[78-L] Meyer Berger's New York

[Malcolm Rockwell]

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking about a book I'd read when I was a 
kid called "Meyer Berger's New York" and mentioned it in passing on this 
newsgroup. Berger was a newspaperman in the 50s/60s and based his 
articles on the odd and interesting things he discovered about New York 
and its environs. Well, it's been reprinted and I found a copy on 
Amazon. Glad I did too, because this article appears near the beginning 
of the book:

April 22, 1953

     "Modern fire laws don't permit recording companies such as Columbia 
and R.C.A. Victor to build wooden studios, which are the best for making 
records, so company engineers in New York keep looking for existing 
structures that have mellow interiors they can adapt for that purpose.
     "The old Adams Memorial Presbyterian Church in Thirtieth Street 
east of the Third Avenue "El," put up in 1875, was Columbia Records' 
best find. Johnny Ray has wept in it, Rosemary Clooney and Marlene 
Dietrich have sung "Too Old To Cut The Mustard" in it and its ancient 
rafters have reverberated to the full Met cast doing "Cavalleria 
Rusticana" and to Charles Laughton in "Don Juan In Hell."
     "The other day the full cast of "John Brown's Body" with Tyrone 
Power, Raymond Massey, Judith Anderson and a chorus, toiled through the 
entire play in the old church. Resonant declamations and thick, rich 
snatches of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" were put on recording tape 
with a minimum of fluffs and retakes.
     "Miss Anderson had to do one passage over because her chair creaked 
when she leaped from it on cue, and the tape took notice of it. William 
Bachman, a Columbia engineer, recalled that a few weeks ago Rudolph 
Serkin was all but finished with a flawless version of Beethoven's Third 
Piano Concerto when they pulled the stop light on him. The clinking of 
silver in his pocket got on the tape as obbligato when he bounced on the 
piano stool. An assistant held his change while he did the number over.
     "Mr. Bachman said he and his staff made extensive tests before they 
leased the old church. They figured they could remove the old stained 
glass windows, substitute concrete brick and kill the traffic and other 
street noises. Borings and intricate electronic tests established that 
Adams Memorial was built on solid rock and would not communicate the 
rumble of the "El." Thick cement banks on the church's outer walls gave 
double insurance.
     "The dimensions of the church were close to perfect for recordings 
- ninety-six feel long, sixty-five feet wide, forty-five feet high. Any 
dimensions greater than 100 feet spawns echos that double-track on 
sensitive tape, one reason why such places as Madison Square Garden 
won't serve. Carnegie Hall would be all right except that it is directly 
over a subway, and its lush carpeting, heavily upholstered seats and 
voluptuous drapery swallow reverberations that give recording depth and 
"human" dimension. "Like hearing a string orchestra on Flushing Meadow," 
Mr. Bachman explained.
     "Even with almost perfect conditions, though, it's the human 
element that tries engineers' sanity. When the Balinese were in town a 
while back they went to the church to do a record, but their four-foot 
gong wasn't registering on the tape with a satisfactory impact.
     " "Hit it as hard as you can," the Balinese gong artist was told 
through an interpreter. He shook his head, gave long and fluent answer 
(sic). The interpreter made appropriate palm gestures, shrugged, and 
told the engineers: "He says he won't do it. He has too much reverence 
for the instrument." They never got him to do it, either."

I'm enjoying this look back immensely.
Mal