The Hallway of WRTI-FM
June 1967

From its beginning in January of 1948 until September of 1968 (when they moved to Annenberg Hall), the home of WRTI AM & beginning in 1952, WRTI-FM was in the basement of Thomas Hall on the campus of Temple University.

Originally, Thomas Hall was the Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, erected in 1886. It became part of Temple in May of 1942 which the congregation disbanded.

In January of 1948, its basement became the home of WRTI, a carrier current AM radio station and in 1952, WRTI-FM, then a 10-watt radio station.

Throughout the years, many well-known people have been graduated from Temple who worked at WRTI. In the June 1967 photo, on the right, we see 19 year-old Ed Sciaky. On the extreme left is 20 year-old Ed Cunningham. Between the two Eds, you see Temple students Lenore Patterson and Sandy McDaniel.

FYI, the janitor of the building was Harold Thomas (no relation to the building's namesake, Morgan Thomas). Supposedly, he was the model for Old Weird Harold (created by Bill Cosby) on The Cosby Kids. Cosby did sports on WRTI-FM.

From the official archives of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
Photo originally donated by Broadcast Pioneers member Jerry Klein
All Rights Reserved

The e-mail address of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia is pioneers@broadcastpioneers.com