Paul Noble Remembers: Eleanor Roosevelt

In the fall of 1959, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt began her series of monthly discussion programs for National Educational Television. It was called “Prospects of Mankind,” and was a production of WGBH-TV

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Paik and the Video Synthesizer

From Fred Barzyk: I remember Nam June Paik telling me to stand back since TV sets sometime exploded when he did this. I backed off. The TV did not explode but gave forth a dazzling array of colors, buzzed and slowly died, never to live again.

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James Armsey, 90, behind the scenes public broadcasting pioneer

From The New York Times James W. Armsey, a former Ford Foundation executive who directed more than $350 million in grants to universities in the 1960s while prompting the foundation to deny grants to segregated universities, died on Nov. 2 at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 90. From 1956 through 1975, Mr. Armsey…

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Dave Davis, 81, WGBH Producer, Director, Manager

From Fred Barzyk At the age of 81 Dave passed away on May 23, 2007, in the kitchen of his home in Guyana. He and his wife Joyce had been retired and playing Jazz around the islands since 1993. From WGBH QuickNooz (by permission) — 8/20/2007 Sad news from the Caribbean: Former WGBH Station Manager…

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Building a Network: EEN (1961-64)

This entry is part 6 of 12 in the series The Michael Ambrosino Collection

WGBH: The Early Years Skating Around the Rink (1956-60) Building a Network: EEN (1961-64) Going Public (1964-70) From Michael Ambrosino Ed: This is the second of three excerpts from Michael Ambrosino’s autobiography. In the first part, Skating Around the Rink, he described the early years at WGBH, an era of live and live-on-tape TV productions…

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Going Public (1964-1970)

This entry is part 7 of 12 in the series The Michael Ambrosino Collection

From Michael Ambrosino: I’ve never considered myself an intellectual; my memory and thought processes are just not good enough for true intellectual work. I do, however, have an insatiable curiosity and enjoy the world of ideas.

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Friends in Need (1962)

From the Boston Sunday Globe TV Week — April 29, 1962 From the collection of Al Hinderstein Dave Davis and Greg Harney on the far right, Hindy with the camera on the roof of the bus. (This picture was taken at the 84 Mass. Ave. site. That’s the charred TV master control console in front…

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The 1961 WGBH Fire

From Don Hallock In the early morning hours of October 14, 1961, a raging fire at the 84 Massachusetts Avenue studios of WGBH completely destroyed the facility. WGBH FM and TV were located in the second and third floors of a three story roller former skating rink. The fire, which began in the studio-A area,…

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Fragments from a Flyer (1950s)

From Dave Nohling Dave Nohling has contributed these pieces from a very early, though unidentified, WGBH publication. They show images from some programs you might well have forgotten. Above: “Joseph Spear’s basic math and Northeastern Univ. summer TV credit course.” “TV courses in French and Spanish with Language Research, Inc.; Harvard’s basic Russian on radio-TV.”…

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