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Radio Row is a nickname for an urban street or district specializing in the sale ofradio andelectronic equipment and parts. Radio Rows arose in many cities with the 1920s rise ofbroadcasting and declined after the middle of the 20th century.
New York City's Radio Row, which existed from 1921 to 1966, was awarehouse district on theLower West Side ofManhattan,New York City. Major firms that started there includeArrow Electronics,Avnet (founded byCharles Avnet in 1921), and Schweber Electronics.
The first of many radio-related stores was City Radio, opened in 1921 by Harry Schneck onCortlandt Street, which became the central axis of a several-block area of electronics stores.
The New York Times made an early reference to "Radio Row" in 1927, when Cortlandt Street celebrated a "Radio Jubilee". TheTimes reported that "Today ... Cortlandt Street is 'Radio Row,' while Broadway is just a thoroughfare." The street was closed for vehicular traffic and decorated with flags and bunting, and theTimes reported plans for New York's acting mayorJoseph V. McKee to present a "key to Cortland Street" to the then-reigningMiss New York, Frieda Louise Mierse, while a contest was held to name a "Miss Downtown Radio."[5]
Pete Hamill recalled that, as a child, "On Saturday mornings, I used to venture fromBrooklyn with my father to Radio Row on Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan, where he and hundreds of other New York men moved from stall to stall in search of the elusive tube that would make the radio work again. Later, my brothers went there with him in search of television components. Radio Row was a piece of all our interior maps."[6]
In 1930,The New York Times described Radio Row as located on Greenwich Street "where Cortlandt Street intersects it and theNinth Avenue Elevated forms a canopy over the roadway...The largest concentration is in the block bounded by Dey Street on the north and Cortlandt on the south, but Radio Row does not stop there; it overflows around the corner, around several corners, embracing in all some five crowded blocks." It estimated 40 or 50 stores in the vicinity, "all going full blast at the same time. There may be regulations prohibiting this vociferous practice, but if the radio dealers have anything to say it about it, it will never have the slightest effect along Radio Row....The clamor is heard even as one walks through the subway tunnel to the street exit....The first impression, and in fact the only one, is auditory, a reverberating bedlam, a confusion of sounds which only an army of loudspeakers could produce." It noted, in addition to merchants selling radio sets, "others display mostly accessories...one shopkeeper last week featured acrystal set small enough to fit into a pocket, and another gave prominent position to a bucket of condensers about an inch in side."[7]
In 1944, duringWorld War II,The New York Times lamented that the "one-time repository of nearly everything from a tube socket to a complete radio station" was "bargainless and practically setless, too, due to wartime scarcities" but that it still catered to "tinkerers and engineers" and that an "old spirit" and "magical quality" were still there. One shop said it was practically able to stay in business just by "making repairs on the electric meters burned out by the students of the city schools who were studying radio," and all were optimistic about growing public interest in "two new kinds of radio: FM and television."[8]
But Radio Row rebounded. The used radios, war surplus electronics (e.g.,ARC-5 radios), junk, and parts often piled so high they would spill out onto the street, attracting collectors and scroungers. According to a business writer, it also was the origin of the electronic component distribution business.[9]
Radio Row was torn down in 1966 to make room for theWorld Trade Center.[10] Five years earlier, thePort Authority of New York and New Jersey rejected a proposal to build the new complex on the east side ofLower Manhattan'sFinancial District. Instead, officials chose a site on the west side, nearHudson Terminal, and began planning to useeminent domain to remove the shops in the area bounded byVesey,Church,Liberty, andWest streets.[11]: 56
Local opposition arose to the decision to raze the streets on the west side for theWorld Trade Center. Sam Slate reported on this forWCBS Radio in 1962:
Shaping up in New York City is a legal battle of overriding importance. Its outcome will conceivably affect us all. If the considerable power of the Port Authority is allowed to dispossess the merchants of Radio Row, then, it is our conviction, no home or business is safe from the caprice of government.[11]: 62
The city also objected to the compensation given for the streets themselves obscured by thesuperblock.
A committee of small business owners led by Oscar Nadel took exception to the Port Authority's offer of $30,000 to any business in the condemned area, regardless of its size or age. Nadel's group, who estimated that businesses in the area employed 30,000 people and generated $300 million per year, sued the Port Authority.[11]: 68 But the court ultimately threw out the case, calledCourtesy Sandwich Shop v. Port of New York Authority, in November 1963 "for want of a substantial federal question".[11]: 87
After the closing of these stores, the concentration of radio retailers was not duplicated elsewhere in New York. Some clusters of radio and electronics stores were created or added to in theCanal Street andUnion Square areas. A large black-and-white photo mural of Radio Row can be viewed at thePATH'sWorld Trade Center station.
In 1923,The Boston Globe reported that a section ofBoston'sNorth End had been dubbed "Radio Row" because of its many radio antennas. "Thehurdy-gurdy has a rival," wrote theGlobe. "No skyline anywhere else in the city or the suburbs is filled with so many antennae as the blocks stretching along some sections of Hanover and Salem sts. Many residents have three or four aerials—one has six—with wires leading down to receiving sets of all descriptions, in the homes of the foreign-born residents. It has all come about in a few months....All stairways lead to the roof, where [some residents] are arranging to rig up a loudspeaker, connected with instruments below. A survey of housetops...shows a whole population getting ready."[12]
According toThe Plain Dealer in 1928, a section ofDowntown Cleveland along Prospect Ave. fromEast 4th to East 9th Street was known as "Radio Row" for its radio and electronic-goods shops.[13]
InLos Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s, "Radio Row" referred to the area near the intersection ofSunset Boulevard andVine Street inHollywood, where all four major radio networks had broadcasting facilities.[14]
In the 1950s and 1960s,Philadelphia'sArch Street from 6th to 11th Streets was known as Radio Row, after its electronic-goods stores.[15]
Radio Row may also refer to a large grouping ofsportstalk radio stations that broadcast from theSuper Bowl media center during the week before the annual majorfootball game.[16]
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