A New Perspective! NBC, CBS And ABC Hollywood…Neighbors All!
A New Perspective! NBC, CBS And ABC Hollywood…Neighbors All!
When you read about the early NBC, CBS and ABC studio locations in Hollywood, it seems they are all spread out, but take a close look at these photos….they were all virtually across the street from each other. Be sure and click on each photo to have a good look. I had seen the photos of NBC with ABC across the street but never knew CBS was right there too till I saw this daytime photo.
In the daytime photo, you see NBC Radio City West on the corner of Sunset and Vine with CBS’s Columbia Square just a block down Sunset Blvd. In the nighttime photo, we are looking up Vine Street with NBC at the corner of Sunset Blvd and ABC is on the left. I think this was the KECA Radio building that ABC bought as it’s west coast network operations center. I don’t think KECA TV (now KABC) was ever at this location as it was always at ABC’s Prospect Studios. Enjoy and share.
Mel Blanc writes in his autobiography about the short distance between NBC & CBS radio studios. “Not that I ever walked it,” he wrote.
Thanks for the wide angle, deep focus and context. Too bad they tore down the NBC installation and replaced it with a bank. The “consolation” was a hard to reach radio “museum” in the basement, then some “disaster” that closed it altogether. Hope a similar fate doesn’t await Columbia Square.
It may have had something to do with where the ATT point of presence was.
Continuing on John Butler’s thought: Radio actors in Chicago had it worst of all since there was a river and bridges between some of the network studios (remember back in the radio days a lot of network programming originated in Chicago). There is a joke about the actor stuck trying to get across the raised lower level of the Michigan Avenue bridge yelling at the cab driver to go around and take the upper level.
In radio many actors appeared on multiple live shows, on the same day, often on different networks. LA-based actors had it easy, compared to New York.