“To invent … you need a good imagination. And a pile of junk.”
– Thomas Edison.

This week’s podcast is about more than a pile of junk…it’s about a whole neighborhood of it. And it’s about how that neighborhood helped spark the very first radio revolution.

In the early 1920’s, radio was a novelty. But within a few years, hundreds of radio stores popped up around Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan. There was Leotone Radio, Cantor the Cabinet King, Blan the Radio Man…The neighborhood became a bazaar of knobs, antenna kits, and radio tubes. It was the largest collection of radio and electronics stores in the world. But when developers planned the World Trade Center, Radio Row had to go.

In this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, take a trip back to the neighborhood known as Radio Row.

And to see what Radio Row looked like, check out this rare 1929 film clip, from Fox Movietone:

Radio Row from Radio Diaries on Vimeo.