Dumont: WABD TV New York

This is a companion to the Electrocam photo posted yesterday. This control room shot is not from Dumont’s 67th Street Telecenter, but the photo owner, Ward Bennett thinks this is either at the Adelphi Theater, where the ‘Honemooners’ was shot, or at the Wannamaker’s studio.

Shown here, Frank Carr on left standing up talking on telephone, Hal Bowden sitting right of Frank, Paul Mirasola seated far right, and Ken Gieman, the person who was the Electonicam operator, is in the Audio Room.

The station traces its history to 1938, when television set and equipment manufacturer Allen B. DuMont founded W2XVT (renamed as W2XWV in 1944), an experimental station. On May 2, 1944, the station received its commercial license — the third in New York City — on channel 4 as WABD, after DuMont’s initials. It was one of the few stations that continued broadcasting during World War II, making it the fourth-oldest continuously broadcasting commercial station in the United States. The station broadcast from the DuMont Building on Madison Avenue. On December 17, 1945 WABD moved to channel 5.

Channel 5 is now WNYW and is the flagship station of Fox Broadcasting. It’s sister station is WWOR (Secaucus NJ). I noticed that Mr Harold (Hal) Borth has visited this site and I would like to hear from you Harold. Please email me at edition4@comcast.net.

Mr. Borth spent 40 years with these stations as a Senior Engineer and has been on top of the Empire State Building and World Trade Center more times than you can count attending to the transmitters and towers. I hope to do a story on WABD and it’s progression to WNYW.

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