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137 South Kings Drive

Mike Sheridan

Mike Sheridan

I noticed today 137 South Kings Drive has fallen to the wrecking ball. In case you don't know the address it was the home of 104.7 when it was known as EZ-104.7 and Mix 104.7. Kiss 95.1 used the building for awhile as well. I think it may also have been home to WFNZ for a short time.

The studio to transmitter microwave tower that was on the roof was toppled by Hurricane Hugo. A big self supporting tower was set up on the property which is now a cell tower.

Over the years we've lost quite a few old radio homes WRPL, WGTL, The WWMG studios on "The Magic Corner" and the old WAYS/WROQ building on Radio Road. Can anyone think of any others?
 
Mike,

I worked in that building when it was the Beautiful Music WEZC.

One old studio that comes to mind is the Wilder Building, longtime home of WBT and for a short time WBTV, went down about 20 years ago to make room for one of the First Union towers.

One that might go before long...the old WPEG-WEGO building at 520 Concord Parkway. The building has set empty for some years now, and WEGO moved to their own transmitter site this year. The only thing left on that tower is an auxilliary site for WPEG, and that land is too valuable for commercial development to just sit there and rot.

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
 
Matt...

I am pretty sure WEGO's transmitter is still located on Hwy 29. I was told that they had an option on a piece of property but the owner of the property reneged after they received their construction permit.

They need to move. The building belongs to CBS but the tower belongs to American Tower Systems (Clear Channel). ATS has not been maintaining the tower and it is in sad shape. The guy wires need to be greased.

CBS I understand is planning a multi station backup site like the one Clear Channel has on the Stewart Andrew tower. I think it would be located at Radio Road...Once that is constructed they will abandon the Concord tower.

Test123
 
I don't think 137 was ever Kiss 95.1, it WAS Kiss 102, co-located with Mix.

I remember a giant inflatable Sir Mix Alot butt on top of the building when Mike Butts took the morning slot there.
 
Yep, both Kiss' were there at one time. Kiss 102 back in 1991-92 during their LMA with Mix, and Kiss 95.1 around 97-99 until they moved to Stuart Andrew.

they must've just torn down that building this week. I was just wondering about it when i drove by it on my way out of the new Target.
 
test123 said:
Matt...


CBS I understand is planning a multi station backup site like the one Clear Channel has on the Stewart Andrew tower. I think it would be located at Radio Road...Once that is constructed they will abandon the Concord tower.

Test123
Click to expand...

You are correct from what I was told by one of the CBS engineers who was working in the new transmitter building at Radio Road. They are equiping Radio Road to be a multi station backup site.
 
Matt Smith said:
Mike,

I worked in that building when it was the Beautiful Music WEZC.

One old studio that comes to mind is the Wilder Building, longtime home of WBT and for a short time WBTV, went down about 20 years ago to make room for one of the First Union towers.



Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
Click to expand...

Matt if you were at EZ in the early '80's chances are we were listening. It was a great station the have on in our then young daughters room. The music helped create a relaxed atmosphere and masked the noise from the rest of the apartment. We had it on all the time. Now that I have a grand daughter living with me there isn't a station that works as well.

I guess the Wilder building went down in the very early '80's. I never got a chance to see it. I doubt there was any trace of WBT/WBTV left anyway since they have been at the current location since 1955.
 
Mike,

I was at WEZC in the spring and summer of 1978, when I was in school at UNC-Chapel Hill and came home on weekends.

By the summer of 1979, I had moved over to WAME (in the Jimmy Swaggart days) and by late 1980, I was the station's Program Director.

In August of 1981, I had left Charlotte proper and became ops manager for WLVV in Statesville. That lasted a month, and effectively was the sum total of my Charlotte radio experience.

WEZC was a strange place in those days. Bob Lee was the GM and John Lyon (son of the owner of WRPL) was the morning man. Their feuds supposedly rivaled those of Stan and Sis Kaplan in their intensity. Lyon left while I was there, and Brad Leake (a/k/a John Bradley) took over as morning man. Susan Gorry was operations manager, and the only female voice heard announcing music on the station.

Unlike most Beautiful Music stations I'm aware of, the music was set up as individual cuts on the reels...same as more "contemporary" formats. We had to fill out flow sheets with the songs that we aired, which was helpful when each quarter hour the famous lines...."On Easy Radio, you heard....(four or five artists and songs)" were gently intoned by the announcer on duty.

All in all, not a bad place to work for a kid with high ambitions and four years of radio under his belt.

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
 
John Bradley/Brad Leake now there is someone I hadn't thought about in a long time. I think we worked together at WEZC 102.9 but the brain is a little fuzzy there.

The Shulke Beautiful Music format did the quarter hour "matched flow" segments like you mentioned. Most others did the single cut reels like EZ did. It seems to me it would give the listeners more variety instead of always hearing the same songs together all the time.

I know of a beautiful music station in Fort Lauderdale that was automated with no live talent after hours and on weekends. The owner had an answering service and the operators used to take down the transmitter readings! Kind of funny to think of a telephone operator with a 3rd class FCC license!
 
So every building 95.1 has been has been demolished except the current one.

I'd wear a hard hat to work, just in case.
 
NewsNow said:
I don't think 137 was ever Kiss 95.1, it WAS Kiss 102, co-located with Mix.

I remember a giant inflatable Sir Mix Alot butt on top of the building when Mike Butts took the morning slot there.
Click to expand...

Correct, KISS 102/WCKZ moved into the 137 facility with the LMA with WMXC.

As to 'The Butt' - while Butt's was the Morning host at the time, it was a label promotion 'Baby Got Back'. It was only up there for a day or two til GM Reta Thorne returned from vacation. And then, it came down. fast.

Good memories on the building. I've long since left Charlotte - what is goin in on the corner of Third/Kings?
 
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