RE: COL

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Paul Hopfgarten wrote:
>
>Wouldn't the fact that the Mighty Mississip' separates the 2 cities, and
>therefore all St.Paul-Minneapolis are K*** and Minneapolis-StPaul are W***
>also be a tell-tale sign....


        Well, you have the cities reversed as far as which side of the
river they're on. Also, contrary to popular folklore, the river is not the
entire boundary between St. Paul and Minneapolis. If forms part of the
boundary. But part of Minneapolis, including most of the main campus of the
University of Minnesota, is on the east bank of the river. Downtown
Minneapolis and most of the city, including my former apartment, is on the
west bank. All of St. Paul is east of the river.
        Also, as we know, at least in the very early days some Ks and Ws
were assigned in the "wrong" places. WCCO originally was licensed to
Minneapolis, while KSTP was originally licensed to St. Paul. So, it's
backwards, theoretically. Go figure. The old WDGY/1130 was originally
Minneapolis, but it's a W. The old KDWB/630, which was started in 1959, was
originally St. Paul, but it was given a K. Go figure again. The place is a
real fluke for call letters. I guess it's the only major market with a
relatively even mix of K and W stations. St. Louis seems to be nearly all
K, as you would figure because the city is on the west bank, and Memphis
and New Orleans are on the east bank and seem mostly W.
        I love to tell a story of the days in the '70s and earlier when
KSTP, AM, FM, TV, all were in a huge studio building on University Avenue,
the main surface street between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul.
(Ex-WRKO Chuck Knapp was then KSTP's AM morning guy, later moving to the
FM). I don't even know if the stations are still there. But the first time
I drove by the building I said, dammit, look at that. The city boundary
sign was on the front lawn. There's one station that can give that dual
city COL in the legal ID and really mean it. When they got the TV station
they had put up a new building so that the city line ran through the lobby,
literally. In that building, you could tell someone to get out of town, and
all they might have to do is move to the next chair <g>.