Broadcasting (Jan - Mar 1949)

Baltimore (Continued from Baltimore 3) had been whetted by signals from Washington, over 30 airline miles away and even before any local stations were on the air there were 3,000 video receivers around the city. Luckily for Baltimore viewers the TV programming is excellent as the three stations vie for attention. One station, WBAL-TV is on the air a minimum of 60 hours a week. All three are highly creative and the keen competition is bringing the public plenty of studio and remote programming. For years agencies have spoken of Baltimore as a good radio town. After a year of telecasting, Baltimore looms as one of the nation's better TV cities. With two separately programmed FM outlets along with the FM affiliates of AM stations, the city's dialers have a full ration of electronic entertainment. Baltimoreans Proud of Radio Baltimoreans are proud of their diversified radio service and have granted it a place in the municipal heart right alongside such institutions as Johns Hopkins, Maryland Rye, Pimlico, Chesapeake oysters, Peabody conservatory, the B&O, white marble steps, Joe Katz, the Sunpapers, its 600 churches and Henry Mencken. Those who do business in Baltimore need not be reminded that it is the sixth largest city in the United States. And those who know the city's history know how it reached that population point and why it is smug about the future. From a business viewpoint nothing is more important to Baltimore than its central position on the Atlantic coast. With an inland location close to the tip of Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore is nearer the large interior producing areas and cities than any of the other Atlantic ports. Chicago, for example, is 767 rail miles away from Baltimore compared to 814 from Philadelphia and 890 from New York. This provides critically important freight rate advantages on both foreign and domestic traffic, stimulating the business and industrial growth of the city. Blessed with a fine natural harbor, the city is focal point of international trade. The harbor, with 40 miles of water frontage, is the city's top business asset, with manufacturing industries operating extensively at waterside sites. Harbor First In Export Trade That's why Baltimore is the No. 1 U. S. port in export trade and No. 2 in total commerce. Baltimore became a factor in world trade at the turn of the 18th century when settlers started sending grain and tobacco to British ports. Soon "Baltimore Clippers" became world-renowned, plying the seven seas, and the city became Maryland's first metropolis. Shortly after the Revolutionary War groups of Baltimoreans started financing the construction of fast clippers that sailed empty into the Atlantic and returned a few months later with fine cargoes provided by reluctant British skippers. This profitable profession aroused the aggrieved Britishers but the two nations worked out a satisfactory solution in the War of 1812 and the clippers were put into more conventional types of commerce. ily laden freighter every hour-anda-half. Every Freighter Means More Commerce The city is blessed with culture and traditions galore, but it is more interested in the drab freighter whose arrival means $15,000 to $25,000 vdll be spent for provisions alone. The freighter unloads valuable cargoes for local and POPULATION Baltimore metropolitan area 1,300,000 1,050,000 1940 1948 During that war Francis Scott Key, Georgetown lawyer, penned his immortal "Star Spangled Banner" as the British prepared to launch an unsuccessful attack on Baltimore. Met Challenge In Transportation Within a decade the city faced a new crisis as the Erie Canal was constructed across New York State. Products from the West started to move into New York harbor. Baltimore accepted the challenge, coming up in 1827 with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and its commerce has thrived uninterrupted. Darkest days in Baltimore's history followed a fire in 1904 that razed the downtown area. For a decade the city reeled, but plodded steadily at the reconstruction task. The rebuilding was well done, with brick and masonry structures predominating. Quarries and clay abound in the region, and no eastern city is more substantially constructed. Business and residential structures were built to stay, for Baltimore does not think in temporary terms. Came the war — World War I — and Baltimore got the shot-in-thearm that started a new era of commercial and industrial growth. The pace has never slackened, though casual historians occasionally drape the city with gustatorial and social mantles while ignoring the arrival or departure of a heav inland industries and commerce, and departs with goods and raw materials from these same areas. That ship is the symbol of Baltimore's prosperity and its steady expansion during the last three decades. Baltimoreans are port-minded. They point out that the port is closer to South America's eastern ports than New Orleans. They know that the sea-level Chesapeake & Delaware canal provides a northern outlet to the sea, and that one of every five ships entering the port uses this convenient and tollfree ditch. Major Industries Locate on Waterfront Nearly 100 major industrial plants are located along the 40mile waterfront. Among the list are Bethlehem Steel Co., American Sugar Refining Co., McCormick & Co., Western Electric Co., Glenn L. Martin Co., Procter & Gamble, American Smelting & Refining Co., National Gypsum Co., Locke Inc. and Esso Standard Oil, to name a few. They employ 180,000 workers, and their anual output is nearly $2 billion. Entirely aside from employment at these plants, the port's shipping and related maritime activities provide work for over 30,000. Port facilities include four railroad marine terminals, 270 piers, wharves and docks; three grain elevators; eight ore cranes; 30 public general merchandise warehouses; four coal piers; 14 ship repair yards. The port facilities involve a capital investment of over $200,000,000, including ship channels. A $40,000,000 port development fund has been raised to modernize and ex pand the facilities at this all weather ice-free harbor. Leads Nation In Export Tonnage As leading U. S. city in export tonnage, and second-place port in total foreign-trade volume, Balti' more moves over 45,000,000 tons of cargo, including nearly 25,000,000 in overseas commerce. Bethlehem's Sparrow's Point plant, largest tidewater steel mill in the world, employs 22,000 work ers and is the country's second largest plant. The adjoining Beth lehem shipyard has seven ship ways. During the war the yard topped all others in ship construe tion, including 383 Liberty and 93 Victory ships. Besides it built large numbers of other craft and handled a heavy conversion and repair program. Western Electric produces nearly all of its rubber-covered wire and coaxial cables at the Baltimore plant, where it employs 5,500. Crown Cork & Seal, dominating the bottle-cap field, employs 5,000. Westinghouse Electric Corp. has two plants operating under direc tion of Walter Evans, vice presi dent and also president of West inghouse Radio Stations Inc. The Industrial Electronics Division and X-Ray Division employ over 2,000 persons. During the war they turned out products valued at over $400,000,000, including the radar set that gave the unheeded warning of the Japs' approach to Pearl Harbor. Bendix Produces TV in Baltimore Bendix Aviation Corp. has a Baltimore plant employing 3,000. Last autumn it added a TV line to its receiver output. The TV unit is said to have 350 persons working on the production line. Koppers Co. hires 3,000 workers for its insulator plant. Davison Inc. has at least a third that many for its insulator plant and Davison Chemical employs about 1,500. Two railroads — Baltimore & Ohio and Western Maryland — headquarter in the city. The B&O has been a Baltimore institution for 122 years. Nearly every citizen bought stock when the line was conceived as a means of meeting the Erie Canal menace. The original Mt. Clare station is still in use. Other railroads serving the city include the Pennsylvania and two short lines. Some 65 scheduled shipping services used the port in the month of June, 1948, and 4,389 deep-sea vessels arrived in the 12 months of 1947. Aviation in Baltimore will enter^ a new era this year with completion Page 4 Baltimore • January 17, 1949 BROADCASTING • Telecasting