CBS Studios 53 to 56…Liederkrantz Hall, 111 East 58th Street

CBS Studios 53 to 56…Liederkrantz Hall, 111 East 58th St

This facility was an old German social club building that CBS leased around 1950 for conversion to a production center. It’s four studios were moderate in size but were adequate for the many soap operas that came from this site, including some of the very first of those shows. It’s main distinguishing point was that this was the only CBS location that had enough telecine projection equipment to support a news program, so this became the home of Douglas Edwards and the daily CBS news broadcast. Although it was where the broadcast came from, unfortunately it was not where the news came from. The CBS newsroom was about 8 blocks away at the 485 Madison Avenue headquarters building and this is the subject of many stories of last second arrivals by news scripts, new film and news men, especially on rainy days. This was also the only CBS facility known to have used Dumont cameras. In the photo below, we see a couple of Dumont 124B cameras shooting what looks like election coverage of some sort. Liederkarntz was decommissioned in 1964 when the CBS Broadcast Center went into operation. I don’t know who the man in the photo is, but if you do, let us know. It looks a little like a young Roger Mudd, by maybe not.

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