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Just outta morbid curiousity....

A

AKLes

Guest
Anybody still have even a single studio at #10 Dorrance Street?

Or at #40 Weybosset Street?

Anybody else here old enough to remember what stations were at those addresses?
 
Les,

I can take a swing at these....WEAN 790 was at 10 Dorrance for awhile. Would 40 Weybosset be the old WHIM digs? I know the late Narragansett Hotel was WRIB's home as well for awhile....wondering if WARL 1320 is still at Dorrance?


Dave Gardiner

WVCH 740/WNWR 1540

Philadelphia
 
And remember 111 Dorrance?

I still can't drive by 111 Dorrance without remembering that early-80s Outlet Broadcasting Camelot we were lucky-enough to be a part of. Now it's a college library. Third window to the left of the front entrance was my office.

I still think there was something creepy about that Matt Lauer guy.
But seriously...
NBC-TV was top-of-the-heap with hits like "Cheers" and "Hill Street Blues."
The newscast they now call "NBC10" was "NewsWatch;" already a local ratings juggernaut.
That was the second floor.

Our first-floor WSNE facility was possibly the best-equipped station I'd seen to that point.
The staff I inherited was GREAT, real people-people.
Our morning guy was John "Morgan-in-the-Morning" Morgan; now a star on the self-improvement circuit.
Middays? What a gent. The late Mike Sands. SWEET guy.
Afternoons: talented Jeff Shade, who went onto TV and New York.
Evenings: The man who made me change my name to Holland Cooke: the other Bob Hollands.
Imagine this? Overnights...LIVE, LOCAL DJ. Human being, in-the-studio; not voicetracked from elsewhere.
Patty Costa, a real cutie.
News Director Bill Thompson followed me to WTOP/Washington, and did mornings there 8 years.
(Before I kidnapped him to USA Today when I moved over there.)
OUR WEEKEND DJ Wally Bruckner just wrapped up 16 years on NBC4/Washington.
(You've seen him cover 16 Super Bowls and on Sports Machine.)
(He and his wife just opened a restaurant in Niantic, "La Belle Aurore.")
The assistant I shared with the General Manager was young Barbara Haynes, who went on to Sales.

But the real story @ 111 Dorrance was the third floor, Outlet Broadcasting corporate HQ.
The Home Office to radio and TV stations in:
Los Angeles
Washington DC
Detroit
Philadelphia
Orlando
Sacramento
Columbus
and several other real "comer" markets.

Dody Sinclair himself walked those halls, like royalty; and our CEO was Bruce Sundlun.
Company President David Henderson...what a mensch.
Renowned TV executive; and great to work for in radio.
GREAT smile. Died too young and suddenly.
Radio Group VP Dick Rakovan had been my GM at WPRO several years earlier.

There was a kind of broadcasting going on in that building that seems quaint now.
Downtown-studio, big show-bizzy building. LOCALLY-owned. Live programming all over the place.
Voices and faces walking around; VIPs every day; and a contagious buzz.

Now the owners are somewhere else, and too busy being-sold or buying-something.
No time to husband the engaging local SHOW that stations used to put on.
If you didn't listen later today, or tomorrow, you'd fear you were missing something.
The radio wasn't just a box.
Voices actually came on and said "HELLO!"

And when they left, they were allowed to say "GOODBYE."

HC
PD, WSNE 82-84
www.HollandCooke.com
 
And if you walked around The Outlet department store during lunch time you might see Art Lake wandering around.
 
DG02816 said:
I can take a swing at these....WEAN 790 was at 10 Dorrance for awhile. Would 40 Weybosset be the old WHIM digs? I know the late Narragansett Hotel was WRIB's home as well for awhile....wondering if WARL 1320 is still at Dorrance?
Click to expand...

#10 Dorrance was the Crown Hotel. It was (I believe) the second studio home of WICE-1290. The first was Rhode Island Auditorium where the station first had a sort of cubby-hole up at the top by the press box for The Rhode Island Reds. I used to visit Big Sherm up there and picked up a few engineering tricks from Freddy Weiss (who had to maintain the balky "singing clock"). They later moved to what had previously been the social security administration building down by the freeway.

40 Weybosset was a sort of pigeon-hole doorway alongside the main entrance to Lowe's State Theater (now Ocean State). Led to an elevator lobby whence you rode up to the fourth floor to the original studios of WLKW-990. Cursed building! The rest rooms were on alternate floors; women's on 2; men's on 3; women's on 4, etc.

Weekends when there was one combo operator and a news writer...and that's all...it was hell to need to take a leak. Too slow to wait for the elevator or even race down and back up stairs. One weekend news writer, who I'll only identify as "Len" (yes, his real name) decided to use the lady's room on 4. He settled into a stall, got really comfortable, and heard the tap of high heels on the tile floor. Thinking quickly, he realized the pants around his ankles were gonna give him away! He quickly hiked 'em up, forgetting about his shoes and hugely hairy legs.

The motion of hiking the pants gave him away.

She Saw.

She Screamed.

She Fled!

He thought quick!

Got outta there fast; went to his car and changed into a pair of beat up sneakers then came back upstairs.

Within 15-minutes the police were all over the building banging on office doors asking to see the shoes on the feet of every male.....


Would have been around 1964-65.


Holland, I never saw the inside of the new building at 111 Dorrance but had spent some time on the fifth floor of the original Outlet Building learning news writing from Izzy Siperstein (spelling?) and a few others. Studios of then-WJAR radio looked as though they hadn't changed since about 1929!
 
Hi Les....

Who can forget Jack Kananaugh? I replaced him at 550 radio on Sat at noon, a time when we both had hair. At the end of the shift I introduced the wondrous Fred Grady. 40 dorrance? I was there too in the days of Lowe, Barstow, Allen. Rezinni, Gordon et alter. Great memories.

Bob
 
rapski said:
Who can forget Jack Kananaugh? I replaced him at 550 radio on Sat at noon, a time when we both had hair. At the end of the shift I introduced the wondrous Fred Grady. 40 dorrance? I was there too in the days of Lowe, Barstow, Allen. Rezinni, Gordon et alter. Great memories.
Click to expand...

"Kavanagh". Jack is still alive and living in Sacramento, CA. He retired from broadcast several years ago and developed his hobby with computers into a private business but still runs a "California Politics" website. I won't put up his info here but if one were to "Google" 'Kavanagh Rough Tumble' all would become clear.

#40 was Weybosset Street. I weekended for Pete; replaced George when he moved to TV; Riz was best man at my wedding....but I think you knew that. Memories of Mowry caused me to make a one-day round trip to Rhode Island from CA some years back for purposes I've disclosed here before.

I think you might have been in on the nasty some of us at 'XTR pulled on Jack when he left to do news at WICE. He had a real problems with the words "exhibition baseball". Just before his noon 'cast we called him on the phone and each of several of us separately shouted "EXIBATION BEESBALL" then hung up. You KNOW how the sports part of the newscast went.....

I miss the old fooling-around stuff we used to do in radio. Someday I'll share with you all...if anybody asks real nice....the story of the announcer the drill bit and the goldfish.
 
10 Dorrance St.

I was looking in the phone book one time and saw that 10 Dorrance street is where the Providence office of the FBI is. Wow. I never knew there were any radio stations there.
 
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