NPR’s new digs, NCPR’s oldest digs

During the weeks when NPR was moving from its old headquarters at 635 Massachusetts Avenue NW to the new headquarters at 1111 North Capitol Street NE, I posted here to let you know that the move was happening and to let you know when to tune in for the last broadcast of All Things Considered to emanate from the old digs.

At the time, I didn’t have much to show you of the new building. Now, thanks to Interior Design magazine, there’s a full slide show of images of the 1111 North Capitol facility. It’s pretty terrific. Definitely take a moment to click through the slide show. You’ll get a nice feel for what a state-of-the-art news hub looks like and, by extension, how such a hub works.

I was still on the NPR Board when we selected the 1927 art deco warehouse building as our network’s new home. Care was taken to preserve some of the historic building, at the same time new sections were added to address the space needs of NPR.

And here’s the local hook for the North Country: NPR included a photo and reference to our NCPR predecessors on the lobby wall devoted to the stories of selected individual stations from around the country.

Specifically, they included this vintage photo taken in the early 1920s when the St. Lawrence University physics and engineering staff built and operated what Radio Digest Weekly, in 1925, featured as the first radio repeater. 

SLU’s first official station, WCAD, provided some local programming but built a “receive antenna” and related equipment in order to rebroadcast a signal captured from a distant location–in this case, from WGY in Schenectady operated by General Electric–when locally hosted programs were unavailable. This photo shows the receive antenna and several members of the SLU physics department set up in a Canton-area barn.

 

Pretty cool, huh? Go visit NPR headquarters the next time you visit D.C. and be sure to look for our photo in the lobby. St. Lawrence University owns the North Country Public Radio broadcast license and has been home to radio for almost 100 years!

Tags: early radio, ncpr, NPR, radio broadcast, St. Lawrence University, wcad