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Old KHJ Tower Demolished

From the KTLA story: "The call letters KHJ stood for kindness, happiness and joy." In 1922, the Department of Commerce assigned call letters sequentially and KHJ came after KHG, KHH and KHI. The "kindness happiness joy" slogan came about in an attempt to make the call letters stand for something. Until Jim Hilliker checks in with more details, you can read a brief KHJ history at http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/khj.htm
 
What is it here you need to know? This story seems a bit confusing. About all I can say is what I have researched in the past and know. The KHJ calls were assigned by the Department of Commerce on March 13, 1922. But, I'm not sure if the 3-letter calls were always assigned in sequential order, because broadcast stations KHQ in Spokane and a license for KGF-Pomona, which was never built and never went on the air, were assigned in February 1922, before KHJ. Other 3 letter calls were issued for radios on ships and land code stations, such as KHI for the Southern California Edison company. I haven't found out yet what the KHG and KHH calls were assigned for.
So, while the 4 letter calls for radio stations, which came about in mid-1922, were assigned in sequential order, this was not extactly the case for 3 letter call signs.

Their statement is basically true about the slogan "Kindness, Happiness and Joy." The C. R. Kierulff electronics company, which built KHJ for the Los Angeles Times, did not request the call letters. Near the end of March, when the newspaper printed a story, about their new radio station, with the calls KHJ, they suggested that the call letters "might stand for Knowledge, Happiness and Judgement." (C.R. Kierulff sold the station to the L.A. Times in October of 1922.)

The Times Radiophone station, KHJ, finally went on the air officially on April 13, 1922. Soon after that first broadcast, John S. Daggett, the station's manager and announcer (also known as Uncle John), came up with the slogan "Kindness, Happiness and Joy", and it stuck for several years, at least until the L.A. Times ownership of KHJ ended in November of 1927. Uncle John Daggett was KHJ's announcer and station manager until the station was sold to Don Lee, in late-1927.
 
From the AMP article:

"Crews are yanking down both towers to use the land for other projects"

That is probably some very high priced real estate...that had been mostly unused for all these years. I imagine those "other projects" will produce more revenue than the previous tenant.
 
TheBigA said:
From the AMP article:

"Crews are yanking down both towers to use the land for other projects"

That is probably some very high priced real estate...that had been mostly unused for all these years. I imagine those "other projects" will produce more revenue than the previous tenant.
Click to expand...

Looking at it on Google Earth, it is one of the largest if not the largest undeveloped yet developable parcels of land in Metro L.A. Even leaving the CBS studios where they are, it's a monster. And for the first time since the towers went up in 1939, someone can build on it.
 
This is the future of AM. Their towers are generally sitting on extremely valuable land. In some cases, the land is more valuable than the license.
 
What date was the news posted here first about the KHJ transmitter site to be moved to the 1580 site last year? I can't seem to find it.

Jim
 
According to the KHJ history card on the FCC AM Query site - the towers were licensed in January of 1942.
 
Gee - I must say, like the demolition of KCBQ's towers in Santee, the radio world feels a just a little smaller, or emptier now - those towers that once broadcast all the tunes and kept the Southland rocking are gone. As the memory of
AM radio fades, I guess so do we - they were really fun times. Never more.

As for the Carson Daly Amp radio thing - not a mention of KHJ - no classic Drake/Johnny Mann jingle - or a play of Everclears "AM Radio." Opportunity missed.

93/KHJ - Boss Angeles!

rickity
www.gulchradio.com
 
OK, the new two-tower directional antenna site for KHJ was not licensed until January of 1942. That makes sense. I knew the 2-tower DA site was not up in 1938!! KHJ was still transmitting from a wire flattop antenna on the roof of the Don Lee Cadillac Building at 7th and Bixel in Los Angeles, which went up in 1928. KHJ studios were at 7th and Bixel from 1928-1940, when they moved to Melrose the first time.

The 1942 date for the towers that are coming down now makes sense, as I have a Los Angeles Times story from 1940 that says KHJ had just purchased the land off Venice Blvd. to build their new 5 kw tower site, with details on the height of the towers, etc. It ssaid groundbreakin and construction would get started later in the year.
 
TheBigA said:
That is probably some very high priced real estate...that had been mostly unused for all these years. I imagine those "other projects" will produce more revenue than the previous tenant.
Click to expand...
Have you looked at some of the surrounding homes? This is a very dangerous area with shootings common around the tower area. Cars in the facility were always subject to attack and a few Station employees were robbed at the gate. Good area?
 
Hot Hits said:
TheBigA said:
That is probably some very high priced real estate...that had been mostly unused for all these years. I imagine those "other projects" will produce more revenue than the previous tenant.
Click to expand...
Have you looked at some of the surrounding homes? This is a very dangerous area with shootings common around the tower area. Cars in the facility were always subject to attack and a few Station employees were robbed at the gate. Good area?
Click to expand...

True, but they're going to build something on it. And acreage times land values in the area tells you it won't be cheap.

I wouldn't want to be at Hollywood & Vine a lot, but it looks like they're going to put 7-figure condos next to and across the street from Capitol Records.
 
Hot Hits said:
Cars in the facility were always subject to attack and a few Station employees were robbed at the gate. Good area?
Click to expand...

I don't think I said it was a "good area." Just that the land has become more valuable. I think that's true. There probably is no empty land in good areas of LA. But the area will become a bit safer when you replace a big open field with buildings that are a bit more active. Back when the XM Radio building was built in NE Washington DC, the area was very unsafe. Now, ten years later, it's booming.
 
The video made me sick. What a shame. The only worse was when the Farmworkers pulled down the old 1310 diamond shaped "blaw-Knox" AM tower in Taft, CA. the sold it to a scrap dealer. Oh -- and that's bot forget -- the City of Long Beach - bringing down the old KFOX - 1280 studios / office building and the AM / FM tower on top of the building at 220 E Anahiem - and scrapping the old 6 bay "Clover-leaf: style FM antenna -- for the old KFOX FM 102.3. The FM antenna was worth more in historic value than when it was first bought. Now all are scrap metal - junk - and rubble. Just like the AM band. Got to go -- and barf again.
 
MisterGort said:
The video made me sick. What a shame. The only worse was when the Farmworkers pulled down the old 1310 diamond shaped "blaw-Knox" AM tower in Taft, CA. the sold it to a scrap dealer. Oh -- and that's bot forget -- the City of Long Beach - bringing down the old KFOX - 1280 studios / office building and the AM / FM tower on top of the building at 220 E Anahiem - and scrapping the old 6 bay "Clover-leaf: style FM antenna -- for the old KFOX FM 102.3. The FM antenna was worth more in historic value than when it was first bought. Now all are scrap metal - junk - and rubble. Just like the AM band. Got to go -- and barf again.
Click to expand...

Playing devil's advocate a bit here, because you can't be in broadcasting for 42 years and not have a soft spot for towers:

But...are we going to suggest that once an AM tower goes up, it can never come down until it falls down? That every tower erected must stand forever? Or do we apply a "historic interest" standard? And if so, what would that be? Would KHJ make a cut that KABC wouldn't?
 
There's a very interesting book on the subject by Bill Ivey, former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, that points out that historic preservation is not part of the mission statement by private business. Historic preservation costs money, and no one wants to pay for it, either in taxes or donations. So the past gets torn down.

The other side is that people don't want to live with towers in their backyards, whether they're broadcast or cell phone towers. So the area around them become no man's land. And there are other side effects...I was staying at the Meadowlands Hilton, within site of several huge AM towers outside NYC, and found that the internal mouse in my laptop wouldn't work until I moved the computer away from the window. Hmmm. Magnetic waves?
 
TheBigA said:
There's a very interesting book on the subject by Bill Ivey, former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, that points out that historic preservation is not part of the mission statement by private business. Historic preservation costs money, and no one wants to pay for it, either in taxes or donations. So the past gets torn down.

The other side is that people don't want to live with towers in their backyards, whether they're broadcast or cell phone towers. So the area around them become no man's land. And there are other side effects...I was staying at the Meadowlands Hilton, within site of several huge AM towers outside NYC, and found that the internal mouse in my laptop wouldn't work until I moved the computer away from the window. Hmmm. Magnetic waves?
Click to expand...

Well, yeah.

I mean the analytical side of me says it's just metal, a link in the chain...it's the thing that puts the signal in the air, period. If we're going to suggest that these have inherent historical significance just by existing, then the argument could be made that we should have preserved all the telegraph poles.

We need to keep some things around so that future generations can learn (my kids, who are in their late teens/early 20s think it's stone age stuff that you needed a city block worth of land to send a signal 100 miles when they can chat with friends on the other side of the country instantaneously on their iPhones), but when AM radio is dead and gone, should 4,700 of these things still be standing?
 
michael hagerty said:
but when AM radio is dead and gone, should 4,700 of these things still be standing?
Click to expand...

Well they're a symbol of someone's "mis-spent youth," that now is coming to an end. That's really what the issue is. The baby boon ain't babies anymore. Boo hoo.
 
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