Reflecting on 9/11: WKCR reflects on a transmitter lost in the September 11 attacks

Everyone knows the principal things that fell on 9/11—two one-hundred story, steel-framed towers, and too many lives inside. Fewer might know that the WKCR radio transmitter also fell that day, from the spot it had held for almost 20 years. A decade later, the student-run station can still feel that loss.

Ellen Walkington is WKCR’s Publicity Director and a DJ. “Though I came to the station in 2008, many years after we lost that transmitter, the impact of the events can still be felt in some aspects of the station,” Walkington said in an email. “On-air fundraisers are so crucial to the survival of the station that whenever we gather for a fundraiser—a massive, nearly round-the-clock effort—the room fills with a nervous energy.”

The unfortunate effect of the attacks on WKCR was further punctuated by the fact that the station had been having an especially optimistic year up until that point. “In the summer of 2001, students were excited to move into state-of-the-art studios in Lerner Hall,” Walkington said. “After the attacks, WKCR was off the air with no idea how we would broadcast again.”

Indeed, the station was on the brink of extinction for three years—until 2004, when WKCR received federal aid specifically allocated to stations who had lost equipment in the tragedy. They were then finally able to set up a new, stable transmitter at 4 Times Square.

In the interim, the station’s chief engineer Richard Koziol had set up a transmitter that broadcasted from Carman Hall. According to Walkington, though, this could only reach 20% of the station’s pre-attack following—a huge detriment especially because WKCR depends largely on on-air fundraisers to stay afloat.

Walkington is quick to put the loss into perspective, noting that WKCR was just one of so many organizations affected by September 11th. Luckily, only the signal—not any team-member—was ever in danger of dying.

Of the four stations broadcasting from the World Trade Center at the time—the others were WPAT-FM 93.1, WNYC 93.9, and WKTU 103.5—WKCR brought up the rear in terms of recovery time. “We were one of the last stations to regain a broadcasting radius that approximated our old one,” Walkington said.

Radio transmitters are able to broadcast out to further radii the higher up they are. The benefit of having been on top of the South Tower’s 110 floors is evident. Now that an even taller skyscraper is under construction at One World Trade Center, it raises the question of which radio stations will be given antenna space—and whether WKCR hopes to be in that group.

Ben Young, WKCR Director of Broadcasting and Operations, answered affirmatively in a statement to the New York Times: “It will be a welcome return.”