What Area Of NYC Were TV Shows Filmed In, In The 50s and 60s?

[Markxxx]

I was watching an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show, and Rob is telling Laura that Sally says she saw Buddy all the way over on 96th street.

This seemed to indicated it was far from the place the Alan Brady Show took place.

So my question is, in the 50s and early 60s, when a lot of TV still came from NYC, what part of it were the shows filmed at? I imagine they were all filmed in a general area.

I remember radio actor Frank Nelson (the guy who would always say "Yessssss" on the Jack Benny Show), was saying he was able to make a lot of money in radio as the shows were all, broadcast near each other. He said, he'd go from one studio at the top of the hour, do his 10 minutes on Jack Benny and catch the subway and finish up the last part of the half hour at another broadcast.

 

[landtuna]

CBS studios have been located at what is now the Ed Sullivan Theater (located at 1697-1699 Broadway between West 53rd and West 54th, in Manhattan) since the mid-30's.

NBC studios in NY are located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza (on 49th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues) in Manhattan and also have been there a long time.

So they are fairly close together.

 

[MattParker]

Frank Nelson worked out of LA and the network radio studios in Hollywood were close to each other.

CBS had several theaters it used for radio and early TV shows with a large studio audience, including the Ed Sullivan Theater and adjoining "Studio 54." Most CBS radio programs originated from the old CBS Building at 485 Madison Avenue (at 52nd Street).

Most NBC radio shows originated from the RCA Building but NBC also used theaters to accommodate large studio audiences on some shows.

Most Mutual programs originated from WOR at 1440 Broadway (at 40th Street).

New York was not as convenient as Hollywood but actors did manage to get around midtown to do multiple shows on different networks at various locations in a given day.

It is never stated specifically that the Alan Brady Show was on CBS. Carl Reiner based the show on his experiences as a writer on NBC's "Your Show of Shows" (which was broadcast from a theater on Columbus Circle, although most shows maintained offices elsewhere in Manhattan and used the theater only for rehearsals and broadcasts - multiple shows used any given theater during a typical week). The character of Alan Brady was based on Milton Berle and the Texaco Star Theater originated from the Center Theater in Rockefeller Center.

Some shows from the era also used old film studios in Chelsea, Astoria, Brooklyn and the Bronx for early TV shows filmed in New York.

East and West 96th Street are residential areas (with local shopping on the avenues). Maybe whoever wrote that episode did not know Manhattan very well. The Van Dyke show was produced at Desilu in Los Angeles but Reiner and some of the other writers had worked in New York and should know better: Buddy would have been seen up on 96th Street (not "over").

 

[bpatrick]

CBS had Studio 50 (the Ed Sullivan Theater), 52 (which became
the disco Studio 54), and 59; some NBC shows originated at the
Center Theater, which had seating for 1200; ABC used the Elysee
Theater (I remember seeing an episode of the game show "Get The
Message" on GSN, on which announcer Chet Gould says, "From the
Elysee Theater...") and the Little Theater (where "Who Do You Trust?"
originated).

 

[Bob1370]

A lot of ABC's shows originated from their TV center complex on West 66th Street where they still originate shows like Regis & Kelly and their news broadcasts.

 

[Ultimajock]

CBS had Studio 50 (the Ed Sullivan Theater), 52 (which became
the disco Studio 54), and 59; some NBC shows originated at the
Center Theater, which had seating for 1200; ABC used the Elysee
Theater (I remember seeing an episode of the game show "Get The
Message" on GSN, on which announcer Chet Gould says, "From the
Elysee Theater...") and the Little Theater (where "Who Do You Trust?"
originated).

...IIRC, I've Got a Secret and What's My Line? originated from CBS' Studio 59. And didn't Westinghouse also use The Little Theater for its version of The Merv Griffin Show?...

 

[bpatrick]

Westinghouse did use the Little Theater for Merv's show.
When he moved to CBS, he didn't want to use the Ed
Sullivan Theater, because it was across the street from
an unemployment office and he felt he'd get too many
down-and-outers in his audience, so he picked the Cort
Theater, which CBS spent several million dollars redoing...
only to have Merv move to LA two years later, in 1971.
I remember his Metromedia show originating from the same
theater where "The Hollywood Palace" was taped in the '60s.

 

[wbhist]

...IIRC, I've Got a Secret and What's My Line? originated from CBS' Studio 59.
[/quote]

They did - prior to mid-1960 when they relocated to Studio 52 (as Studio 59 would be converted into the Brooks Atkinson Theatre which it remains to this day). They then moved in 1966-67, for their final season, to Studio 50 - although it's possible that early in that last season, both shows originated at a certain point in time from the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street. (Surely, as of late 1966 To Tell the Truth came out of the BC, before going to Studio 50.)

 

[fybush]

There's a whole book to be written about the various locations from which NYC TV originated in the golden age - and someday, perhaps, I'll write that book.

Most of the early TV studios were converted Broadway theaters, and were thus in the general vicinity of Times Square. NBC's operations at 30 Rock obviously extended that zone a couple of blocks to the east. But there were other studio sites away from the theater district even at the very beginning: DuMont had a big TV studio in the former auditorium of Wanamaker's department store downtown at 9th and Broadway before building the "Tele-Centre" in the old opera house at 205 E. 67th.

CBS had its early TV operations above Grand Central Terminal, a location that would remain in use by CBS News until the move out to the Broadcast Center began in the late 50s, consolidating shows that had been scattered all over midtown.

ABC was up near what would become Lincoln Center as early as the 50s. WOR-TV built studios at 67th and Broadway back then, too, but overspent and eventually had to shut down that facility. (It would back away almost completely from live production for a while, originating everything off film at its Empire State Building transmitter room before opening new studios at 1481 Broadway in Times Square later on.)

NBC had locations even more distant from midtown: the "Uptown Studios" on what had been a very early movie lot in East Harlem at E. 106th and Park Avenue and the Brooklyn studios that originated a lot of live drama in the 50s. (The Brooklyn location would eventually become home to As the World Turns on CBS.)

Across the Hudson, independent WATV boasted that the Mosque Theater in Newark was the largest TV studio in the region; that facility would later be used by WBTB channel 68 after channel 13 moved to NYC.

 

[wbhist]

CBS had its early TV operations above Grand Central Terminal, a location that would remain in use by CBS News until the move out to the Broadcast Center began in the late 50s, consolidating shows that had been scattered all over midtown.

CBS's Broadcast Center actually went online in late 1964.

ABC was up near what would become Lincoln Center as early as the 50s. WOR-TV built studios at 67th and Broadway back then, too, but overspent and eventually had to shut down that facility. (It would back away almost completely from live production for a while, originating everything off film at its Empire State Building transmitter room before opening new studios at 1481 Broadway in Times Square later on.)

Actually, in 1962 was when they again had anything resembling "live" from studios, by then situated on the same grounds (1440 Broadway) as their radio station (albeit on a different floor, as were their videotape facilities), when Joe Franklin moved his then-Memory Lane show (retitled The Joe Franklin Show by 1967) from WABC-TV to WOR-TV. By the late 1960's, ironically, ABC took over the very studios that WOR-TV had built (based out there for years were the soaps One Life to Live and All My Children). Channel 9 moved to 1481 Broadway (or, as sign-on announcers put it, the "WOR-TV Production Center") in 1968.

Across the Hudson, independent WATV boasted that the Mosque Theater in Newark was the largest TV studio in the region; that facility would later be used by WBTB channel 68 after channel 13 moved to NYC.

There is a little correction here. The Mosque Theatre was still used by Channel 13 at the point WATV became WNTA-TV in 1958, and all through the end of its run as a commercial indie in 1961. Starting in 1965 and through the mid-1980's, WNJU Channel 47 was based at that site (which was referred to in sign-ons and sign-offs as "studios in the Symphony Hall Building"). WBTB/WTVG/WWHT (later WHSE and now WFUT) never originated from 1020 Broad Street - its studios (and transmitter) were situated at 416 Eagle Rock Avenue in West Orange, NJ.

Another side note: WNTA's 1958-61 parent, NTA, also used the 1481 Broadway facility from 1958 to around 1961 or '62 when they sold it to MGM. Anyone remember the "NTA Telestudios" on shows like post-1959 editions of The Mike Wallace Interview (after the ABC show of the same name ended in 1958)?

 

[MattParker]

CBS Television News had their offices in the Graybar Building on Lexington next to Grand Central Terminal (radio news remained at 485 Madison). Douglas Edwards with the News was originally broadcast from an east side concert hall in the 50s before moving to the studios over Grand Central. The CBS Evening News started using a new newsroom-studio in the Graybar Building in 1963 and remained there until the entire operation moved to West 57th in 1966.

ABC originated Dick Clark's Saturday night program in the late 50s, as well as Johnny Carson's Who Do You Trust, from the Little Theater (among other shows).

The networks for the most part leased rather than owned the theaters they used. Theaters often alternated between stage shows and TV use.

The Steve Allen Tonight Show originated from The Hudson Theater on West 44th (now a hotel corporate meeting auditorium) before moving to the RCA Building.

Gleason returned to Dumont's Wanamaker auditorium to film the "classic 39" for the filmed sitcom version of The Honeymooners. Dumont had developed a camera set-up that could simultaneously broadcast a live show and film it (resulting in an original quality film print rather than a kinescope film). Unfortunately for Dumont, the introduction of video tape recording shortly afterwards made their process obsolete.

 

[wbhist]

Gleason returned to Dumont's Wanamaker auditorium to film the "classic 39" for the filmed sitcom version of The Honeymooners. Dumont had developed a camera set-up that could simultaneously broadcast a live show and film it (resulting in an original quality film print rather than a kinescope film). Unfortunately for Dumont, the introduction of video tape recording shortly afterwards made their process obsolete.

From what I recall, the classic 39 Honeymooners were actually filmed at the Adelphi Theatre on 54th Street - another DuMont facility.

 

[Ultimajock]

I remember [Merv Griffin's] Metromedia show originating from the same
theater where "The Hollywood Palace" was taped in the '60s.

...isn't that the same one Jimmy Kimmel is using now?...