Old South Church Meeting

[Bob DeMattia]

Mentioning WMEX brings to mind a question I've had for a while.  I grew up in
East Milton in the shadow of then-WEZE.  I remember their audio getting
rectified on to our phone line, as well as into any cheaply built
piece of electronics
equipment, and remember joking, after the late 70's format switch, about how
the "voice of God" was everywhere.

WMEX was just down the road.  I recall the decrepit nature of the transmitter
building, wedged in between W. Squantum street and the Neponset river
salt marsh.  There were sumac trees and weeds growing all around the
building.

I know that they moved the 1510 transmitter to Waltham in 1981, but I wonder
when the old towers and transmitter building were finally torn down.

Does anyone remember?
Any photos of the old transmitter building and towers?

I believe you can still see the concrete tower bases in the marsh if you
look closely enough.

-Bob


On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 12:51 PM, Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com> wrote:
> At 07:02 AM 1/6/2010, Dan.Strassberg wrote:
>>
>> The Boston station that was on 1470 pre-NARBA (3/31/1941) was WMEX.
>> Who knows what WMEX was airing in those days? (Donna?)
>
> But of course.  WMEX was actually the result of the Poté Brothers (William,
> the more disreputable of the two, and Al-- by all accounts a pretty good guy
> with a long history as a radio engineer) pulling a fast one on the FCC in
> 1934.  The previous administration, the FRC (Federal Radio Commission) had
> taken WLOE off the air-- that was the first station of the Potés, run mostly
> by Bill.  The FRC ruled that there were numerous financial irregularities,
> and after a long battle, WLOE finally left the air in 1933.  But nobody was
> gonna keep Bill Poté off the air-- he found some backers, put their names on
> the application, and suddenly in October 1934, the new WMEX, owned by the
> "Northern Corporation", appeared.  It was sometimes in the Hotel Manger
> (long gone) in the North Station area, and then sometime in the late 30s,
> moved to Brookline Avenue.  The format was what you would expect of a small
> 1930s or 1940s station-- a little bit of everything, from big bands, to
> shopping shows, to religion, to jazz to whatever else somebody wanted to do.
>  Don Kent got his start there, as did Nat Hentoff.  Bill Poté was famous for
> not paying people-- he "allowed them" to work there and get experience...
> for free of course. And yes, WMEX was moved to 1510 after NARBA moved all
> kinds of stations-- WMEX moved on 29 March 1941.
>
> Dan wrote--
>>
>>  I don't think
>> the station had a consistent format until the Richmonds bought it (out
>> of bankruptcy) and flipped it to Top 40 in 1957.
>
> True indeed.  The Richmond Brothers did buy it in mid 1957 and gradually
> shifted it to the top-40 format.  Mac had been involved in an advertising
> agency in Philly, if I recall correctly, and he also owned WPGC in
> Washington DC.  (When top 40 ruled, two of the big ones in the DC area were
> WPGC, and Baltimore's WCAO-- they were jokingly referred to as "The Pig" and
> "The Cow."
>
>> Dan also wrote--
>> Anyhow, AFAIK, WBMS didn't arrive until shortly after World War II. By
>> then, WMEX had been on 1510 for at least four years.
>
> Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!!!  Dan's got the trifecta.  WBMS was
> licensed in 1946, by the Templetone Corporation, a radio manufacturer; at
> one point, I believe Templetone also operated an FM in Boston very briefly,
> because the company sold FM radios.  But by 1948, Templetone was having
> financial woes, and WBMS was sold to the Friendly Group.  It went dark. and
> then, I believe it changed ownership yet again.  It was at that point, circa
> 1948, when it did a classical format for a while, then gave it up in April
> 1950, but then went back to it. WBMS also changed very very briefly in 1951
> to the best call letters for a top 40-- although top 40 had not yet been
> invented-- WHEE.  WBMS got back its original calls around 1952 and if I
> recall, that is when they went back to classical. At one point, they used
> the slogan "WBMS-- world's best music station."
>
>