It's not so much the building at 1414 Wilmington Avenue that I will miss, it will be the people who worked there.
Don Wayne and Jim Baldridge come to mind first.
I arrived in 1988 and found an amazing amount of professionalism and pride in Channel 7. The close quarters of the building forced people to work together in ways most businesses never see. We could get things done despite the emerging technology.
So many famous people made their way through the hallways at one time or another in both radio and TV.
What will I miss about the building? It will certainly not be the decor or design.
It had outlived its usefulness long ago. Still, it was home for so long.
Steve Baker:
One of my memories of 1414, as an employee of WHIO, is that I never had a desk.
But my real memories date back to the 1950s when my dad was employed at WHIO for 14 years in a number of capacities. As a youngster, on many occasions, I would go with my dad to 1414 on Saturday mornings when he would go into work for just a few hours. I would sit in a small booth above Studio C and watch live TV involving Uncle Orrie, Nosey the Clown, Ferdie Fussbudget, and Whitey the Baker. On occasion, I would even be in the audience.
I was in awe of Don Wayne and that he knew my dad and called me by name. Stan Mouse, Chuck Upthegrove, Winston Hoener, Kenny Roberts, Betty Rogge, Lou Emm, and Ted Ryan are a few of the names I recall from those early years. I remember the children's Christmas parties on live TV when I was a kid. That all ended for me on July 1, 1959, when my dad, C. Oscar Baker, took over ownership of WPTW Radio in Piqua and we moved from 2510 Catalpa Drive in Dayton to Piqua after I graduated from 8th grade at Our Lady of Mercy.
I was back again at 1414 on April Fool’s Day, 1980, when I became an employee at WHIO-TV. I then remember taking my own kids to see Santa (Denny Cheatham) on live TV as WHIO celebrated Christmas year after year with the children of their employees.
My dad started at WHIO in the Dayton Daily News building on Ludlow Street and moved to 1414 Wilmington. My career started at 1414 and has moved into the Dayton Daily News building on S. Main Street. And I still don’t have a desk!
Sher Patrick: Former WHIO-TV broadcaster
This past weekend, I drove past the former home of WHIO-TV and Cox Radio on Wilmington Ave. with the words of Jim Otte in mind. “The building is coming down next week.” My son was with me and I told him the news. He of course didn’t perceive the emotion behind it. So I told him why it mattered to me.
The building was the site of my first “real job.” It was my home away from home where I learned the business of news. I learned intensity and irreverent humor there. I spent five years of 10-12 hour days there beginning in a newsroom where we all shared the four manual typewriters that sat on desks ringing a central column.
The anchors had their own typewriters but the reporters shared. Whoever had the lead at 6 got “first dibs.” If your story was buried in the lineup or worse, scheduled for the 7pm, you had to wait to get a typewriter. I learned on an electric typewriter in school and had to develop the finger strength to type on a manual. It was in that building that I learned to love the “bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” sound of paper being ripped out of the typewriter the wrong way spinning the roller when a story wasn’t coming together. We couldn’t even imagine at that time using a computer to type our stories with the option of editing a sentence you didn’t like.
We eventually got a new newsroom with electric typewriters and nice desks for ourselves. We were a family in that room where occasional tantrums were not out of place. Smoke lingered there in the air where our senior anchor, Don Wayne, puffed away while working. It was there with a gulp in my throat that I approached Ed Krahling with my script for his Noon show. He always bled red ink on my scripts and they were always better for it. One of my best memories, just a little thing, was Ed going out to check the "Accu-Door" to see what the weather was doing before the Noon News. It was his word for a garage door referencing our weather information provider, AccuWeather. Ed had a smile like a mischievous little boy, that light in his eyes bright with intelligence and humor
The lobby was spacious and filled with comfortable furniture and a centralized reception desk that was accessible and friendly. It shrank over the years until it was a small foyer with a receptionist behind glass for security reasons. But until then, it was a place where we shot interviews with the proverbial plant and lamp in the background of our subject. It was a place people slept when major news events kept staff around the clock. It set the tone of WHIO. Visitors knew they were visiting a prestigious location, the number one CBS affiliate in the country.
The back door, actually the side door, was the door we in the newsroom used. It was only feet from the AccuDoor. Who could have fond memories of a door? Me I guess. I burst out that door so many times in a rush to get to a story and meet up with the photographer waiting in the parking lot in a news car or live truck. I crept quietly through that door some days hardly breathing thinking I might get a full lunch break if somehow the building didn’t notice me leaving—hoping my pager would not go off before I got halfway through a meal. The newsroom always knew I was “on lunch,” but as they say “news happens.”
When Cox moved to the south end of downtown, it became more convenient for me as a PR/marketing person for Community Blood Center to visit. Seeing the abandoned building on Wilmington always saddened me though. It seemed to deserve better. When it becomes an empty lot, I will no doubt find a way to avoid driving past it for awhile.