I was finally able to visit the Museum of Television and Radio for the very first time earlier this month. This is a museum that you can spend hours upon hours in and never get tired or bored. The price for entry is $10 adults, $8 for students and seniors and $5 for kids under 14. The hours are Tuesday-Sunday 12 noon till 6PM. I thought it too late opening and the hours much too short. Two other things to remember. It does stay open till 8PM on Thursdays and is CLOSED on Mondays.

SOME FACTS

Until relatively recently there was no place where the public could access archived Television and Radio programs. This was simply because, besides private collectors, there wasn't any place that kept a library of these mediums. This changed when William S Paley founded this museum in 1975.

It is now housed at 25 West 52nd Street. This is between 5th and 6th Ave. 6th is also known as the Ave of Americas. This was literally just steps form the New York Hilton where were staying.

1 212 621 6800
www.mtr.org

This is a five story museum with two elevators that move quickly and stairs. It is a series of small theatres, listening rooms and archives rooms. There is a store that features books and many tapes. You may find it hard to leave without one.

There are tours given of the museum itself. Information can be received at the desk in the beautiful main lobby area.

Each day special screenings are given in the screening rooms. Sometimes you must have tickets and other times they are available as first come first served walk ins.

On the day we were there and every day a legal size brochure is given telling what screening are being presented and where it will be, along with the times.

You are not held to a schedule. There are many rooms showing different shows and you may come and go as you please. This may not be the case when special screening are shown that may come from a private collector.

What follows is a brief description of the rooms I saw and some of the shows that were being played the day we were there. We did not see every show, an impossibility, and for that matter did not spend time in every room. I do hope this gives you a feel of what the museum offers.

The ANNENBERG SCREENING ROOM

This room on the second floor seats about 40 people in hard chairs with a large screen monitor. That day at 12:15 they were showing a Jerry Seinfeld television show. It was his first HBO special in 1987 and ran 55 minutes.

Later at 1:15 the Mary Tyler Moore Show was featured. It played the pilot show and the last show when all the characters are together and then Mary turns off the lights of the news room.

At 2:20 the Twilight Zone episode "Where is Everybody" was played followed by a Sullivan years special noting clips from his "Toast of the Town" and "Ed Sullivan Show".

The last screening that day in the Annenberg Room was the Sopronos Premier Show. We didn't see any of these shows besides just sticking our heads in. There was so much more to see and listen to.

MT&R Theatre

This large 200 seat room is used for major screenings and special events. That day they were showing television from the museums collection. It was not crowded but I understand it can be fat particular select programs that are announced on the museums web site. Museum members get first choice to entry.

That day the MTR Theatre showed a "Friends" episode, a "Seinfeld" show and a "Stand up Comedy Special" hosted by Marlo Thomas featuring Milton Berle, Danny Thomas, Roseanne, Bob Newhart, George Carlin, Richard Pryor Lenny Bruce and many others. This was 75 minutes long.

At this time the museum has a particular show that is running a few weeks. The name is "Look! Up at the Screen! It's Superheroes on Television."

This particular event is shown daily at this time. It has clips of Superman, The Incredible Hulk, and Batman. The show is different each day. This was a two hour special.

The last screening in that room, that day was a Cheers episode.

The Mark Goodson Theatre

This Theatre is a nice one. It seats about 100 people in comfortable cushioned theatre seats. They are roomy too.
The schedule here was The Curse of Mr Bean, a series of comic and super hero shorts, and a special showing how teenagers have been portrayed on TV over the years. This was one of the few shows that day that delved into the impact of TV.

The theatre ending its screening that day with a one and a half hour special about Teen Idols on TV. I caught some of this one and it showed the change from an innocence portrayed in early teen characters as Ricky Nelson was in Ozzie and Harriet to the more open and liberal society of today with teen idol Britney Spears.

OTHER SCREENINGS

There are a number of other smaller rooms throughout the five story building. The screening room #5 on the fifth floor showed a tribute to Ray Charles "American Masters: Ray Charles: The Genius of Soul." It was good to see that the museum premiered current programs to reflect real time events. In this case the recent death of Ray Charles.

RADIO

There is so much to see in this museum and you become quickly engrossed in what is on a screen that one must make an effort to check out radio. It is featured by a working studio where many broadcasts are made live. There is a sign up where stations and individual programmers may register to use this studio for broadcast.

The Ralph Guild Radio Listening Room has huge comfortable chairs and headphones where anyone can listen in on schedule programing of the museum.

Gosh I wish I had more time in this museum. The problem is that for first time NYC tourists this place can bog yourself down for hours and hours and you won't get to see so much more the city has to offer. This is a great place to relax if you are in the city a number of days and you need to "chill" a bit.

WHAT LACKED

Its wonderful that you can just walk into a room, sit down and find some classic TV. I felt, at least on that day, that too many contemporary shows were featured. I believe one or two rooms should be dedicated to early Television even if only showing some clips and commercials. I would think that this exposure to people would show the great strides this medium has made through the years. A bit more in News scheduling would be good too. There were so many defining moments I can think of in my lifetime that were impacted by television. I would have liked to have seen a prepackaged show on this kind of information. Maybe there was more of this to be seen. I just didn't see it highlighted anywhere.

To be fair there was a special that is being shown for about a month. It is called "The Presidency,Political Image-Making and Television". Though I did not get to see this, it was said to show how those behind the scenes use television to propel and to sink political candidates. My gripe was that there wasn't any prepackaged shows of the news past.

Once again, due to the limited time this museum is open and the overwhelming amount of shows in it, we were unable to take the museums tour. Possibly more is covered there.

WHAT I LOVED

If you remember a show, look it up, and more than likely it will be there. The archives in the library of this museum is unbelievable. Thank goodness so much has been saved. I do wonder what was lost forever. That could be an interesting story in itself.

The process of getting shows to see is pretty easy. First you must go to the library.

Edward and Patricia McLaughlin Library

This room has a receptionist that gives you access to one of the 50 or so computers that bank shows from way back when till now. I suppose you must be a little computer savvy to use them but the prompting system should get most non-computer users through the process.

The library is composed of general categories. Westerns, Comedy, News, and the like. From there you get into subcategories or you may input particular shows you want to see. After choosing three shows, there is a limit, you write down codes shown on the screen for the shows. Then return to the receptionist desk. Again I stress that having an idea of what you may want to see before arriving at your computer can save you time. It's easy to spend too much time just looking at choices. Back at the desk they will input the information and direct you to another area. This is the Console Center. I suppose there are over a hundred of them, I really don't know, but there were many.

The center has a monitor, headphones and some controls for "play, rewind, fast forward, pause and stop". They were pretty easy to use but were not always very responsive. Even so there was no major problem in seeing my selected shows. The sound quality was fine but the actual monitors could have been better. Yes, I know I was looking at some old TV but I know the quality of my home TV vs the monitors they have here. But again your choices in shows and how they take you back in time quickly makes these minor type complaints even more feeble.

My wife wanted to check out some Sonny and Cher Television among other choices. She told me it showed their first visits on late night TV shows and then the eventual television show of their own. There was another show, it may have been Johnny Carson, when the two got together after many years of being apart. My wife told me it was a beautiful yet heart wrenching show, especially in that he is now gone.

I wanted to check out some early memories of newscasts of the Kennedy Assassination. Yes, a bit macabre, but being twelve or thirteen at the time, this was the first major TV news to impact me. The fact is it was also the same for much of the world at the time. Television was just starting to show what it could do in the news business.

Another small thing I brought up was a television show, a western, that I enjoyed but remembered very little of as a kid. The name of the show was "Sugarfoot" the story of a young fellow who tried to use his intellect rather that guns as the first way to solve a problem in the wild west. This must have been an innovative show at the time. This youthful character had books of law and was explaining how education was important. I suppose this was exposing the values of some people in television at the time. The show, perhaps reflecting the changing times, never made it. I found out it was on just one season.

There was more I looked up but it's not important what I saw. What is clear is that this museum is a wonderful source of the past. You can use it to learn or to just entertain yourself.

Apparently many people do like comedy. One thing I noticed as I sat at my center was that hardy laughter would come from many people at their monitors. At times it was distracting but humor is good for the soul. It's a pleasure to know that people can get away from some of the troubles of life and find refuge in the Museum of Television and Radio. It's a good one!

Nearby things to do

The Empire State Building / Radio City Music Hall A Spectacular place to see a show! / Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum / Times Square, the Heart of NY / Times Square Visitors Center / The INTREPID Sea-Air-Space MUSEUM It's a good one! / The BEAST a thrill ride tour of The Statue of Liberty. It's fantastic!! / Central Park So much to see and do any time of year! / CENTRAL PARK ZOO / The Metropolitan Museum of ART A fifteen minute walk uptown from the Zoo on 5th Ave. / Museum of Natural History across from Central Park West

Two mid-town Hotels
Grand Hyatt Hotel, NYC
New York Hilton




Recommended: Yes

Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime