I went to work for WWL in '87 and was dumbfounded how shabby the facilities were! I'm pretty sure that after the move from the Roosevelt, decor upkeep stopped. That said, what a great place to work!
Doc_Tech has it spot on: The Road Gang studio doubled as the production room and was on the third floor attic of the French Quarter townhouse where the station lived. Days we made spots in the studio, nights the Road Gang held court. The Road Gang had a room filled with records--kind of a vault from which Dave Nemo, John Parker, and earlier Charlie Douglas gathered their music.
The second floor, indeed had the FM (WWL-FM, WAJY, WLMG...101.9...whatever) studio, the main 870 AM studio, the news studio, engineering/master control and, at the end of a long corridor, the newsroom. A few other offices "graced" the corridor--PD's office, Chief Engineer, etc. Overall the facility was pretty dark, thanks in large part to the dark wood panelling everywhere. The engineering area was a narrow space lined with racks of equipment and rows and rows of old-style audio patch bays. Overall, it had a sorta war surplus feel to it.
The first floor held sales and admin offices, traffic (the kind that keeps track of commercial placement, not the movement of cars), etc. The main townhouse was joined to a next door creole-style cottage with free passage between the buildings such that you didn't always realize you were walking between different structures. The cottage held additional offices, particularly for the air staff, and a complete print shop (used by both radio and TV). Briancraig, I wouldn't call the place a "little house"; the main townhouse was three stories, went back a long ways, had various side-porches (unseen from the street), and with that adjoining cottage, the facility was really quite large.
Even though we mostly had good equipment, the dark wood panels, the 70s carpeting, the rotting rear staircase, and the constant swarms of termites tended to give radio folks an "unwanted step-child" feeling. Here was this 50,000 clear channel giant with the legacy of the Dawnbusters and the Blue Room, a station heard all over the country (and the world, judging from the QSL reports I used to get), operating out of what amounted to a tenement. That said, they really took care of their employees and people were generally proud to be part of the station and part of the WWL "family".
The Good Fathers at Loyola University said their financial advisers told them that broadcasting was no longer a growth industry, so they sold AM & FM to Keymarket in '89 (for I think around $13M). Keymarket worked out a deal so the studios could remain on Rampart St. while new studios were being constructed on the floor above Lord & Taylor department store in the building on Poydras and La Salle across from the Superdome (formerly Dominion Tower, now Benson Tower). I was part of the team that built the new studios--an experience that has proved invaluable since. WWL and WLMG moved to their new digs in the beginning of 1991, just in time for Operation Desert Storm, the coverage of which caused 870 AM's listenership to skyrocket. The ad revenues that rained in put a lie to Loyola's financial experts' advice.
I left radio in February of '91 to go back to Rampart St. (where I spent the next 15 years), and on occasion ventured into the hulk of the old radio building. The termites were still there, but now there were dead pigeon carcasses, and the flicker of dying flourescent lights and dangling fixtures made for a truly creepy experience. Floor boards not only creaked, they felt spongy! The once "attractive green townhouse" now resembles the set of a scary movie and I'm not altogether sure that the spirits of Hap Glaudi, Charlie Douglas, John Parker, Henry Dupre and others aren't wandering around in there!
