WKCR-FM (89.9 FM) is a radio station licensed to New York, New York. The station is owned by Columbia University and serves the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1941, the station traces its history back to 1908 with the first operations of the Columbia University Radio Club (CURC). In 1956, it became one of the first college radio stations to adopt FM broadcasting, which had been invented two decades earlier by Professor Edwin Howard Armstrong. The station was preceded by student involvement in W2XMN, an experimental FM station founded by Armstrong, for which the CURC provided programming. Originally an education-focused station, since the Columbia University protests of 1968, WKCR-FM has shifted its focus towards alternative musical programming, with an emphasis on jazz, classical, and hip-hop.
WKCR has been described as one of the premier stations for jazz in the United States, having been involved in the New York jazz scene from its founding; one of its first broadcasts was the earliest performance by Thelonious Monk on radio. Through The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show, it has played an instrumental role in the development of hip hop since the 1990s. It was also one of the first stations in the United States to broadcast salsa music.
The station made its first AM broadcast out of John Jay Hall and its first FM broadcast from Philosophy Hall, where Armstrong had invented FM. In 1958, it moved its transmitter to the DuMont Building on Madison Avenue. Following a decade of bureaucratic struggle against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Federal Communications Commission, it began transmitting from an antenna atop the World Trade Center in 1985. After the towers' destruction in 2001, the station broadcast for a brief period of time from a backup transmitter on the roof of Carman Hall, before moving to 4 Times Square in 2003, where it remains today. Its studios are currently located in Alfred Lerner Hall.
History Wireless Telegraphy Club
The first recorded instance of radio experimentation at Columbia took place in 1906, in the same year as the first AM radio transmission made by Reginald Fessenden. Records indicate that a Columbia University Experimental Wireless Station had set up a cagetype radio antenna between the chimneys of Havemeyer Hall and Schermerhorn Hall.
What is now WKCRFM originated as the Wireless Telegraph Club of Columbia University, now under the name Columbia University Amateur Radio Club. Founded in 1908, one year before the Harvard Wireless Club (W1AF) and the MIT Radio Society (W1MX), it is the oldest amateur radio society. It set up its first experimental station on the roof of University Hall, where Uris Hall now stands, in November of that year with the blessings of Professor Mihajlo Pupin, who donated a corner of his laboratory in Havemeyer Hall to the club, as well a large electromagnetic coil.
Originally intended only for catching stray signals from passing ships, the station was soon used to communicate with stations from other universities and other stations in New York City. It engaged in its first test with the Wireless Association at Princeton University in 1909, and in March of that year, it was used to receive the results of a basketball game against the University of Pennsylvania from The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, the first such use of radio by college students.
By 1915, the Wireless Club was known as the Columbia University Radio Club (CURC). The CURC made its first broadcasts with its ham radio station, W2AEE. The call sign was assigned to the CURC as early as 1931 and still operates under the Columbia University Amateur Radio Club. Its first recorded broadcast was in 1933, and the station received its license in 1938.
Carrier current AM station
In 1933, FM broadcasting was invented by Professor of Electrical Engineering Edwin Howard Armstrong in the basement of Philosophy Hall. As an undergraduate at Columbia, he had studied under Pupin and invented the regenerative circuit. Immediately after his graduation in 1913, he was offered a position at the university, and continued his experimentation with radios. In 1914, he strung up another antenna between Havemeyer and Schermerhorn Halls for a new radio. At the time, it was considered "one of the best on the eastern coast", and could reportedly receive signals from as far away as Honolulu, Hawaii. Following his invention of FM, Armstrong created W2XMN, the first regularly operated FM radio station, which made its first broadcast on July 18, 1939. Soon after its completion, the CURC began using W2XMN to test the potential of FM for college radio. The CURC made its first public and FM broadcasts on W2XMN, for which it provided programming.
WKCR proper was founded in 1940. The original station was built almost singlehandedly by electrical engineering student William Hutchins in his room in John Jay Hall. Armstrong donated a microphone and turntables to the fledgling station. While setting the station up, the Radio Club engaged in illegal experimentation, exceeding FCC minimum power regulations for carrier current transmission. Under the name CURC, the station made its unofficial debut on December 31, 1940, with a broadcast of audio from a New Year's Eve party in John Jay Dining Hall. Its official maiden broadcast was made on February 24, 1941, and opened with a recording of "Roar, Lion, Roar", followed by light classical music, a 15minute sports show, 40 minutes of jazz, a campus news summary, and symphonic music. The station soon moved its headquarters to the space between Hartley Hall and Hamilton Hall.
Within its first year, CURC was broadcasting 18 hours a day, including hours of rebroadcasts from W71NY and W2XMN. After the FCC officially recognized college radio stations in 1946, the station received the official call sign of WKCR (standing for "King's Crown Radio"); the designation was originally used by a Merchant Marine ship, the SS Miramar.
WKCR-FM In February 1956, Columbia University applied for a construction permit for a new 10-watt station on 89.9 MHz. (Guide to reading History Cards) The FCC approved on April 5, and the first tests of the new station were carried out on May 14; full-time programming did not begin until October 8 for New York's third noncommercial radio outlet. It used a tenwatt transmitter that once belonged to Armstrong, which it installed on the roof of Philosophy Hall, as well as $25,000 worth of master control equipment donated by WMCA. A third of the student volunteers for WKCR-FM were women from the affiliated Barnard College.
Until the 1970s, the carrier current WKCR, focused largely on music broadcasting and restricted to campus, coexisted with WKCRFM, which covered the entire New York metropolitan area with a greater emphasis on education. Programming was largely university sports, lecture series, classical music, and broadcasts from the United Nations, including many interviews with representatives of foreign nations.
WKCRFM began broadcasting from the DuMont Building on Madison Avenue in 1958, and in 1964 it became the first noncommercial radio station to broadcast in stereo. During the 1960s, the station would continue to develop its educational content. Members of the news department would travel to Washington, D.C. annually to interview political figures, while WKCR became the only station in the New York area to carry United Nations General Assembly meetings in full. While the station's musical programming mainly focused on classical, it also played jazz, folk, bluegrass, and show tunes. Guests who were interviewed on the station during this time period included Martin Luther King Jr., William F. Buckley Jr., and Jimmy Hoffa.
The protests of 1968
During the Columbia University protests of 1968, WKCR was the only source of live news from the university. With 50 or 60 students working in shifts, it was able to provide near-nonstop coverage for the week of protests. During the protests, the station had several "special operations" groups—student experts on telephone systems, key collectors who were able to open every lock on campus, and experts in acquiring telephone equipment that, according to station engineer Jon Perelstein, "a college radio station probably shouldn't have had"—which, by breaking into telephone distribution panel rooms through the university tunnel system, were able to appropriate campus phone lines so that reporters could instantly communicate with station headquarters from any of the occupied buildings. According to one story, when the police stormed Low Memorial Library, a staff member picked up one of the phones and began reporting on the events. When a policeman came over and destroyed the phone he was using, the student simply picked up the phone on the next desk over and continued his report. Station staff also tapped a New York City Police Department phone line that ran from a university telephone distribution panel to a command vehicle outside, and, on radios loaned from W2AEE, stalked frequencies known to be used by the NYPD when planning large operations.
WKCR coverage only stopped for a period of time on April 26, when the university ordered the station to suspend operations. Students demanded the station be allowed to return to the air, and within half an hour the administration relented. The New York Times described WKCR's reporting as "clear and concise with a sound of informality and immediacy". The station contradicted the narratives offered by commercial news outlets, which only broadcast statements made by politicians and university administrators, by offering student perspectives to its audience. When civil rights activists H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael joined the protests, they were interviewed on WKCR. Following the station's involvement in the protests, the university administration has treated the station with animosity.
After 1968, WKCR sought to rid itself of its reputation as a "classroom of the air". The AM carrier current service was discontinued, while the FM station shifted its emphasis from education to music, particularly jazz. The station sought to provide a platform for music that was neglected by commercial radio, adopting the slogan "The Alternative". In a time when most Latin programming focused on older music and romantic ballads, it became one of the first stations in the United States to broadcast salsa. It also welcomed experimental and contemporary classical music, featuring musicians including Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Zorn, Zeena Parkins, and John Cage, who, in 1987, used the WKCR studios once to remix opera music. During a May 29, 1978, minimalist music marathon hosted by staff member Tim Page, the station presented the radio premiers of several leading minimalist compositions, including Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass and Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. Page also organized a WKCR charity concert which was held on April 1, 1979, in Carnegie Hall, and featured Glass and Reich, in addition to John Cale, Leroy Jenkins, and Ursula Oppens. David Bowie also made a brief appearance to play a duet with Cale on the viola.
The blues and jazz record label Oblivion Records was based at the WKCR studio from 1972 until 1976, when it ceased initial operations. The label was founded by staff member Fred Seibert, who would later go on to found MTV, along with Dick Pennington and folk musician Tom Pomposello. During his time at WKCR, Seibert recorded and published live performances made at the station; notable albums that were recorded or edited at WKCR include Live in New York, featuring Mississippi Fred McDowell and Blues from the Apple, featuring Charles Walker and the New York City Blues Band.
Move to the World Trade Center