Terminal City
Which News shows started broadcasting from Grand Central Terminal with Douglas Edwards?
Grand Central Terminal
The construction of Grand Central created a mini-city within New York, including the Commodore Hotel and various office buildings. It spurred construction throughout the neighborhood in the 1920s including the Chrysler Building. In 1928, the New York Central built its headquarters in a 34-story building (now called the Helmsley Building) straddling Park Avenue on the north side of the Terminal. There is a "secret" platform, number 61, under the station. This was once used to convey President Franklin D. Roosevelt directly into the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. This platform was part of the original design of the Waldorf Astoria. It was mentioned in "The New York Times" in 1929 but was first used by General Pershing in 1938. From 1939 to 1964 CBS Television occupied a large portion of the terminal building, particularly above the main waiting room. The space contained two production studios (41 and 42), two "program control" facilities (43 and 44), network master control, and facilities for local station WCBS-TV. In 1958, the first major videotape operations facility in the world opened in a former rehearsal room on the seventh floor of the main terminal building. The facility used fourteen Ampex VR-1000 videotape recorders. The "CBS Evening News" began its broadcasts there with Douglas Edwards. Many historic news events were broadcast from this location, such as John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 space mission and Walter Cronkite's coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now" originated from Grand Central, including his famous broadcasts on Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Murrow broadcasts were recreated in George Clooney's movie "Good Night, and Good Luck", although the CBS News and corporate offices were not actually in the same building as the film implies. The long-running panel show "What's My Line?" was first broadcast from the GCT studios, as were "The Goldbergs" and "Mama". The facility's operations were later moved to the CBS Broadcast Center. In 1966, the former studio space was converted to a sports club with two tennis courts and was operated by Donald Trump from 1984 to 2009. The space is currently occupied by a conductor lounge and a smaller sports facility with a single tennis court.