NBC’s First Television Station, 1928
This photo is from a 1948 RCA Broadcast News Magazine. The article was about some new equipment at the NBC Washington station, WNBW and this was added as a reminder of how far television had come.
Note the caption states that, aside from an antenna, this is the whole station! The transmitter is on the table to the left and now we finally have a location…411 Fifth Avenue.
In 1928 the futuristic idea of television was close to becoming reality. That year The Radio Corporation of America, began construction of a transmission studio at 411 Fifth Ave. The R.C.A. Photophone, Inc. already had a recording studio here and the new equipment room was adjacent to it.
On March 22, 1929 the Radio Corporation of America announced that “television images are now being broadcast daily from 7 to 9 P.M.” The company’s vice president, Dr. A. N. Goldsmith said that the program was intended to give “experimenters an opportunity to look in on the development work, which, it is contemplated, will in due course evolve into a service to the public on a commercial basis similar to that of sound broadcasting.”
Decades before the television set would be commonplace in America’s living rooms, pictures were appearing on a screen at 411 Fifth Ave. “Transmissions consist of pictures, signs and views of persons and objects,” said Goldsmith. “Announcements are made frequently by transmitting a picture of the call letters of the station…occasionally actors from the sound movie studios will appear before the photocells of the transmitter.”
Below is a link to an article on this address, that until today, I had never though much about. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-unique-1915-no-411-fifth-avenue.html
The racks and tables look what was at NBC in the 1980’s
I’ve seen this camera. It was in a store room in the Smithsonian History Museum back in the 1080s.
I’ve walked past that building on a number of occasions. It’s cool to learn that’s one of the origins of TV broadcasting in the US.
There’s a book from the 50s, called (if I remember) The Golden Are of Radio (I of course can’t find my copy right now) that has a picture of a trained chimp and a matronly female hostess in front of this spotlight camera. The chimp was named “Young Tarzan” and the picture caption billed him as an early TV star.
24 lines of resolution!
this is soo primitive, it’s fascinating
Wasn’t it W2XBS, not W2XBX?
411 Fifth Avenue today – https://www.google.com/maps/@40.750595,-73.983001,3a,75y,111.3h,92.03t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sqUEmOzu0EuTHaGwDAEplHQ!2e0!6m1!1e1