WGN is leaving the Tribune tower. No more going there on Sunday nights to do a live broadcast on a fifty thousand watt station that beams halfway across the country. You can only imagine the farmer out in Iowa picking up the voice of some writer being interviewed about his latest book. I remember once being on vacation in Minnesota and picking up WGN in the middle of the night. I was the distraught teen on vacation and it was like there was a bit of home sweeping across the cold dark skies of Northern America. And it will still be there but it wont be coming from the Tribune building anymore.
High up on seventh floor you can look out over the city before your interview. You cool your heels in the green room. How many people walked the halls? Sinatra, Newman, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe? You didn't come to Chicago and not do an interview on WGN. This would be before television when radio was King and the top of the mountain was the top of the building that also boasted one of the countries largest circulation newspapers. But that will be no more.
I was able to wait in august lobby of the Tribune building four times. It was always a Sunday night and no one was around. I would get a burger sometimes at Billy Goats on lower Wacker and then head up to the seventh floor and wait in the green room and then into the studio. Rick Kogans show covers books and my last four have landed me across from him with the big WGN microphone in front of me. Always a great interview with a man who actually reads the books.
And then it is over and you drive home. You always wonder if you will do it again. Not anymore. At least in the Tribune building. That era is over.
Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair
High up on seventh floor you can look out over the city before your interview. You cool your heels in the green room. How many people walked the halls? Sinatra, Newman, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe? You didn't come to Chicago and not do an interview on WGN. This would be before television when radio was King and the top of the mountain was the top of the building that also boasted one of the countries largest circulation newspapers. But that will be no more.
I was able to wait in august lobby of the Tribune building four times. It was always a Sunday night and no one was around. I would get a burger sometimes at Billy Goats on lower Wacker and then head up to the seventh floor and wait in the green room and then into the studio. Rick Kogans show covers books and my last four have landed me across from him with the big WGN microphone in front of me. Always a great interview with a man who actually reads the books.
And then it is over and you drive home. You always wonder if you will do it again. Not anymore. At least in the Tribune building. That era is over.
Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair
