Radio Row photos

[Tom WA3KLR]

I think I have that postcard. Terry, you sent it to me in the early '50's, remember?

[W2PFY]

I think I have that postcard. Terry, you sent it to me in the early '50's, remember?

I can not believe you remember the postcard! You were only ten years old at the time and I was 15. Do you remember 42nd. street back then? Pretty wild! Strange how we were both there without our parents?

[W2PFY]

Once again I wuz up all night with my crayolas colorizing this shot of Radio Row.

[K1JJ]

Fascinating stuff!  Beautiful colorized shot, Terry.

I find it amazing that in these NYC  1930's videos of hundreds of men wearing suits, ties and hats (like G men) I counted only six women and no kids at all. But it was a relatively safe place to be.

Men certainly ruled the whirl back then and had a keen interest in radio.  

Yep, I can remember riding the bus to Harford in 1961, walking the streets alone when I was only 11 years old and going thru the ham radio store.

Things can certainly change in 80 years. It's not that people's brains and urges have changed, rather, the culture has changed and is far more dangerous.  Why are so many people more violent and crazy and willing to act out their impulses?   I just dunno.  


T

https://vimeo.com/109197452    (Sam posted)

[WA2SQQ]

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/nyregion/leeds-radio-is-a-haven-for-lovers-of-all-things-analog.html

[Sam KS2AM]

1935 radios are on sale.   Wonder if they have that newfangled Breting 12 ?

[Steve - K4HX]

Wow! That's a beautiful radio.

[W3RSW]

Agree and Real Radio Men intuitively know what the knobs do without kiddie reminders.  
 - The big one controls the Year.

[W2PFY]

The big one controls the Year

I agree and that 12 on the dial face probably is for December of some year. The year indicator was probably in a small font as a marketing ploy!

[Sam KS2AM]

Here's another pic from the corner of Cortlandt & West streets except we're looking south on West street instead of west on Cortlandt in the black and white pic. Also the street is not underwater so its safe to take a donut break from your radio shopping.
Interesting billboard for Delta flights on the short-lived Convair 880 jet which is supposedly still one of the fastest jet airliners ever produced.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhTcknU9-D8

[Sam KS2AM]

More Radio Row flooding on Cortlandt street, November 25, 1950.

Click on the link below for lots of detail.  Are those loop antennas on top of the buildings at the right or something else?

https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/flood.jpg?quality=90&strip=all

[W1ITT]

There is another one of those loop things on the roof straight ahead in the photo.  Go to the Terminal Radio sign and then up from there.  I think Alford was running an FM station somewhere in the NYC area about that time.  Perhaps the avant guard radio shops had to have something on the roof to pull in the microvolts.

73 de Norm W1ITT

[Steve - K4HX]

Interesting looking antennas. I have never seen something like this before.

[W3RSW]

Yeah, both buildings have the same loop but pointed 90 degrees or so in diff. directions.
Had to go to double mag. to see them clearly.  They both seem to have rotators too.  And both buildings have similar double dipoles, maybe two element yagis.

Neat detailed pix fer sure.

[K1JJ]

My guess is because it's 1950, some of the antennas are an effort to introduce ham radio to the public.  The WWII ban was lifted, the military surplus was hitting the market and the 11 year solar cycle had just peaked so that the higher bands were still hot.

Notice the antennas that look like aluminum tubing 5M/10/11M Yagis with rotators.   Yagis were invented in 1926.  

The wire loops could be for receiving, but could also be  for 10-20M as the equivalent of transmitting quad loops, I dunno.   Getting out with all those tall building must have been a bitch.

"Terminal Radio"  -  I don't think I'd leave my beloved radio there for repair.

The guy caught in the water - Nobody told him that ignition wiring and spark plugs don't like getting splashed on when doing a frantic dash across of the flooded Hudson River.  

What I find interesting about cars of that era... If a car is 20 years old it looks like an antique. IE, compare a 1930 to a 1950 car and it is night and day. The difference between a 1950 and 1970 car was also dramatic.  But I have trouble seeing much difference between a 2000 and 2020 these days. Same with boats and airplanes. Must be technological saturation - point of diminishing returns when it comes to appearance.


* Is it my imagination or is that stuck car and the billboard above it the same year Packard car?   (Marketing nightmare)

T

[W1ITT]

Tom -JJ         Cars used to be designed by artists drawing on paper, then transferred to guys who carved clay and/or wood models.  And yes, they all wanted to have a signature vision of their Company's concept.  Now, cars seem to have been designed with software that simulates a wind tunnel environment so they can squeeze the last tenth of a mile-per-gallon to get their corporate average fuel numbers (CAFE) where they need to be to avoid government penalties.
When we were kids, one used to be able to see a car in peripheral vision and know what make it was.  Now they do all look the same, or nearly so.  But I don't know why so many of the rice box radios look so similar.  All the boat anchor ham rigs pretty much had their own certain style.  One didn't need to wear eyeglasses to know what they were from a distance.
73 de Norm W1ITT

[Tom WA3KLR]

You used to be able to read the make and model letters too, big chrome.   Today on a lot of cars one is hard-pressed to spot the make and model words                               

[Pete, WA2CWA]

My guess is because it's 1950, some of the antennas are an effort to introduce ham radio to the public.  The WWII ban was lifted, the military surplus was hitting the market and the 11 year solar cycle had just peaked so that the higher bands were still hot.

Notice the antennas that look like aluminum tubing 5M/10/11M Yagis with rotators.   Yagis were invented in 1926.  

The wire loops could be for receiving, but could also be  for 10-20M as the equivalent of transmitting quad loops, I dunno.   Getting out with all those tall building must have been a bitch.

T

I doubt the antennas or anything else there was to introduce ham radio to the public. The only real ham store that I can remember from when I was there was Harrison Radio. The majority of the stores sold every conceivable type of radio and TV and radio/tv accessories that were on the market. Most of the stores had a large gaggle of military stuff inside and on the sidewalks and the majority of them also carried lots of parts inside and outside their store fronts. Bell Telephone Laboratories was at one end of radio row on West St. and many of the engineers would shop for work related projects and also home/experimentation type projects in those stores. Many of the shoppers were suit/tie men. Several large electronic related engineering and development organizations were also located within walking or subway distance of Radio Row.

Back when I started delivering newspapers, first in PA and then then in NJ, I remembered seeing these round types of antennas occasionally on rooftops but I don't remember which location. My PA location was all UHF for TV broadcasting. NJ was a combination of both. However, Hi-Fi sales and listening were also starting to make inroads with the public so it could also be a FM antenna. With the high buildings in that downtown NY location, signal ghosting probably was a high problem for both TV(VHF & UHF) and FM reception so rotators on buildings probably was the norm.

Somewhere I seem to remember seeing ads for this type of antenna but can't remember where. Maybe Radio & TV News magazine.

OR, maybe it was all a dream - when you get old sometimes you can't tell 

[Sam KS2AM]

Somewhere I seem to remember seeing ads for this type of antenna but can't remember where. Maybe Radio & TV News magazine.

Bingo.

Looks like the "Welin Circle X" TV antenna on page 156 of the September 1949 Radio & Television News. That antenna was manufactured in your neighborhood.   :-)
If it "eliminates ghosts" as advertised it would have been a good choice to help sell TV sets to the growing NYC market.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-News/40s/Radio-News-1949-09-R.pdf

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Yay! They can't send me off to a home yet. I knew It was real because the people who had them talked to people flying over with the strange lights.

When I lived in Rahway, NJ, I use to drive my Mom to work several days a week to a shop on Market Street in Perth Amboy a few blocks down from where this place was located.

Anyway, need the design info to build one; here's the patent filing:
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/4a/ad/87/7298d393ff219a/US2665380.pdf

Damn! we're good  

[W3RSW]

Great sleuthing gentlemen.  Makes you want to go back in time for all the fun.

Wow, from the looks of the patent, it could be variably impedance fed, elements rearranged, conical deepened in a myriad of ways.   All the guys in the area probably had favorite arrangements that they passed around for the regional channels and building impediments/ shadowing, ghosting, etc.

Love the emphasis on 3/4 and 1/2 wavelength lingo without one reference to calibrated gain vs. a simple on-freq. dipole or a two element yagi, etc.

Looks to me like a lot of magic and setting-up variations were tough for the first installer in an area.  The more successful and not necessarily in real performance but as sales pitch construction settings were then taken as gospel.

  

[wb1ead]

Hi All..great pics interesting storyline!..Tom JJ that car I believe is a '49 Buick stuck with the hood up..either a Roadmaster or a Super..next door neighbor had one growing up in So Portland..best feature is the 3 "portholes" in back of front wheels but they're not visible there..that same Packard was 4 or 5 houses down..we're talking 1959 Cycle 19..
                                 Gud job with this Sam!!  73 de DAVE WB1EAD

[W1ITT]

Another thing that jumps out is the $25 price tag.  I'm not sure if there was a legislated minimum wage back then, but one dollar an hour was not uncommon.  Twenty-five bucks would be three days wages for the regular working stiff..  Television was clearly not for the masses.
I too had to dig into the patent to see what magic would allow matching with 72, 150 and 300 ohms.  That seemed too good to be true, but they describe an adjustable stub, which is fine and dandy.

73 de Norm W1ITT

[K1JJ]

Hi All..great pics interesting storyline!..Tom JJ that car I believe is a '49 Buick stuck with the hood up..either a Roadmaster or a Super..next door neighbor had one growing up in So Portland..best feature is the 3 "portholes" in back of front wheels but they're not visible there..that same Packard was 4 or 5 houses down..we're talking 1959 Cycle 19..
                                 Gud job with this Sam!!  73 de DAVE WB1EAD

I think QIX owned a '58? Buick in the 70's that looked similar, but newer. It had the fake header ports on the side. I gave him a picture I took of him and the car.

A car like that '49 would have made a great hot rod with a built engine back in the 60's. We could not appreciate it then, but it looks so cool now.   409,000 made,  all steel at 3800 pounds.

I also like the look of a '50 Ford as a "racecar."

Imagine going back in time to Radio Row in the 20's > 60's and being able to walk around there for a day.

T

[Sam KS2AM]

Imagine going back in time to Radio Row in the 20's > 60's and being able to walk around there for a day.

T

I love looking at the detail in old black and white pics of NYC.  I always think the same two things 1) I'd love to walk around there for a while  2) Those people are all dead.


Death Avenue (11th Avenue) NYC 1910.
https://www.shorpy.com/files/images/eleventh_ave.jpg (click on the pic when it opens for hi-res)