BW - EP155—003: New York And The 1944 Radio World—The Fleet Post Office And The Hotel Dixie

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers It’s February 1944 and we’re in the U.S. Fleet Post Office at 80 Varick Street. 80 Varick Street is in the Hudson Square area of Manhattan just north of Canal Street and southeast of the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey. The street itself is named for Richard Varick, an early New York lawmaker, landowner, and mayor from 1789 to 1801. The Fleet Post Office was established on July 1st, 1943. Previously, mail addressed to naval personnel serving overseas was handled by Navy mailmen at the Morgan Annex of the New York General Post Office. When CBS’ World News Today signed on Sunday February 20th, 1944 at 2:30PM eastern time, the allied forces had just begun “Big Week,” a six-day strategic bombing campaign against the Third Reich. By the time it ended on February 25th, German cities Rostock and Augsburg had been bombed, as well as several Dutch cities near the German border. The Germans also lost more than three-hundred-fifty aircrafts, and most importantly, more than one-hundred pilots. Lieutenant. A. E. Newton is in charge of this post office, but with forces in the European Theater growing larger by the day, it was already obvious this post-office has reached max capacity. Space was being acquired on Pier 51 of the Hudson River to handle the expected increase of letters and parcels to fighting servicemen. Here’s Bill Slocum Jr. at the Fleet Post Office discussing how V-Mail works. In September 1944 the Parcel Post Section was moved to Pier 51. The Fleet Post Office continued until the end of the War. By January 1946, with many troops home, most of its functions had been moved back to the General Post Office. World News Today’s sponsor, The Admiral Corporation, was originally known as the Transformer Corporation of America. By 1929 it was the biggest supplier of radio parts in the world. Bankruptcy ensued, but in 1936 owner Ross D. Siragusa purchased the right to change the name to Admiral Corporation America Inc. They began sponsoring World News Today in 1942. For a longer look at the news from this week, tune into Breaking Walls episode 148. Meanwhile, as the weather warmed on April 6th, 1944 the U.S. celebrated “Army Day,” while Al Trace and His Silly Symphonists took to the air over Mutual Broadcasting from the Plantation Room in the Dixie Hotel. The Dixie Hotel opened on West 43rd street between 7th and 8th avenue in 1930. It featured one-thousand rooms and a bus terminal which occupied the entire ground floor. Buses arriving at the terminal would drive onto a turntable, which would then rotate to the proper slip. Two sets of doors, one on either side of the terminal, led from the loading area to the waiting room. The waiting room had a cafe, newsstand, ticket booths, and elevators leading to the hotel's lobby. The hotel was developed by the Uris Buildings Corporation, which announced plans for the site in September 1928. A year after it opened it was foreclosed on. The Bowery Savings Bank ran it until in 1942, when the Dixie became part of the Carter Hotels chain. That year the Dixie Lounge Bar opened on the first floor. Decorated in a Southern Colonial style, it could be accessed from the lobby, the dining room, and directly from the street. The nightclub, along with the adjacent Plantation Room restaurant, fit five-hundred people. The Bus depot became redundant when the Port Authority Bus Terminal opened nearby in 1950. It was closed in 1957. Carter attempted to rehabilitate the hotel several times, even renaming it The Carter Hotel in 1976. They sold it the next year. New Yorkers knew this hotel as one of the worst in the city. It was closed in 2014.