La Guardia Tribute to Nicola Tesla

The NYPR Archive Collections | Jan 1, 2000

This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.

Three days after Nicola Tesla's death in Manhattan, Mayor La Guardia reads a eulogy for the great inventor written by Slovenian author and translator Louis Adamic. Zlatko Balokovic (1895 1965), a Croatian violinist and friend of Tesla's, plays Ave Maria and a Serbian song Tamo daleko, for the radio eulogy. This is followed by a solemn chorus and then by WNYC announcers extolling Tesla's virtues. They talk about Tesla being a man ahead of his time who foresaw radio, death rays that would make us safe from war, interplanetary communication, and a new tube that would make radium production cheap. Recording is followed by another a portion of a La Guardia Sunday talk. Rationing and other war related issues.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection


Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection


WNYC archives id: 2977
Municipal archives id: LT439

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