With a nod to the pioneering work done by Robert Ripley and those who have followed in his footsteps, I have endeavored to chronicle some of the more unusual guests, events, and coverage by WNYC over the years. These include a talking fish, a singing dog, a sporting event covered from the Goodyear blimp, and a parade of WNYC weirdness that might just make us a leader in a whole other category of broadcasting. So, without any further ado, check out our sideshow portfolio.
SCALY AND CHATTY?
Sorry, there's no recording of the talking fish appearing on our air for April 23, 1940. At least it hasn't been found yet. But Herman W. Ordemann, curator of tropical fish at Staten Island's Barrett Park Zoo (pictured above), reportedly made an effort to get an acanthodoras spinosissimus, to ingratiate itself with the listeners to the Visiting With Staten Island program. Building up to the broadcast, The Staten Island Advance noted the event was to be the first time in radio history a fish was to be heard over the air. Ordemann schlepped the fish, a native of South American waters, to our studios in a portable tank. But, according to the WNYC Masterwork Bulletin program guide the so-called 'talking catfish' was a swimmer of few words, quoting it as saying, "boop...boop".
SINGING DOG IS A HIT!
It appears a fish wasn't the first animal act on WNYC. The Salem Oregon News reported on May 6, 1926, that a bulldog named Jack was singing weekly over the station. Jack reportedly could carry a tune and the pup, belonging to Dr. and Mrs. Edwin Griffin of Brooklyn, was said to favor performing After I Say I'm Sorry, a popular 1926 fox trot by Walter Donaldson and Abe Lyman.
LONDONERS LISTEN TO WNYC in 1924
No, this wasn't a case of some hobbyist futzing around with a crystal set trying to take advantage of the fact that AM signals travel farther at night. This was a bona fide shortwave relay of our signal to the Brits. On December 17, 1924, Wanamaker's department store arranged for audio feeds from WNYC and WOO (Philadelphia) via land line to KDKA in Pittsburgh. From there, the content was relayed by shortwave to British stations. A Wanamaker newspaper ad the next day proclaimed: "In thousands of British homes last night the glorious strains of the Star-Spangled Banner from America mingled with the sonorous overtones of historic Big Ben as it re-echoed the midnight hour over all of London!"
WNYC'S SUPERSONIC WEAPON
In 1938, an executive with the city's water department approached WNYC director Morris Novik about their problem with seagulls polluting the water supply and how best to keep the critters away. Novik's answer was to present the problem to our engineering team to come up with a sonic gull thwarter. The Daily News story explained that when seagull wings get caked with salt and muck, they can't fly. So, the birds head to fresh water to take a bath in city reservoirs and leave behind potentially harmful bacteria.
Well, Novik took the water man to Isaac Brimberg, WNYC's chief engineer, and Brimberg and his staff are now working on a loudspeaker which will drive a gull away, if not crazy.
I can think of a number of radio programs that would be just dandy for this work, but Brimberg's loudspeaker will carry no ordinary broadcast. It will transmit sound of such a high frequency--supersonic sound, they call it-- that it can't be heard by human beings. But birds will catch it all right.
We don't know when Brimberg completed the radio 'scaregull' nor how well it worked. More research is needed! But the Department of Water Supply reportedly kept some gulls sequestered for study by the agency's two gull experts to decide what noise best annoys them.
Excerpts from: Chapman, John, "Mainly About Manhattan," Daily News, June 17, 1938, pg. 42.
THE FLOWER WATCH
In June 1934 the New York Post reported that when the amorphophallus titanium blooms at the New York Botanical Garden, WNYC will flash the news to a waiting world. "The flower, amorphophallus titanium, it is reported, pushed through the soil a week ago and is now about seven-and-one-half feet high with a spread of approximately five feet. The flower is expected to last only a few hours, and it is hoped that WNYC listeners will catch it in bloom by a quick trip to The Bronx after hearing the flash." Amorphophallus titanium is also known as the corpse flower because it gives off the aroma of rotting flesh.
NAZI SABOTAGE!
In 1934 WNYC aired Congressional 'un-American activities' hearings into Nazi propaganda activities in New York City at the Bar Association building. At the October 17th hearing, the last of six in the city, Congressmen John W. McCormick of Massachusetts and Samuel Dickstein of New York were met with jeering Nazi sympathizers unhappy about the investigation and the broadcast. The hooligans cut our microphone line and phoned in threats to our switchboard.
REPORTING FROM A BLIMP
WNYC covered the International Lifeboat Races in New York Harbor from the Goodyear blimp on September 9, 1939. Program Director Seymour N. Siegel reported on the thirteenth annual competition using a remote shortwave transmitter like the ones the station used at the New York World's Fair. It was the first time a blimp is used to cover a boat race. The competition included teams from the United States, Denmark, and Norway. Source: Radio Daily, September 1939 clip from Seymour's scrapbook.
BROADCASTING, NARROWCASTING, PODCASTING, BUT FERRYCASTING?
In June 1949 Variety reported on WNYC's experiment with 'ferrycasting'. The entertainment trade paper indicated the station had recently installed test FM receivers on the "Miss Liberty," one of eight Staten Island ferries ushering thousands of daily commuters to and from Manhattan. 'Static-free' FM radio was still fairly new and receivers were not widespread in 1949. Station Director Seymour N. Siegel told the paper that test results were satisfactory, prompting 'youngsters' to dance and most commuters reacting well to the innovation.
If the project is deemed practicable, ferrycasting equipment will be installed on the eight vessels of the Staten Island line, which carry 74,000 commuters every day. It is also probable that 30-odd other ferryboats operated by other lines across the Hudson will also become part of the ferrycasting system. The franchise to broadcast to the 'captive audience’ on the boats would be given to a commercial FM station, with the city getting a cut of the revenues.
Variety indicated that WNYC-FM was also conducting similar tests on city buses. I'm not terribly surprised that I've not found any follow-up articles on either ferrycasting or buscasting.
COHAN LOCATES COHEN
It's October 5, 1953, and the drama unfolded: Lillian Cohan, 50, of 169 Hewes St., was on a shopping trip at Essex and Delancey Streets in Manhattan and was bitten by a chihuahua, which runs away. She consulted a doctor, who told her she had better get rabies shots unless the dog could prove to be rabies-free. Cohan considered going to one of the Manhattan newspapers, but it was too late in the day. So, she called WNYC. The station broadcast an appeal to find the chihuahua owner. The owner, Freida Cohen of 89 Division Avenue, responded and readily agreed to take her dog to the A.S.P.C.A. for a rabies test. Sorry, we don't know the results.
WNYC: THE CITY'S LIGHT SWITCH?
On March 3, 1953, New York City sought to have WNYC control 180,000 streetlights. City officials asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to employ a barely audible WNYC 'beep' tone for radio-controlled street lighting. Engineers said such a system would save the city half a million dollars annually. But the FCC turned the city down four-and-a-half months later saying such a radio signal would "seriously hamper" the operation of the national system for radio alerts in time of enemy air attack.
Three years later The Chief reported WNYC would begin trials in Brooklyn and Queens for controlling the city's traffic lights some time in 1957. The civil service newspaper said the radio-controlled system would "be tried out on congested Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, and two areas in Queens at a cost of $66,000 and will connect intersections over a 60 block area. A transmitter atop a 360-foot building will send radio signals in a line-of-sight path to the radio tubes controlling the signal lights. The sending of the radio beam will be supervised by radio station WNYC." It didn't come to pass. I can only guess the trials didn't work out so well.
WNYC SIGN-OFF INSPIRES PULP FICTION MURDER CLUE
Back in June 1933, when WNYC-AM was forced to move to 810 AM, it also had to begin signing off at sundown so as not to interfere with Minneapolis clear-channel station WCCO at night. Legend has it that some announcers would say, "As, the sun sets in Minneapolis, WNYC leaves the air for another day..." While we've yet to find that recording, the daily air exodus did prompt a writer of murder mysteries to incorporate our sign-off into a noir tale.
Death and Canasta tells the story of a homicide detective who solves a murder based on WNYC-AM's sundown sign-off. Featured in The Los Angeles Times in October 1950 and Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine for April 1954, the story by Q. Patrick is one of a series of murder mysteries about NYPD homicide detective Timothy Trant.
Spoiler Alert! A woman is electrocuted after her radio falls into the bathtub while she is listening to WNYC-AM. Since Detective Trant knows when WNYC goes off the air, he figures out the time of the murder and the murderer.
THE COLD WAR INTRUDES ON MUSIC FESTIVAL
In early February 1951, the upcoming 12th WNYC American Music Festival was to feature avant-garde composer Edgar Varese's, Ionization. The work called for the use of a siren "as a singing voice among some forty percussion instruments." But WNYC chief Seymour Siegel and music director Herman Neuman were left with no choice. With regrets, they had to choose between public safety and art and go along with the New York City Civil Defense Office ban on all sirens except those used for air-raid warnings.
The composer was reportedly appalled by the decision and failed to see how the siren could be confused with any other city elements. "I didn't compose for the siren to evoke a city noise!" he argued, "I use it because I need the pitched curves of its parabolic sound! Incredible, that the civic authorities could not comprehend this simple aesthetic necessity!" Source: Composers, Conductors and Critics by Claire R. Reis, Detroit Reprints in Music, 1974, pg. 10.
HAMS HELP WNYC SCOOP NETWORKS
About 50 amateur stations participated in a Presidential Election Returns Network last November. Information on the progress of the election from various points in the country was relayed into New York City and then delivered to Municipal Broadcast Station WNYC. Mrs. Kay Kibling, W2HQX, was instrumental in lining up the net [network] and in furnishing the b.c. [broadcast] station with the returns as they came in. Dr. Seymour N. Seigel, Director of Programs at WNYC, was pleased with the manner in which the amateurs handled the undertaking, and is having printed certificate awards which will be signed by Mayor LaGuardia and forwarded to those who took part.
Commenting on WNYC's November 1949 election night coverage, the magazine said the broadcast aired "to the accompaniment of clanging amateur teleprinter carriages" bringing results, "far ahead of those of commercial services." The result led station director Seymour Siegel to arrange for a permanent amateur radio teletype installation at WNYC.
ALL IN GOOD HUMOR
In July 1963 WNYC sound engineers measured the decibel levels of ice cream trucks and helped set loudness standards for New York City. Albert S. Pacetta, New York City's Commissioner for the Department of Markets, was following through on complaints about loud bell ringing from commercial ice cream trucks roving through city streets. Four trucks played their music before a WNYC audiometer. The noise level was measured and a standard for maximum permissible aggravation of the public was established!
WNYC Engineer Henry Wei announced that the Good Humor bells, (the standard), have registered minus four volume units at forty inches. Commissioner Pacetta said vendors receiving Department summonses for noise-making would be brought in and tested against this WNYC-determined standard. Tests were run the following year, as evidenced by the photo above.
A-BOMB DROPS ON CROTONA PARK
At 8:40 a.m. on December 13, 1952, an A-bomb (simulated) was dropped on the Crotona Park section of The Bronx as part of a massive city-wide civil defense exercise. WNYC received and aired reports via shortwave from the scene of the exercises. During the broadcast (produced by NBC and aired on WNYC), an intrepid WNBC reporter interviews a New York City fire marshal, who —incredibly— describes containing the atomic firewall with his crew. At turns frightening and hopelessly quaint, this and other civilian defense broadcasts of the period present a powerful image of the Cold War mindset. A few years back we enlisted Oscar Brand to tell the tale with some help from the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC collection.
No doubt there's more in the category of strange but true for weird WNYC, but believe it or not, that's all I have for now for.
Happy Birthday, WNYC!