20 years ago tonight (midnight specifically) WEVD went off the air.
It was created to honor Eugene Victor Debs.
The station was known for decades as the radio station that broadcast in the language of immigrants. Especially Yiddish.
The last years (1998 to 2001), WEVD was the sole liberal talk radio station on the AM dial. (WABC and WWOR had turned 100% conservative talk). One of the gratifying things of EVD is it attracted a lot of senior citizens who had been FDR liberals and who had opposed Joe McCarthy. The hosts would welcome them and really listen to their concerns.
The Jewish Forward (the newspaper) sold WEVD to Disney/ABC Corporation for their 30 pieces of silver and the station would become the Sports Station WEPN.
The broadcast day of August 31, 2001 was painful as each host had their sign-off. They re-united 11 p.m. to midnight while a crowd of diehard listeners (I was with them) gathered on the sidewalk.
When the planes hit the World Trade Center less than 2 weeks later, EVD listeners felt lost without the station.
Air America came along, but it was never local.
God, I miss WEVD every day. It was so damned special.
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