WHN is People

I don't remember if that was the current WHN ad campaign when I started there in April of 1972, or if it was a past campaign.  I do know that I still have a little lamp that has the words "WHN IS People" integrated into the filament so that the phrase lights up when you turn on the lamp.  I also know that I met and worked with some incredible people during the four years I was there, and thought it would be fitting to remember some of them. The first person that I met at WHN was the man that hired me, WHN's Chief Engineer Pappy Dirkin.  Pappy had worked at WHN since the dawn of time, and the only person who called him Bill (his given name), was an older lady in the finance office who had also worked there since the dawn of time.  To everyone else he was Pappy.  I remember going in to meet Pappy about a job, and he asked me how much I wanted a week.  Not having any idea, I threw out a figure of $150 (remember, 1972!).  Pappy said to me, "I never start anyone at less than $160".  I later found out that was the IBEW contract minimum for Summer Relief Engineers, but at the time I didn't know that.  He offered me work that would start mid April and last through the end of the year.  That was a better offer than I'd gotten from the couple of other places I'd interviewed, so I took the job.  Little did I know at that point that I'd spend the next four years of my life working at 400 Park Avenue! Pappy was a very interesting guy and a great storyteller.  He'd sit behind his desk with his feet up and his little cigarillo cigar in his mouth, and regale anyone who'd listen with stories about radio's past.  I was fascinated with his tales, and was often sitting in his office (which was also the shop) hours after or before my work day.  He had great stories about the Brooklyn Dodgers, who, from 1939 till they moved to California in 1957, were heard on WHN (or WMGM).  A younger Pappy had been the engineer for many of those years, and he had great stories.  He told stories about getting to know Jackie Robinson (they both lived in Stanford, Connecticut and would car pool together), and about many legendary baseball characters in a time when they were just guys playing a kids' game for a living, not super stars.  He also had great stories to tell about the early days of radio, and about some of the incredible broadcasters who had passed through the halls of 1050 AM.  He had no shortage of stories, and I never tired of listening.  Occasionally he'd stop to help Tommy Franken diagnose a piece of equipment (he wasn't just a great story teller, but he really knew his was around electronics too), but then he'd launch right back into our discussion.  His stories also taught me alot about working with talent and dealing with people, but one of the most important pieces of advice he gave me was, "always get your last pee of the day on the company." Every day Pappy would leave his office at the exact time, go down the hall to the men's room, take care of business, come back to his office, put on his coat, walk out the back door of the station, and be standing in the 3rd floor lobby and hit the down button for the elevator exactly as the second hand of the station's clocks swept up to 5 PM! You truly could set your clock by him. Pappy would take the train into Grand Central every morning from Stanford, and then walk up Park Avenue to the WHN Studios at 54th Street.  As dependable as he was hitting that elevator button at exactly 5 PM, you could also set your watch by his daily arrival time.  One morning it got to be 9:30 and he wasn't at the station yet.  By the time it got to be 10:30, we were starting to worry.  We had the news department check with the railroad if there were any problems, or if anything had happened on the trip down from Connecticut.  Everything seemed normal, so we got a bit more worried about Pappy.  Just before 11 AM, he breezed into the station, went into his office, took his coat off, threw his New York Times down on his desk and sat down.  He seemed kind of upset – more mad than anything else – but really didn't want to talk about it.  It took a lot of coaxing, but eventually we got this story out of him. He'd taken his regular train into Grand Central that morning, and was heading through the terminal when something happened.  He thought it was gas, but it wasn't – it was much worse!  What to do???  Well, he decided he'd head into the adjacent Roosevelt Hotel.  He went into the Men's Room, took off his pants, and asked the Men's Room attendant to take his pants to the hotel's cleaner and have them rush cleaned.  Pappy then sat himself down in a stall, opened his New York Times and waited.  As Pappy told the story, he waited a half hour, and then an hour, and as his wait approached an hour and a half, he looked for the attendant and asked him where his pants were.  The attendant's first language was not English – in fact it was doubtful that he spoke any English at all!  It took Pappy some time to get him to understand his question about his pants, and even more time for Pappy to understand the man's answer.  The bottom line was, that he had not understood Pappy's request to get the pants to the cleaners.  What he had done was to take Pappy's soiled pants and THROW THEM AWAY!  Here Pappy was, a 60 something gentleman, trapped in the Roosevelt Hotel's Men's Room WITHOUT PANTS!!  It wasn't nice, but we all found that part of the story hysterical!  I'm sure Pappy realized that we would, and that was probably why he was reticent to share it with us.  So, what did Pappy do?  Well, he put on his trench coat, and with his naked legs, socks and shoes hanging out beneath the coat, with as much dignity as he could muster, he went into the Roosevelt's Men's Store and bought a new pair of pants.  Of course, that made us roar even more, making Pappy even sorrier he'd told us the tale! When I first got to WHN, the station was heavily programming sports.  We were the flagship station of Nets Basketball, Islanders Hockey and Mets Baseball, and the WHN Sports Director was legendary sports broadcaster Bill Mazer.  Bill worked during the Nets and Islanders games doing the half-time and post-game shows.  On any night that neither the Nets, Islanders nor the Mets were playing, Bill would host, Bill Mazer's Sports Roundtable from the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel.   I ended up working at night my first months at WHN, and worked a lot with Bill, both at the studio and at the Plaza.  Of course, everyone who remembers Bill from his many years on NY Radio and TV, remembers that his claim to fame was an uncanny knowledge of sports history.  Bill could answer just about any sports question asked, and could discuss just about any era of any sport with not only knowledge, but many times first-hand knowledge.  He was a very interesting man, and we had lots of talks as we killed time during the games or before the shows we did at the Plaza Hotel.  In my mind, I have a picture of Bill sitting in WHN's Studio A, doing a half-time show in a game while eating a Popsicle!  I also remember that Bill was sponsored by the New York Area AMC dealers, and was the first person I ever saw driving the fish bowl-looking AMC Pacer! One night we were sitting there doing a Nets game.  The first half was all the other team, but in the 2nd half, the Nets came alive, and in the end they won the game.  One of the features of the post game show was a player interview.  A spotter at the Nassau Coliseum would get one of the players to a mic and set of headphones, and Bill would conduct the interview from the WHN studio.  Well, on the night of this remarkable turnaround, one of the first questions Bill asked was something like, "What did the coach say to the team during half-time that motivated you to win the game?"   To which the player replied, "he told us to get off our asses and to go out for the second half and kick some fucking ass."  Bill looked at me and I look at Lou Perriano who was the other engineer working that night, and the three of us shrugged our shoulders.  Yep, another lesson learned…do the post-game interview on delay!  Oh well…live and learn! The Sports Roundtable from the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel was one of the best assignments I had during my years at WHN!  This show was on from 7-10 PM on any night that we had no game scheduled, so some weeks we had one or two, and some weeks we had no shows.  I'd get to the WHN studio late in the afternoon and meet producer Del Demontreaux in his office (Del's office, by the way, was a desk shoved in a big closet that also housed the Metrotech machines just off the WHN Music Library), and then the two of us would walk from 400 Park to the Plaza Hotel.  The show took place around a large, round table in the back corner of the Oak Room, and the guests were folks from the world of sports, or entertainment, or even politics (I met Rusty Staub, Whitey Ford, Paul Anka among others doing this show).   The procedure was that Del and I would start setting up for the show using the equipment that was stored at the Plaza.  Once everything was good to go and I'd checked out the radio line (remember those?) back to the studio, we were free till airtime.  Because of the publicity that the Plaza was given from this show, a trade agreement had been set up with the Oak Room.  Guests were invited to come at 6 PM and have dinner before the show went on the air as a thank you for appearing.  Bill, Del and I also ate every night, and the combination of the food, the dinner companions and the conversation only further convinced me that being an engineer at a radio station was definitely better than working for a living.  Every night of show, Bill would show up at about 5:30, and we'd sit down to dinner.  Bill would ask the waiters what was good, and generally that's what we'd have for dinner.  Be it rack of lamb, duck, or filet minion, Bill would also order wine (we secretly thought that his main yardstick for his nightly choice was the price side of the wine list) to go with it.  One thing we discovered early on, was that the waiters were given a straight 15% tip based on how much was spent that night.  Because of that, they were always anxious to rack up a large bill, so they'd offer all kinds of additions to the meal.  A baked potato was one of my favorite additions and the way they would scoop the inside out of baked potato, mash it, then mix it with butter and or sour cream and then re-stuff the potato is still something I recall all too often according to my wife Sue!  Perhaps because of the supior quality of the service in the Oak Room or perhaps because of their desire to keep the bill as high as possible, your glass was never empty – be it a soda, beer or wine – till the program was over @ 10 PM.  I also remember Bill and Del and I walking back to WHN once the show was over.  Bill was interested in so many things and would love to expound on these to Del and me as we walked down Park Avenue. I still have a very clear memory of Bill talking to us about a David Halberstam book he'd just read.  Not sure I understood what he was talking about, but he was always interesting to listen to!  This was pretty heady stuff for a 22 year old new to the radio business, but every night I did this show it only served to further convince me that radio was the right choice.   Oh and by the way…the Sports Roundtable at the Oak Room was not without it's controversy.   It seems that the trade agreement that the station had with the Plaza was supposed to last for the entire year.  Unfortunately, we ran through the whole amount in 6 months!  Oh well, there were some great meals in those 6 months!! Next…Ruth Meyer and the Good Guys invade WHN