Snowy Day at WFMU

Here's a shot of the outside of WFMU's Jersey City studios taken earlier today, before DJ Tamar rolled through in her mighty Ford Bronco with hydraulic plow, clearing the parking lot for all the DJs who'll be following her.

Yep, for those of you keeping tabs on us from outside the northeast United States, WFMU-country is at the tail-end of getting socked by the blizzard that the rest of you are just watching clips of on CNN. Roads in the NYC metro area are a mess, and most public transportation is on the fritz (including PATH trains, which many of our DJs use to get back and forth between Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Magic Factory), and the snow doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. Fantastic.

I managed to get here shortly after noon today, and found Ravel bravely holding down the airwaves for his Reggae Schoolroom fill-in. Glen Jones, stranded on a frozen PATH train somewhere between Harrison and Jersey City, was unable to make it in, and a bunch of other regularly scheduled programs will be falling into the able hands of our army of fill-in DJs for the remainder of the storm. You can catch the archives of all the recent fill-ins at the bottom of this page.

Times like this always remind me of classic tales from WFMU's past, especially the one which involved Stork, erstwhile host of the fabled Stork Club program, staying on the air for days on end when a blizzard buried our former East Orange studios under a blanket of toxic Jersey snow, and prevented any other staffers from traveling to relieve him of radio duties. Sadly, this all took place before the era of archiving. Anyone got tape?

Finally, here's a snow-related MP3, which tradition clearly dictates can only be wheeled out on days like this. Brrrrr. The school... She is closed... It is a snowy day. [Download MP3]

Comments

[The Contrarian]

In early 1996, when I was still able to afford to live in WFMU's now-posh Jersey City neighborhood, we got socked with 2-3 feet of snow. Jersey City didn't plow my street for a week, trapping my little car. On the day of the blizzard, I walked to Exchange Place and The Flamingo was the only place open. It was "seat yourself/serve yourself" because only one waitress was on duty, and she had to work behind the counter.