Columns

F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that there are no second acts to American lives––an odd statement because Americans have always sought new challenges and adventures. During the Depression, people lost their careers, their savings and their homes, and families were forced to discover new ways to survive. Three-quarters of a century later, the current generation is experiencing similar joblessness, foreclosures and bankruptcies, which have caused national anxiety.

Because the shortsighted Hollywood film industry did not want anything to do with the new invention called television in the mid-1940s, the radio industry took over the burgeoning medium. New York became the dominant center for the first decade of TV, as the radio studios were located in Manhattan.