David Mugar, 82, Philanthropist

David Mugar, a Boston philanthropist and the man behind the annual Fourth of July Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, died Tuesday night at the age of 82.

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Fred Barzyk’s Snapshots: Scene 2

I was asked to produce and direct a program for college kids during the summer of 1967. The show featured a young Englishman who was lecturing at Tufts University. His name was David Silver and he looked a lot like Mick Jagger.

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Jean Shepherd tells his first WGBH story

From Fred Barzyk: I first heard Jean on the radio in Boston. It was 1961. I was babysitting my young son and, while idly scanning radio stations, I heard this person, this intense personal voice, talking to me.

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Recording Buckminster Fuller (1963)

This facilities request was found in a 2” videotape box as this program, featuring the renowned architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, was being dubbed in 2010 to a modern tape format.

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A tribute to Dave Davis

From Don Hallock As I remember, a 30 year old Dave Davis came to us at WGBH-TV from the University of North Carolina campus TV in 1957. That was the same year I, at 19, began in the scene shop as assistant to Peter Prodan. Dave was a musician and veteran television Producer-Director. He succeeded…

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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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Crew Training Tape – Transcript (1962)

From Don Hallock This tape was shot in the temporary studio at the Boston Museum of Science. It was intended as an in-house training tool, primarily for new BU student interns. It puroprted to be a catalog of many of the most frequently perpetrated production errors portrayed in comic relief. Response at the April reunion…

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George P. Tuttle, Producer

From the Cape Cod Times Cape Cod Community College theater and communications professor can be described by Shakespeare’s, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Only in Tuttle’s case, forget the “merely.” Friend and colleague Lore Loftfield Bower said there was nothing “merely” about Tuttle, who died Monday at…

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Bob Carey Dies at 59

From Don Hallock Bob Carey was a truly multi-talented individual. Born in Melrose Massachusetts in 1941, his early radio career included producing the Speed Anderson all-night radio show at WVDA. He joined WGBH-FM in 1965 as an engineer, and became Director of Radio in 1970. After leaving the station in 1975, Bob owned and operated…

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Quo vadis WGBH (1946-2000)

From Don Hallock: It may surprise you to know how many places the station has called home. WGBH’s origins were in a converted skating rink on the second floor of 84 Mass. Ave. and the office spaces on the third, were the first home of WGBH from 1955 to 1961.

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The original dream factory — Mass Ave. Studio A (1950s)

For years, the original Studio A at 84 Massachusetts Avenue was a truly magical place. So many careers were launched, or at least nurtured, its environment. It’s magic blossomed from the drive to produce programming that one could feel pride in, with the ongoing and exhilarating drive to overcome obstacles, with the almost mythic experience of being forced by necessity to achieve the impossible through sheer persistence and ingenuity.

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40 years with ‘GBH

This entry is part 1 of 12 in the series The Michael Ambrosino Collection

From Michael Ambrosino — 2000 My first visit to WGBH was in the fall of 1955, just after TV had gone on the air at 84 Mass Ave. in Cambridge. I was at work developing a TV master plan for the University of Connecticut at the time, and wanted a tour of one of the…

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