
( WNYC Archive Collections )
This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.
Seymour N. Siegel hosts.
Grover Whalen, "Mr. New York" answers questions.
Panelists include Paulette Barrett, Jim Farrell, and Reardon Roate.
Television moving to Los Angeles.
Transportation problems - Whalen suggests the elimination of private cars in certain areas and limit trucking - restrict trucking to night time. Also discuss the potential of public transportation and the role of the state in providing money for such a project. Whalen believes that the state takes too many taxes from the city.
Plans for the 50th anniversary of 5th Avenue as a business thoroughfare.
Chances of a municipal television station. Siegel also weighs in on the probability of such a station.
Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection
WNYC archives id: 72044
Municipal archives id: LT7690
This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
Will New York become a T.V. ghost tell Mr Whalen What are the latest plans for the fiftieth anniversary of the stabbing you do you feel progress has been made in New York City and health labor benefits and housing or the answers to these and other questions listen out here said he station's capice press conference in this transcribed discussion the editors of college newspapers question a prominent personality in the news while our regular moderator Marvin sleeper a columnist for The New York Journal American is on vacation its place will be taken by Seymour and SIEGEL director of radio communications for the city of New York here now to introduce the panel and Today's guest is Mr Siegel Good afternoon we're privileged to have with us today a gentleman who hardly needs any introduction at all as his famous Legion Mr New York himself Grover Whalen as much a part of New York City as the Empire State Building or Radio City Mr Wayland has played a very important role in our town or rather several important roles in New York during the past fifteen years he's contributor measurably to our great cities vast growth and progress. Perhaps best known as chairman of the mayor's reception committee for many years New York's official greeter and world Fed chairman he's been connected with many significant developments in New York notably our own so the station because it was Mr Whalen way back in one thousand nine hundred eighty three who originated the idea of New York having its own radio station and that's W. N.Y.C. was born under Mr New York able leadership is also had an equally spearheading role in making New York the fashion capital of the world and has had vital roles in other important developments of the city and so with the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the Fifth Avenue Association this for who is the most logical choice to head the Golden Anniversary Celebration committee by the global whaling and here's a question Mr Whalen on the plans for the Golden Anniversary Celebration and future progress of New York City in general are a panel of college newspaper editors poll at Barron's of the New York University Square Journal Jim file of the Fordham lexigram and read enroll at Columbia College which have the first question from you Jim Well Mr Whalen and they press last week the papers reported that New York City now the current T.V. capital of the world is losing a great many of the network programs to Los Angeles next year next fall more than half of the network shows well originate from Los Angeles do you think anything can be done to keep New York from becoming a T.V. ghost town. No I'm rather surprised that that this happens. I haven't seen any substantial reason that could be advanced sport number one and number two we have all the talent here that. T.V. shows would need. And as a matter of fact for years New York. Has banned the cap Phil and. I don't frankly I don't know the reasons that have been advanced parts so therefore I can't and tell a gently adds that question beyond saying that in my opinion knowing both cities very well. The New York. Is much more desirable from every standpoint in my opinion to be the capital of T.V. and then any other city in the United States close but Mr Welland What about the other things that are leaving New York City for instance the baseball teams and middle income groups that can't find out about housing or has any part in the past few years a small business men who were thrown out of their present places of business because of a new buildings coming up a new cadre located in the city all these groups are leaving wife one final to answer the first part of your question I can understand why the baseball team should leave New York. Except in the case of Brooklyn where the stadium is too small and they haven't been able to make any arrangements for a larger stadium such as they require but beyond that the this is a baseball town to begin with and the support which has been given to the all three clubs in New York has been consistently amazing and fast period or any other city in the United States and I have no no answer for you as to what reason can be properly advance or adequately advance for them moving out of town what do you think the city is doing enough to keep all these groups in New York on more be done. Well I like to talk guy I was going talking baseball I'll talk to you about. The manufacturing and the is that that's about are you going to get on the first place or I have made a considerable study. Back in Maryland while years' time and I'm making one now for. Our present mayor to discuss. That the reason there's this is leaving New York is a matter of fact our value would not appear to. Last and then they but the units have decreased which gives impression that the that we are losing some part of it however. I think the our traffic has some had something to do with it and the cost of slowly moving through the Garmin area. Has can be advanced and has been advanced by manufacturers' as one of the reasons why they have gone outside of New York to. To manufacture their garment However they have to come to New York to sell it you'll find nearly all of them out of actors outside and they are. Having headquarters right here in the city and selling a great portion if not ninety almost one hundred percent of them marchin dies right here and they are one of the big obstacles offered for the foul up in the garment center has been the refusal of unions to handle nighttime truck deliveries at regular pay they demand time and a half or overtime do you think anything can be done to curtail the effect of this union refusal on the part of our city fathers Well I I frankly I think the hands of the unions ought to sit down very soon and consider the question because of the. It is impossible our streets are not sufficient to Rishon size to permit traffic that it has today both the trucking traffic as well as a. Tactic cab and private cars and other vehicles with the use our streets I think what we need is a. Pain night delivery in. Very much so because they. Are. Garment Center people. That question is not a new one it came up twenty years ago and nothing has ever been done about it all of nothing has ever been done about it by the union leaders what can the city fathers do to make them sit down and figure this one out how I am I said difficult question to to answer for this reason the you can't. Do much about it except from a. Economic standpoint to point out the cost of the the. The daylight trucking versus the cost of the night truck there is a question that arises of course with the unions about wages whether they would get time and a half for a night work and of course that adds to the cost of the merchandise all of these questions are very important ones and. Have to be discussed but they ought to be discussed at this very moment well as to well in considering the great commercial industrial growth of our city during the past ten years do you feel was sufficient progress has been made in feels like it's housing health and labor benefits well I should say yes I think great progress has been made in our our building you have seen along the East River Drive areas that were used for factories that now how those. Thousands of families climb the waterfront particularly along the East River waterfront and in Harlem and in parts of the Bronx there has been great advances made of course. We grow in population it's true but we sometimes lose out because of our our discovery and in getting around Take for example the people that work in New York in our office buildings here that live outside of the city. There are great loss to us they earn their money in the city of New York but they spend it in their homes outside earlier and even the stores today the department stores which you are all familiar with. Are going out of town very rapidly and loans are of questions a very serious import to the city of New York and will have to be studied well do you feel that the Manhattanville project is and they give up we have heard of the builders of New York City toward the housing problem no I don't think so I mean the one real project as far as I have been reading in the paper or not seem to have been. Progressed as it should have been or handle in any way that was desirable from not only the. Public standpoint but the city standpoint and I think that some of the really looked into very careful very careful Mr well under four you mention in your building of the New York City but aren't ninety nine percent of these new buildings either very high income or public low income what's happened to the middle income people who are buying themselves small homes outside of New York well I was in and out well that's true. That. The buildings that have been put up recently within the last ten or fifteen years are in the two gallon categories that you just mentioned. Frankly there is great me as you were. In a man and a maid who are putting up a middle income group is there any how this city can take over that we started realty effectively I feel I should think so I should think is the. Very important part of the city's obligation to do so you have cited one as an element of New York City's problems the transportation problem the inability of the New Yorkers to get around what is your solution for the transportation problem particularly the rush hours or eliminate private cars from our certain sections of our city and that is follow fifty nine states and. To. Eliminate the trucking as much of the trucking as possible and put that have that done at night we will never be able to continue to grow as we will. Last we saw some of these problems and so I solution would be of course to do our trucking at night or as much of a business is possibly and reasonably be accomplished for your solution before all public transportation problems the subways well. That's a that's a question that I couldn't give you an answer for at the moment we can't build any additional subway our finances are silly would be committed to the ville new subway. But. For the state assist us financially to help us build some way why I think this is the state frankly and I have always had this opinion about state a taken Tiley film I swanny away from the city of New York. Some of a taxes that we have in New York to go to the States is in my opinion. So large take prices the gasoline types. That are together so your New York gasoline but. In the city of New York City should get that tax in my opinion and still well if we can get on to another subject for a little while. What would you tell us a few of the plans for the soul of the fiftieth anniversary celebration of a fabulous boss we've heard some plans so far about painting the gold stripe down Fifth Avenue and having gold wastebaskets What's one of the rest. Well there are a number of phases of that program with I'd like to tell you about briefly. Number one it is going to. Celebrate fifty years. Of progress on a business paraphrase that he cannot be matched in any part of the world and number two best that I've met is the one street. In New York that is known all over the world number three the volume of business down in that area is greater than any similar area in the world will the celebration rest in compass or seven yourself along you know your mother or your sister airily association is composed of the staff near. Madison Avenue Park Avenue and thirty seven streets are common with them on what extend uptown to the communities bordering on Fifth Avenue and no it's only the members of the organization that we are down now what special events are planned to celebrate the anniversary. Well we intend that all the windows. The store windows will be treated and go gold will be the motive and they will all be unveiled. And the night of October tenth. Yes October tenth and in addition to that we will have a demonstration of. All a city services and the armed services and then there will be innumerable floats depicting the growth of and its business and we are fortunate to get a lot of old antique their clothes and railroad cars and buses and things of that kind and we're going to have those parade alongside modern. Facilities of today have taken the well has also been some mention of a fashion show well that the you know in the schedule also yes. We're going to have a dinner which did the a fashion show. Composed of. The old in the new showing all the progress that has been made in the design of dresses and it's going to be probably the most elaborate shell that we that has ever been held in any part of the world that will be held the wall of Astoria and we. Are expecting a. Participation on the part of all manufacturers' and we're going to have a great many foreign visitors here for that because the. The celebration of her five year is a byword in the capital of Europe as it is in New York well so far your plans seem to be taken a lot backwards on Fifth Avenue as progress in the past fifty years while a lot of celebration take in any future possibilities for the possessed of a new any projections on what business will do and what fashions will do no I don't I don't think we will do very much of that because. I think if you note the fashions of today there has been terrific progress made from they in the last fifty years in fashions to a point where. We couldn't. Build a show of suppression. Lengths to meet the requirements of what the future may hold in store for us not even way back to. What we know most Well not for a good many years your idea has been to make New York a world Fashion Center arguably today's terror that New York has come up to the peak as Paris as. Well I don't agree with that question I don't think that Paris is the fashion center of the world no Yup it's a fact. And you do believe the designers of New York have met the requires no question about that in my mind and it's been amazing how these young designers live in Bonn. Not only in New York but in other cities in the United States have come here and gotten their education and then gone into the the art of designing women's clothes and done a marvelous job while you go there is more the city can do to promote New York City being the fashion center of the world you mean the city is service itself in the way of an exhibition hall more publicity or what I think the interest at the. Mare Wagner taken in the. In the fiftieth anniversary indicates that the top official of New York the chief executive. Is concerned with the participating in everything that can help the manufacture of the retailer. Business generally in the city of New York and I think that you'll see a great deal of progress being made in online what do you think is out of that what would you think would be our next step in this line of progress in one way where you say that great progress will be made because of the plans of the mayor has the consideration rather the mayor has given any idea of making New York a greater fashion center around the world what would be our next step what is the biggest need of the to go around as a fashion Vegas unaided to build a fashion setter. So in that near you all know. Is known as a fashion center of course those buildings are many are twenty five and thirty years and fifty years old some of them down on the lower part of the. Circle they run as high as seventy five years some of the best the fur particularly the fur industry and down and I part of town. We need a modern faction building a fashion center that we're the in keeping with the progress but this thing made and fashions themselves IMO for the city government or is it I'm all for private business you know I me it ought to be a joint effort in my opinion. I. Suggest And it's been made public to the Marin the Board of Estimate that the we should take a section of the city running from thirty first Street now and Twenty eighth street there are six that have now or either as it's called now the Avenue of the Americas and Broadway and they will there. Where old fashioned center where the buyers of all the. Merchandise that have offices here could be located in that center and who my recommendation was and which the distinguished committee that I headed agreed that we. That all of that the city should bear the burden of the. So low the section where we would take funnel off the then. Trucks then now closer seventh Avenue and put those under powered down below the level of the street and then we could have the merchandise transferred from the van and a smaller trucks were also the cover is getting old and a large center is needed as the building of the Coliseum helped many way to promote fashions in New York City do you follow along you know I think when I do disclose these plans for this fashion some several months ago I don't think progress been made some two issue that first reported in the report was made to the bar of Aspen that appropriated fifteen thousand dollars for the study and we. The manager has been referred to a number of agencies of the city such as the city plan. The can and the. Budget Director and very I'm sure other agencies of the city that have to do with banners and I've come and they will probably make their reporters in the hall and Mr Welling we started off on television now to perhaps we can come back to work now with the opportunity interesting W N Y C and you think there might possibly be a chance for a minute about television station. I think there ought to be but is there a chance for one yes certainly and then yes I mean based Chad well is it possible that that's why with the next five or ten years New York City will have its own television station I certainly hope so and there's no reason why we shouldn't have any plans in the making for one I don't know most of the last year. But you know of course we have a construction permit for an ultra high frequency television channel in the ark. Hopeful that consideration is going to be given to the construction of the station before too many months of past almost well and all your your years and all your work in New York City your keynote seems to have been one of progress and pride in our city what city administration in your lifetime has done most to bring this about well that's that's a hard question there because several of them have made very great progress and certain directions the. One of the outstanding men. It was Fair Isle of Wight here if any of you remember I'm old enough to think back that far but. Our present man has. Keen interest in the very many of these factors that are important to the progress of the business of our city as well as running the city in my opinion very intelligently and doing a very good job I don't think everyone agrees with us that York City's one of the best in the world we often hear the statement that it's a wonderful place to visit but no one really wants to live here to make it their home do you feel it is true that always annoys me. That statement. Why do they come here at all we could do without the live in a matter of fact this is the greatest city in the world and there is nothing here that we should be ashamed of if we have dirt and dust on our city streets it's because we're busy people and we have thousands of trucks that travel on our streets and a million automobiles that are licensed in the city of New York so that. It's just like in all of that I got up in my office on my OP but in the international building there were but cigarettes and there was papers on the floor and now people drop those sort of things now we can have a policeman for every individual so therefore there will be some people little bit careless all of that and you feel we couldn't do anything to correct this impression not only yes by education always holding We should always try to protect and over anything that that should be improved I'm not one of those or believe we shouldn't do it. We just got a few seconds left what was the most important official So the reception that you ever ran Mr Whalen Well from the standpoint of mass psychology and the excitement when way was when great life thirty years ago isn't. Well I'm sorry but our time is up. But isn't gentleman you've been listening to campus press conference with our guest Grover a well on our panel of college newspaper editors included Pullet barrel of the New York University Square Journal Jim from all of the forum lexigram and read and Roland of Columbia College. Editors of college newspapers have just interviewed Grover Whalen and York City station's campus press conference our moderator was Seymour and Segal director of radio communications for the city of New York the opinions expressed were those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of this station we invite your comments on the program please mail them to Kappas press conference W. N.Y.C. New York seven that address is campus press conference W N Y C New York seven and please be with us again next Sunday afternoon at three for another transcribed edition of our campus press conference.