4 AUGUST 2, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES 110TH ANNIVERSARY WWW.QNS.COM
PROGRESS IN THE TIMES
The Ridgewood Times: 110 Years of History
The Ridgewood Times, like the
area it serves, stands unique in
the City of New York. Since its
inception on Aug. 1, 1908, it has been a
representative of the people, a strong
supporter of both growth and stability
of the area, and a catalyst for many
of the important issues in Queens
over the past 110 years.
Just prior to the turn of the
century, most of this area was still
rural farmland. Several churches
had been erected, representing a
variety of faiths; a one-room school
house stood on Cooper Avenue. The
basic fl avor of the community was
Germanic, with a small percentage of
Irish immigrants who found employment
as motormen and conductors on
Brooklyn’s numerous trolley lines.
Wyckoff and Myrtle Avenues and
Seneca and DeKalb were the end of the
line for as many as a dozen of the local
trolley routes, and many employees
setted in the area.
The development of Greater Ridgewood
from the end of the Civil War to the
beginning of World War I was a period of
tremendous change, gradual at fi rst, but
in its later stages remarkably swift . From
an insignifi cant hamlet of worked-out
farms, the section became transformed
into a wide-awake, energetic community
by the arrival of industry and a housing
boom which has never been equaled.
As Ridgewood started to come into
being as a separate community from
the older Newtown, the need was felt for
the area to have a voice of its own, George
Schubel, a young man with an adventurous
spirit, founded the Ridgewood Times
Publishing Company, incorporating with
Jacob and Lena Keauth, and printing for
the fi rst time — in both English and German
— on Aug. 1, 1908.
Schubel, in his fi rst editorial, stated,
“In issuing the fi rst number of
the Ridgewood Times, we desire to
announce that it will not be our aim
to make the paper a faithful record
of those local happenings in which
our readers will be interested, and
also of those local matters in which
we believe every true citizen ought to
be interested.”
The fi rst Ridgewood Times offi ce on Irving Avenue in present-day Bushwick
“Our policy will be directed toward
the betterment of the Greater Ridgewood
section, to the end of making
these sections more desirable for
home building, and more easily and
conveniently reached and more prosperous,”
Schubel wrote. “Already they
are looked upon as the most desirable
home and business sections in Queens.
The population is increasing rapidly.
Every year hundreds of persons come
here seeking homes. We desire to encourage
this development by making
the paper a help to them in our business
and social life. To this end we ask your
support. We will try to deserve it, and
to give you a newspaper that will be
increasingly worthy of our splendid
section.”
The population of the area supported
their newly-created voice, and the
business prospered. From its original
one-room shop on Myrtle and Irving
Avenues, the offi ce moved to Myrtle
and St. Nicholas; by 1910, it was forced
to move again, to a two-story brick
building on Cypress and Myrtle
Avenues.
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Our link to
radio history
The Ridgewood Times entered
the 1920s with the excitement
of the era. The community was
booming and had joined with the rest
of the world in entering the age of
electronics. George Schubel decided
to expand the news media into the
“golden age of the radio.”
WHN had the distinction of being
the fi rst independent radio station in
New York City. It was an exciting but
very costly venture for the newspaper.
At that time, the FCC had decided
that no advertising was allowed on
the radio and the newspaper was in
the position of fi nancing the equipment
and the upkeep of the station.
At one point, as Clemens recalled in
1983, Schubel went to one of the local
bank presidents in search of money to
continue operating.
“Aft er listening to Schubel go on for
over an hour on the glories of broadcasting,
the banker refused Schubel
a loan, saying, ‘There’s no future in
radio,’” Clemens said.
The staff of the Ridgewood Times
“doubled in brass,” as Clemens put it:
“We would work all day at the newspaper,
and then work at night at the radio.
They were exciting times, but the pace
was frantic.”
WHN was subsequently sold to the
Loews Theatre Organization, and
Schubel, although continuing his
affi liation with the Ridgewood Times,
devoted much of his energy to the fi eld
of radio.
Violet Miller, age 12 of Public School 77, Ridgewood, broadcasts her
prize composition on radio station WHN at the Ridgewood station in
1923. Other budding writers await their turn. P.S. 77 was believed to be
the fi rst school to hold a children’s radio forum.
The radio adventure was only one of
the Ridgewood Times’ actions to push
the Greater Ridgewood area further
into the 20th century. In 1925, the
newspaper erected its own building at
Cypress Avenue and Cornelia Street. It
was the fi rst fi re-proof building in the
area, and housed in the printing presses
and offi ces of the newspaper as well
as renting space to other businesses.
George Schubel