Getting To Know The Broadcast Center
OK, let me back up. One of the things that people at CBS News talk about quite a bit is the fact that the building in which we work, the Broadcast Center, is not exactly Versailles. It's actually a converted milk processing plant, which Sheffield Farms Company sold in 1952; CBS moved in in 1964. The company spent $14.5 million dollars to create what was, at the time, "the largest 'self-contained' radio and television production center in the United States and the most modern broadcasting plant of its kind in the world," as the New York Tribune put it in 1961.
In the early 1980s, CBS added 176,400 square feet to the 500,000 square foot building as part of a $100 million update. But the legacy of Sheffield Farms could not be erased: In May 2001, a crew from "48 Hours" went into the dank basement of the Broadcast Center in search of a location for a shoot. They found, among other things, grain chutes and a cow hoof.
Oh, and as for the picture of the phone? A big joke around here is that our phones operate on state-of-the-art 1970s technology. Just thought I'd provide visual proof.
In any event, here's a brief pictorial tour through CBS News and CBSNews.com. This by no means shows all that goes on here; there are no shots of CBS radio, the soaps upstairs, or any of the many, many other broadcast operations in the building. For that, you'll have to wait for future installments of this completely random, unfocused, and ad-hoc feature. We can get away with that, right? Blogging, it seems, does have its benefits.
That concludes this installment of "Getting To Know The Broadcast Center." Will there be another? Honestly, I have no idea – this thing might end up going the way of "Co-Ed Fever," "Emily's Reasons Why Not," and "Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos."