From the MCRFB desk of Jim Feliciano —
Does This Landmark Dearborn Building Deserve A Place In the State Historical Registry?
A VIEWPOINT
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DEARBORN, November 7, 2012 — There are no signs. No overhangs. Just five large numbers on the front side, hanging left near the door’s arched entranceway. The address numbers read 15001. The building, near Greenfield, sits on Michigan Avenue. Today it sits empty.
In passing, if you don’t know anything about Detroit radio history (with the passing of many, many years since), it’s just a building. You’ll find no references. There are no markings anywhere that would reflect one time there was a legendary top 30 Detroit radio station, right here. Not even a hint nearly five decades having passed, the greatest success story ever in Detroit radio history — probably the greatest radio success story in all of the 1960s — had taken place within the walls and confines of this building.
But to many of us who can still remember, a glance at this building still evokes an aura and magic this building once held. WKNR. Keener 13. History. Here once there was a radio station, in good standing, who once served Detroit with quality broadcasting for nearly a decade. All from from this little brick and mortar Dearborn location.
Let’s turn a page back to Detroit radio history. It’s 1963. Here is the first Billboard article which made its first reference to WKNR, just seventeen days after it signed on.
What’s New in the World of Programming: See Four-Way Detroit Battle
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DETROIT — A four-way battle is shaping up in this market with the immediate changeover in programming at WKMH.
The Dearborn-based 5,000 watter has introduced a new set of calls, WKNR, several new airmen, and a radical switch from a soft sound in music to a “30 plus 1” format. Detroit will be one of the few markets where severe competition is taking place among three or more pop music stations.
The Knorr-owned outlet has been under the program doctoring of consultant Mike Joseph for many months. Soft standards have been the path for more than a year. WKMH (now WKNR) was once the major pop music outlet in the market. Today, a major new fight is developing with the new WKNR, RKO’s 50,000 watter, CKLW (which recently added Tom Clay in the late p.m. to help accentuate their positive pop sound), WJBK, Storer-owned swinger, and WXYZ, the ABC-owned pop rater in Detroit.
Mort Crowley (KHJ defector) broadcasts 5 to 9 a.m., followed by the Motor City’s famous Robin Seymour in the 9 to noon slot. Jim Sanders is handling the noon to 3 p.m. shift with Gary Stevens hosting the 3 to 7 p.m. segment. Bob Green goes up to midnight and Bill Phillips holds the fort all night long until 5 a.m. END
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(Billboard Magazine, November 16, 1963)
That’s how it began 49 years ago. The birth of a legend in the making back in 1963. The beginning of a phenomenon known as Keener radio. The rest is Detroit radio history. And to many of us Detroiters, this place is historic.
George Griggs, Scott Westerman, Greg Innis, and I for one, we believe this former Detroit radio landmark deserves its place. . . somewhere. Maybe with the Michigan registry for historical places? Would that be fitting? We can’t call that. But people should know something about the history which took place here.
When WKNR was sold the new owners immediately switched calls to WNIC in 1972. The station that would become “Detroit’s Nicest Rock” carried on many years of success on the FM band with it’s adult-oriented soft rock format. WNIC-FM went on to further extend its reign on Michigan Avenue well over three more decades. WNIC moved north to Farmington Hills, Michigan in 2006.
In closing, we don’t know what may, or may not, constitute States’ criteria for marker eligibility at the moment. But this much we do know. There sits an empty building in Dearborn today. The address reads 15001 Michigan Avenue.
Certainly this historic place deserves something better than that.
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MOTOR CITY RADIO FLASHBACKS
For more on the history on what took place inside this building, and everything there is to know about the legendary WKNR, see Scott Westerman’s premier WKNR retrospective Legend: The Keener Phenomenon at Keener13.com.
For two Keener 13 exhibits inside this website regarding the early-WKNR years in 1964 and 1966, respectively, go here and here. For more on WKNR on MCRFB, go to our extensive, categories archives added here.
Comments? Tell us what you think. You can post your comments clicking on the very last photo (WKNR Building 1965). We’d be delighted you sharing your comments there.
Below pictures of the former WKNR/WNIC AM FM studio building as it stands today. These photographs were taken Saturday, 4:30 – 5:00 p.m., November 3, 2012.
