The First Home Of CBS…485 Madison Avenue, At 52nd Street

This photo shows the building still under construction in April 1927. CBS Radio Network went on the air September 18 of that year with 18 stations and operated out of the office for the New York station at Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan. Exactly two years later, September 18, 1929 moved into the top six stories of this building. CBS Radio studios 1 through 9 were located here. Around 1936, CBS Television studios 31 and 32 were added here and a year later, television added studios 41 through 44 at Grand Central Station at 15 Vanderbilt Ave on the third floor and that was it for television till around 1944 when about a dozen other locations were opened in theaters around the city. CBS also had radio studios at 49 East 52nd Street. Around ’63, plans were being made to move and corporate headquarters had plans on the drafting table for the “Black Rock” building at 51 West 52nd Street at the corner of Sixth Avenue. On July 25, 1964, the last radio broadcast from 49 East 52nd was “Farewell To Studio 9” with a long list of stars and clips that had come from that famous studio. CBS Radio newsman Steve Rowan was the last to broadcast from the 485 Madison location on July 25 and the first to broadcast from the new CBS Broadcast Center Studios on July 26…both programs were top of the hour newscasts. CBS television studios were also in the process of moving to the Broadcast Center including 31 and 32 at 485 Madison and 41 through 44 at Grand Central. Studios 53 to 56 at Liederkrantz Hall, 111 East 58th Street were also moving to the Broadcast Center. The corporate offices later moved to Black Rock which opened in 1965 at 51 West 52nd Street.

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