RADIO IN AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 20

RADIO IN AMERICA

DRIVERS OBLIGE PUBLIC

E.S.T. in "The Motor" (London) states that in America motorists who equip their cars with radio entertain not only themselves but the man in the street—to say nothing about the traffic "cop."

"I happened to be in Harlem, the coloured quarter of New York, on the night of the Louis-Schhieling fight," he says. "On each side of Lexington Avenue, the main thoroughfare, I saw nothing but parked cars with a knot of persons around listening to the radio commentary on the fight. The drivers obligingly turned up the volume so that as many persons asi possible could hear. It was almost practicable to hear the whole commentary by walking up and down the street, taking up the description from car to car. "Harlem is a heavily-policed district —there are two or more officers to every block. Naturally the police were not gijing to forgo hearing the broadcast, and usually the officer seized the best position—head inside the open window of the car, and the rest of his anatomy outside. At one time I saw a vista of nearly a dozen cars, each with the rear portion of a policeman protruding, while excited piccaninnies scampered about the running boards. "It was the same during the political conventions. Frequently in the big cities I saw a parked car with the radio turned on at a generous blast for the benefit of pedestrians who were interested in the political antics at Cleveland or elsewhere. During a traffic block a score or more loudspeakers would be broadcasting the same announcement, and it was obvious that the point-duty policeman on occasions was lending an interested ear. "Scenes like these are to be observed in American towns whenever there is. an important 'sports or political broadcast on a wide 'hook-up'."