40 years ago - Boston became a 2 newspaper town

[Scott Fybush]

On 6/19/2012 3:59 PM, Mark Laurence wrote:
> I think the WHDH studios were on the other side of Morrissey, where
> Sovereign Bank now has offices.  The smaller building on the same side of
> Morrissey as the Globe, to its right, was channel 56.  I've heard that was
> originally a supermarket.

Correct. To be specific, WHDH radio and TV was 50 Morrissey Blvd, 
WKBG/WLVI was 75 Morrissey and the Globe is 135 Morrissey.

The WHDH building still survives as part of the BayBank (or was it Bank 
of Boston?)/Sovereign Bank complex. It's the southernmost part of that 
complex, and it's been heavily renovated, at least from the outside, 
with the former entryway on the left side of the building now bricked 
over. I would love to know if anything survives inside from the WHDH 
era. I suspect not, if only because the rear of the building, where the 
studios were located, became the attachment point to the rest of the 
complex when it was built sometime after WHDH went away in 1972.

The 50 Morrissey Blvd. building was, as best I can figure it, one of 
only a half-dozen buildings in the history of Boston TV to be 
purpose-built from the ground up as a broadcast facility. The first, of 
course, was WBZ on Soldiers Field Road in 1948. WHDH on Morrissey was 
the second, in 1960. After that, several followed in quick succession in 
the 1960s and early 1970s: WSBK on Birmingham Parkway, WGBH at 125 
Western Avenue (replacing the 84 Mass. Ave. building that burned in 
1961) and eventually WNAC/WRKO at Government Center.

The sixth, and last so far, is the new WGBH facility astride the Pike.

s