#153 NYC and the Birth of Television

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2013

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's the beginning of The Bowery Boys Summer TV Mini-Series, three podcasts devoted to New York City's illustrious history with broadcast television -- from Sarnoff to Seinfeld! In our first show, we go back to the start of the invention of the television and the city's role in both the creation of the complicated technology and the early formation of programming. We begin with the Electro Importing Co. and the imagination of one of the greatest names in science fiction. Then head into scientific realities -- the failures of mechnical televisions and the brutal patent wars between RCA's David Sarnoff and one of the great inventors of television, Philo Farnsworth. In victory, Sarnoff claimed the mantel of 'father of television' at the 1939 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. It's but one of many great New York City's beloved landmarks with ties to television's early history, from the heights of the Empire State Building to even a floor at Wanamaker's Department Store. And we even go drinking at McSorley's Old Ale House! ALSO: Why is Greg singing Cole Porter? www.boweryboyshistory.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	Episode 153 of The Bowery Boys, New York, and the Birth of Television.
0:05.2	No, sir.
0:09.7	Hey, it's The Bowery Boys.
0:11.2	Hey.
0:13.2	The Bowery Boys is brought to you by EuroChipo.com.
0:17.7	EuroChipo's editors inspect and recommend the best budget hotels in Europe.
0:23.2	On the web at EuroChipo.com.
0:26.6	Hi there, welcome to The Bowery Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:29.1	And this is Tom Myers.
0:30.6	We have another one of our industry shows for you this month,
0:33.9	but instead of taking something like radio or the movies and confining it into one show,
0:40.6	we are doing our summer TV miniseries 100 years of history of television in New York City.
0:47.3	It seems like a fun and breezy summertime topic, doesn't it?
0:51.1	It does. We're actually going to start at the most technical part of the three parts.
0:56.4	We're going to dwell a bit on the beginnings of television of the birth of the television industry in New York.
1:02.2	In the period that we're going to cover, which is the beginning of the century up to the end of World War II,
1:07.4	most people who had TVs were actually in New York City.
1:10.9	This show has a lot of parallels with the other media shows that we've done.
1:15.1	So if you haven't already listened to the New York and the birth of radio,
1:19.1	and the New York and the birth of film podcasts, those would be great starter shows as well.
1:24.1	What I think is so interesting about this topic is that TV and radio really develop very, very closely together.
1:30.7	In my mind, I had TV happening much later than radio,
	...

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