Bill, the picture is similar to the main RCA control board at 1430 Main. The K-Big board had but one Vu meter. The board pictured actually looks like the main board at WEBR, 23 North Street, with Vu meters for Audition and program. Al Wallack can verify that point and speak to it.
Yes Bob & Bob, 1430 Main Street could have been put on Buffalo's condemned housing list. Still, somewhere in the back of my head I hear the refrain from Bryan Adams' "Summer of 69" playing "Those were the best days of my life," maybe not so much for me as for the guys like Joey, Danny, Tommy, Sandy, Don Kobiela, Jack Sheridan, Bud Balou, Don Berns, Jack Armstrong, Fred Klestine, Rod Roddy, Jungle Jay, Jack Sheridan, (the real) Don Wade, Bob MacCrae, Casey Piotrowski, Don Pollack, John Summers, Jim Quin, Shane and countless other guys and ladies who went through the doors of that building.
The equipment was held together with bailing wire and duct tape, but listeners didn't know and didn't care because what came out of the radio speaker captivated listeners and fans in 17 states, two countries and two continents.
Guys like me worked the all night show out of the control room, which had a better air conditioner (cut into the back wall next to the equipment racks) than the main HVAC in the big box main studio. That control room air conditioner probably did a better job of filtering the air even after Jim Adler went through two packs of Lucky's while producing the 7-midnight show than the a-c in the main studio did, reprocessing the smoke from the jocks. As for studio stench, the best story was told to me by a K-Big jock who recalled Don Berns bringing one of his cats into the main studio during his show. As the story was told, the cat crawled behind one of the wall sized record racks and left his calling card. It took weeks to figure out where that peculiar aroma was coming from. After that, dormant cigarette smoke seemed like fresh air.
The building was a dump, but the air product was amazing. What an aura. What an era!
JPB
