Radio Row

The street was closed for vehicular traffic and decorated with flags and bunting, and the Times reported plans for New York's acting mayor Joseph V. McKee to present a "key to Cortland Street" to the then-reigning Miss New York, Frieda Louise Mierse, while a contest was held to name a "Miss Downtown Radio.

"[1] Pete Hamill recalled that, as a child, "On Saturday mornings, I used to venture from Brooklyn with my father to Radio Row on Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan, where he and hundreds of other New York men moved from stall to stall in search of the elusive tube that would make the radio work again.

"[3] In 1944, during World War II, The New York Times lamented that the "one-time repository of nearly everything from a tube socket to a complete radio station" was "bargainless and practically setless, too, due to wartime scarcities" but that it still catered to "tinkerers and engineers" and that an "old spirit" and "magical quality" were still there.

[6] Five years earlier, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey rejected a proposal to build the new complex on the east side of Lower Manhattan's Financial District.

Sam Slate reported on this for WCBS Radio in 1962:Shaping up in New York City is a legal battle of overriding importance.

If the considerable power of the Port Authority is allowed to dispossess the merchants of Radio Row, then, it is our conviction, no home or business is safe from the caprice of government.

Nadel's group, who estimated that businesses in the area employed 30,000 people and generated $300 million per year, sued the Port Authority.

[7]: 68  But the court ultimately threw out the case, called Courtesy Sandwich Shop v. Port of New York Authority, in November 1963 "for want of a substantial federal question".

A large black-and-white photo mural of Radio Row can be viewed at the PATH's World Trade Center station.