Darkness at the Corner of Walk and Don’t Walk: Goodbye KQV!
Posted By Cliff Tuttle | December 31, 2017
No. 1,388
Goodbye to Pioneering Radio Station KQV. It was one of a handful stations like KDKA and WWSW that people listened to on crystal sets in the early 1920’s. After a 97 year run, it goes off the air tonight at midnight.
Although it has been an all-news station since 1975, the Baby Boomer generation remembers it as the place to hear Top Forty songs by the likes of the Everly Brothers and features like the Wax to Watch.
KQV constantly had its finger on the pulse of the teenage market. They broadcast “Live News at 55” so they could capture dial-searchers at the top of the hour. (Later competitors would dispense with news altogether.) And if you didn’t get the Walk and Don’t Walk reference, don”t worry, you just aren’t old enough. In those days, the DJ broadcast all day in the window, looking out on the pedestrian crosswalk on Seventh Avenue.
CLT