You never know what you’ll find at a garage sale
June 15, 2015Jason Togyer recently sent this article from the Pittsburgh Press from December 13, 1953 – a find his wife made during an excursion to garage and estate sales in the area.
Click for larger picture.
Here are some of the pictures up close!
The WKJF-TV (Channel 53) transmitter tower still sits on its perch at 1715 Grandview Avenue. The building is now property of CBS Radio Pittsburgh who uses it as storage and transmitter site for 93.7 KDKA-FM. 93.7 was WKJF-FM and operates with a grandfathered 41,000 watt ERP. (Click for larger picture.)
WENS-TV (Channel 16) built studios at what is now “750 Ivory Avenue” (Reserve Township) in the early 1950s. When the station went dark a few years later, the building was sold to a non-broadcasting company. When WPGH-TV (Channel 53) was ready to sign on the first time in 1969, the owners bought this building to use it for its intended purpose. WPGH is still there with sister station WPNT-TV (22). (Click for larger picture.)
The iconic “robot” looking building of 1 Gateway Center was built and became home to WDTV-TV (Channel 3 then 2) which became KDKA-TV not long after. Channel 2 still calls this home as did 1020 AM until a few years ago. (Click for larger picture..)
The only close up not included in the above scans is that of the stone building that originally housed WQED-TV (13) in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Today, that building at the Northwest corner of the intersection of Fifth and Bellefield Avenues is the Music Building for the University of Pittsburgh.
And now, a bonus…
Happy’s Party (with human host Ida Mae) was a popular children’s program which was produced at WDTV for the DuMont Network.
750 Ivory Ave. is actually in the city limits of Pittsburgh, right at the line with Reserve. If the station property were in Reserve it would be addressed on Mt. Troy Rd.
The line is so fine, but the county real estate website says that the site is, in fact 26th Ward. Coming from Reserve into the city, the sign marking the city limit is on a pole directly across the street from the Channel 53 entrance and sign. Oddly enough, Google Maps says that Mt. Troy Road actually runs in front of the station… I guess as long as the tax is credited properly the rest of us don’t need to know for sure!