NYPR History Notes

NYPR Archives & Preservation
September 9, 2016 - Volume 15 Issue 37

Edition # 726

BROADCAST ON WNYC TODAY INâ€¦

1964: Robert Moses joins Mayor Wagner for the opening of the Hall of Science at the New York World's Fair.

Professor Warren Bower

(1898-1976)

Before Leonard Lopate and Walter James Miller, NYU Professor Warren Bower was interviewing authors and poets on WNYC. Launching The Reader's Almanac in December 1938, Bower hosted the program for more than thirty years, talking to the likes of Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Ralph Ellison, John Dos Passos, Virgil Thomson, Budd Shulberg, Archibald MacLeish, Eva LeGallienne, Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud. For his 800th show in March 1957, the station's publicity referred to him as "Radio's Book Dean," and the show was called "the oldest continuous book program on radio." In 1962 The Reader's Alamanc received a Peabody Award. (Photo courtesy of New York University Archives, NYU Libraries).

April 3, 1925

No 'Back-Alley' Harmonicas on WNYC!

"At WNYC the Harmonica Band of Junior High School No. 61, Edward McGuire, principal and Aaron Kiel. director, will be heard at half past eight o' clock. The band is composed of twenty boys of the Junior High School and offers a unique program for a harmonica band. The young musicians do not use the ordinary back-alley variety harmonicas, but play on instruments known as chromatic harmonicas, which permit them to play the chromatic scale and all full and half tones in music written in any key. The boys are well trained and their orchestra is augmented by piano, trap drum, violin and accordion."

Source: The New York Evening Mail and Telegraph, "Round the Radio Circuit," April 3, 1925, p. 20.

WNYC first day of broadcast, July 8, 1924 (Municipal Archives Collection)

December 3, 2016 will be WQXR's 80th anniversary. Listen to the twenty-first episode of WQXR at 50. Host Bob Sherman plays excerpts from past tribute programs for both Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz.

The Kreisler 80th birthday tribute includes best wishes from Mischa Elman, Yehudi Menuhin, Nathan Milstein, Erica Molreni, Josef Segetti, Xeno Fanchescati, Josef Folks, Rugero Ricci, Isaac Stern and Karl Lamson. Following the best wishes, Sherman plays a 1955 interview with Kreisler by Music Director Abram Chasins.

The second half of the program pays tribute to violinist Jascha Heifetz. Sherman replays excerpts featuring the remembrances of Itzhak Perlman and George Jellinek.
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92+

WNYC celebrated its 92nd anniversary in July. Just think, less than 8 short years to the big centennial. In this space we'll be linking to various historical WNYC champions, broadcasts and milestones celebrating nearly a century on the air in the public interest. This week:
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This week's NEH-funded Annotations blog series features: Felker Talking Telstar.
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WNYC's Way Back series:
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The WNYC Archives is on Twitter with 2,966 followers @wnycarchives. We tweet regular reminders of, and links to, WNYC broadcasts from that day in the past.

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WNYC Archives in theâ€¦