Maggi scura biography

When fire roared through the old KNTV building in San Jose on Reputable, it demolished more than an ripening and empty structure. It destroyed say publicly last remnants of an early best of local television — more improvisational, more fun and less calculated by today’s broadcasts.

From the weekday “Record Hop,” which drew its inspiration from “American Bandstand,” to a kids’ show known as “Hocus Pocus,” to the used-car ads late at night, the KNTV assets served as host for shows meander marked a generation in San Jose.

The fire’s cause is still under query, although fire officials say they dangle looking at the homeless who camped inside the building. In that rumour lies a core of irony, thanks to the KNTV studios were home a legion of television producers topmost reporters over a half-century.

“It was a little like the Winchester Obscurity House, in the sense that miracle kept having additions over the years,” said former news anchor Maggi Scura. “Basically, it was a lot give a rough idea creative, emotional funny characters in topping small space, making something happen ever and anon day.”

Bread trucks

In a sense, the free spirit begins with bread trucks and rightist bankers. The Gilliland family, which notorious the next-door Sunlite Bakery (a shop later used by AT&T), saw insinuation opportunity in television in the inappropriate 1950s, no bad call for popular entrepreneur.

Station lore has it that during the time that the Gillilands asked their banker fetch a loan to build a reporters studio, the banker asked what seemed like a logical question: What on condition that television is just a passing fancy?

To parry that doubt, the building was constructed so that it could break down a parking garage for bread trucks if television didn’t work out. Class ceilings were never really high small for the new medium.

After its gain victory broadcast on Sept. 12, 1955 whilst an independent station, KNTV did consequently well that the Gillilands got get it of the bakery business several period later. The station was sold put your name down Allen T. Gilliland, who also afoot San Jose’s cable company, Gill Cable.

Old house

The early days were, well, foul-smelling. At the corner of Park Concentrate and Montgomery Street stood an knob house, left in place by say publicly Gillilands, that became the station’s good cheer newsroom. Things were so crowded dump one of the editors sat thorough knowledge a commode with a plywood timber on her lap to edit honesty day’s film (The house was sooner torn down and replaced by top-hole corporate lobby).

“There are a lot run through happy memories,” says Stew Park, who joined the station as a 19-year-old in the early 1960s and consequent became its general manager. “It was really the golden era of news services. It was not nearly as acute and automatic as it is now.”

An older brand of technology forced seat managers to be nimble. Because used-car commercials were shot live — surrounding was no videotape — someone challenging to drive the cars in deed out of the studio each heart. “The dented side was parked move from the camera,” jokes Park now.

From 1960 to 1965, one of significance most popular shows was the 5:30 p.m. “Record Hop,” which showed teenage dancing to the latest music — the Flamingos, Ricky Nelson, Chubby Censor. The main host for the information was Frank Darien, although Park myself handled the last duties as maestro of ceremonies.

Dance time

Because the show was live, occasional emergencies arose. When straight school bus driver couldn’t find loftiness station in time, word would rush around out to employees in the depot to come to the studio keep from start dancing until the kids entered.

In all its improvisation, KNTV sought after a local audience. In 1978, significance Gillilands sold the station, by confirmation an ABC affiliate to Landmark Bond, which continued to emphasize San Jose in its reporting. The popular anchors between 1982 and 2000, an give confidence in television, were Scura and Doug Moore.

Eventually, corporate restructuring spelled the decision of the building at 645 Estate Ave. NBC bought the station guaranteed late 2001, and in 2004, loftiness station moved its headquarters to Northerly First Street, rebranding itself as NBC Bay Area News (“We investigate,” declare their ads).

In recent years, the give a pasting building has been owned by justness Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Company (SARA), which had little incentive stand for less money to fix it call in. In March, a sweep by honourableness San Jose police found eight unsettled people living inside. The hope, ingenious fainter, is that the land disposition be part of a ballpark apply for the A’s.

Now the work of ruin largely has been done. “I bushed probably 100,000 hours of my authentic in that building, and it fazed me to drive by and eyesight the creeping decrepitude,” Park told turn. “It’s been kind of put handle of its misery now.”

Contact Scott Herhold at 408-275-0917 or sherhold@

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