A Rare And Detailed Look At NBC’s Brooklyn Studios…Part 1 of 2

A Rare And Detailed Look At NBC’s Brooklyn Studios…Part 1 of 2

For me, these new photos and information have cleared up a lot of confusion about these famous and historic film and television studios. I hope they will do the same for you.

Here are two annotated aerial views of the property and the recently discovered September 29, 1951 article from the Brooklyn Eagle that announces the sale of the Warner Brothers – Vitagraph property to NBC.

I had always thought that NBC bought the entire Warner Brothers holdings in Brooklyn…the studios and property that WB had bought from Vitagraph Studios. This is not the case. As it turns out, the big white building was retained by WB, but they sold the property on the other side of 14th Street to NBC. This will not surprise you but Wikipedia and other wiki sites have a lot of wrong information on this.

The white Vitagraph building was built in 1906. Vitagraph was bought by Warner Brothers April 22, 1925. What we now know as NBC Brooklyn Studio 1 was built by WB in 1936 and was first used by NBC September 12, 1954. Studio II, the smaller studio was built new from the ground up by NBC and went into service in the fall of 1956.

All of this sheds new light on a bigger picture…a big color picture! As I compare notes on dates and locations, it is dawning on me that with the broadcast of ‘Satin And Spurs’ on September 12, 1954, NBC Brooklyn Studio I, became NBC’s second ever color facility. That is a fact I have never seen documented anywhere before, even in NBC’s press releases of the time.

It’s interesting to note that this property was bought about the same time RCA/NBC took over The Colonial Theater. That was NBC’s first real color facility and after transforming it from a movie theater to a color television studio, the first live broadcast was done from The Colonial on November 8, 1952 with a one time only broadcast of ‘Your Show Of Shows’ with the color burst removed, but viewed in color via closed at RCA Labs in Princeton.

I suspect the three year gap between when NBC bought the property and it’s first use was due in large part to a wait and see attitude regarding the NTSC color system court battles with CBS and the FCC. When CBS testified before Congress in March 1953 that it had no further plans for its own color system, the path was open for the NTSC to submit its petition for FCC approval in July 1953, which was granted in December. I think that is when NBC finally began the serious work of transforming Studio I from a film sound stage into the world’s largest color television studio.

Now that we’ve seen the outside and made some new discoveries, we’ll move to the inside of these two studios tomorrow with some great pictures. Thanks to Glenn Mack for the aerial views, Dave Miller for the Brooklyn Eagle article and to many NBC veterans that helped with this including Joel Spector, Dennis Degan, Jan Kassoff, Frank Gaeta, Russell Ross and more. Enjoy and SHARE! -Bobby Ellerbee

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