousands of up-to-date, spacious, comfortable, sanitary, well-lighted and ventilated municipal buses on the streets of the city if we were not prevented by the private traction interest. The traction interest would not operate certain lines at a $0.05 fare nor would they permit anybody else to carry passengers at a $0.05 fare.

Brian Lehrer: That's Mayor Hylan in 1921, three years before the station went on the air, courtesy not of our archives directly, though, Andy has a copy of it, but courtesy of the city's municipal archives and obviously not aired on the station, but I wanted people to hear his voice, the mayor who was in charge of creating WNYC as a municipal radio station. Do you know, Andy, why Mayor Hylan was interested- -in spending tax dollars on creating a public radio station?

Andy Lanset: I'd say the mayor was interested from a general perspective of having another platform in which to get information to the public. The real driving force as we mentioned behind the effort was Grover Whalen then city commissioner for the Department of Bridges, Plant and Structures basically the public works department. I think Whalen really understood the power of the new emerging technology and how it would profoundly begin to change people's lives for the better.

Brian Lehrer: Highland Rail in that clip against private sector interests regarding the subways in 1921. I see from one of the stories in your archives, and I touched on this briefly with LaFontaine before, that private-sector radio interests tried to stop the city from launching WNYC as a public station at all. Can you tell us anything more about that?

Andy Lanset: You have to realize this is before the FCC and its predecessor agency, the Federal Radio Commission which as LaFontaine mentioned came around in 1927. It was a bit of a wild west out there where the new technology was concerned. What Whalen ran up against was an effort by the equipment manufacturers, patent holders, and AT&T to limit competition and maintain control, as much control as they could have over who got on the air and what was done with the materials related to the broadcast media. Our engineer at the time, Raymond Asserson, spoke out at a congressional hearing as well as there being a lot of push from Whalen to the commerce department which was involved. These efforts essentially busted the radio trust at the time and we got our transmitter and got on the air.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners are writing in more than calling in some of their oldest memories. Listeners, we'll have a few minutes for these. We still have two more archive clips to play with our archivist Andy Lanset on this WNYC's 100th birthday. If you think you have a really old memory of WNYC, what's your earliest memory of WNYC if you've been listening for a long time? 212-433-WNYC. We're seeing how far back we can go with a little oral history here. 212-433-9692 call or text.

One listener writes, "Earliest memory of WNYC, it was on at the Center for Book Arts. I heard Jacki Lyden's voice on All Things Considered, I had known her in Chicago before she worked for NPR, called the station, and they explained that she was based in Washington DC. Then when I had a child, it became my adult conversation. I listened to Pegeen Fitzgerald, Kate New York and Company, loved Steve Post, especially during fundraisers."

We have another one too remembering the late Steve Post. This says, "Earliest memory of WNYC was the late Steve Post morning program, which got me going in the mornings to my stressful job at the UN. Rest in peace, Steve." Someone else, "I'm sure I'm not the longest listener, but I started listening in the 1970s. I remember most of the radio play of late Ms. Rob aired on WNYC." Thank you listeners for those memories.

Let's jump ahead from the 1920s clip we played to 1945 and one of the most iconic things that happened in the early decades of the station. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia reading the funnies on the station, the funnies meeting, newspaper, comic strips. Before we play the clip, Andy, give us the context for this. Was this because of a strike in the newspaper industry that meant people couldn't get the newspapers for themselves and was it a one-time thing? What's the context?

Andy Lanset: Sure. The 17-day strike was in July 1945, and the papers were actually being printed. They just weren't getting delivered as the delivery truck drivers were on strike. The mayor not wanting the children of New York City to go without their daily dose of the funny papers got on the air on July 1st, 8th, and on the 15th to read the comics to the city's children. At the same time, he ordered WNYC's director Morris Novik that there should be a regular show on the days that he wasn't on where other people read the comics as well so that basically the kids wouldn't miss a beat for what was happening in the funny papers.

These personalities and many of them from the commercial program Can You Top This, got on the air for a program called The Comic Parade that we have up on the website and if you do a quick Google of Comic Parade and WNYC, you'll probably find it.

Brian Lehrer: Here is Mayor La Guardia reading about one minute of the dialogue bubbles from the detective comic strip Dick Tracy on WNYC in 1945.

Fiorello La Guardia: Gather around is Dick Tracy. Let's see what Dick Tracy is doing. Now, get this picture, here is wet wash, the doors of the laundry wagon are open. He's leaning with his back toward the wagon and he's counting his money. 2,000, 3,000, 4,000. Now he's getting into the hundreds, 600,000, 800,000 and the picture shows a hand of breathless. She's got holes of that iron part. Remember the iron part she took from the Van Heusen's and crashed. He crashes on his head.

Brian Lehrer: Hilarious. What a better presenter than Mayor Hylan from the earlier clip that we played, Andy.

Andy Lanset: I'd say, yes, both these clips we digitized for the New York City Municipal Archives collection and ours. There was a marked difference between the two. I would give Hylan a little bit of a break only because it was a commercial recording and he wasn't on the radio at the time. That's how a lot of people spoke on Phonograph records at the time.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Maybe people weren't as used to it in 1921, I guess you're saying, as they were by 1945 when that La Guardia clip was from. Joe in Greenpoint thinks he may be our longest listener. Joe, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Joe: Hi, first-time caller, as they say. Going back to about 1949 or so, 1950, I can't find a reference to this, but NYC had a program on every weeknight. It was either from 7:00 to 8:30 or from 8:00 to 9:30, The Columbia Masterworks Hour. I used to tune over too because it was the next station over from the Lone Ranger on WJZ. I just tuned into the Lone Ranger from the launching [unintelligible 00:37:27] on WOR.

I remember that NYC had both the Columbia Masterworks and a few nights a week they also had David Randolph, who was a conductor and a musicologist. I don't have it mixed up with WQXR because WQXR was all the way down to the end of the dial. I didn't even know about that when I was 10 years old, 11 years old.

Brian Lehrer: How about that? Joe, you've been listening for 75 years. That's unbelievable. The Columbia Masterworks Hour, that was classical music show, right?

Joe: Oh, yes. That was my joy then, it's my joy now.

Brian Lehrer: Joe thank you very much. As we're almost out of time, Andy, let's set up this last clip because it does make this transition to after the station acquired WQXR when The New York Times decided to get out of the classical music business, they used to own QXR. We acquired and now have a full-time classical music station in addition to the news and talk that we do on WNYC. You want to set up this clip with our great WQXR host Terrance McKnight and Harry Belafonte?

Andy Lanset: Sure. Terrance become our in-house producer and researcher on African-American composers and producers over the years. He put together an amazing documentary piece on Harry Belafonte and his work. This is just a segment from it.

Brian Lehrer: One minute of that.

Harry Belafonte: I was born in Harlem, went at the age of a year and a half to the Caribbean, grew up for the first 12 years of my life with a very white grandmother who came from Scotland, a remarkable woman that embraced me and gave me a sense of wellbeing. My mother was a woman of demanding standards, and she decided that the primitive hills of Jamaica was an infinitely better place for us to be than the jungles of the streets of New York.

Terrance McKnight: Then in 1939, Belafonte's mother decided to move the family back to New York.

Harry Belafonte: Then when I came back to America looking for my identity, there was no translation. I wasn't born in the Black church. I wasn't born in the ghettos of some rural crushing place. I came from Jamaica. We were hearty. We were ambitious. We would not accept oppression as it was dealt to us. We reshaped it to fit our existence.

Brian Lehrer: Harry Belafonte gets the last word on this morning broadcast on the day of WNYC's 100th birthday and we will have a birthday celebration and recreation of the first broadcast tonight. Join me for part one beginning at seven o'clock and then at exactly 8:54 PM, John Schaefer, Brooke Gladstone, and others for the recreation. This also concludes our opening segment and our new centennial series 100 Years of 100 Things with thing number one 100 years of WNYC itself. We'll have thing number two on Wednesday, 100 years of radio overall. For today, we thank WNYC archivist Andy Lanset, who by the way will join me tonight at 07:00 to stretch out with even more stories and more archival audio. Andy, thanks for this morning.

Andy Lanset: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, stay tuned for Alison.

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