AMERICA CELEBRATES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1936, Page 11

AMERICA CELEBRATES

A STRING OF NEW YEARS

Short-wave listeners on New Year's Day were afforded an opportunity of following New Year's Eve celebrations in the United States, from New York, in the east, to San Francisco, in the west, on a coast-to-coast relay which was picked up from station W2XAF at Schenectady. At midnight in New York, 5 p.m. here, the chimes of the Trinity Church were heard, followed by the street noises of a great throng of people in Times Square, writes Mr. J. V. McMinn, of the Wellington Short Wave Club.

In Chicago, an. hour later, a programme of. dance music was in progress, .from the Morrison Hotel, when the uproar of voices and singing of "Auld Lang Syne" ushered in their New Year. The crowds packed the many hotel ballrooms, cafes, and other amusement centres.'

The next step was to Denver, where a unique broadcast took place at midnight (7 "p.m. here). Members of a mountaineering cliib climbed a 14,000 ft peak at Colorado Springs, and from there carried out a fireworks display with the temperature 2 degrees below zero. Talks by members of the party were broadcast by means of a portable short-wave transmitter, a vivid description of this unusual New Year celebration being given.

From Denver, listeners were taken to San Francisco, where in Market Street, an outburst of cheering, whistles, and sirens was heard at 8 p.m. California's New Year's Eve had come, an aged mission bell ringing in the New Year. Further celebrations then came from Los Angeles.

At 8.15 p.m., a relay from Honolulu came through, where the New Year was only approaching, listeners hearing a programme of Hawaiian music and singing, the remaining forty-five minutes of the broadcast being spent back in San Francisco with dance music. Some twenty dance bands in all provided the entertainment, and reception was particularly good.