Posted by chicagomedia.org on March 04, 2009 at 07:24:09:
In Reply to: MBC's Bruce Dumont issues Paul Harvey statement; Names wing after him posted by chicagomedia.org on March 03, 2009 at 14:35:45:
Museum of Broadcast Communications invokes spirit of Paul Harvey
Phil Rosenthal | Chicago Tribune Media
March 4, 2009
With the end of Paul Harvey's 58 years of "News & Comment" and Don McNeill's extended run before that with the "Breakfast Club" on what originally was NBC's Blue Network, Bruce DuMont notes this week was the first since 1933 that a national ABC Radio program wasn't based out of Chicago.
"When you look at Chicago, and you look at ABC, and look at the money pulled out of this market with just those two talents …," said DuMont, founder and president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications, his sentence unfinished, much like the museum itself.
The bitterness of now-ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich's broken promise of funding remains with DuMont, whose museum's construction at State and Kinzie has stalled over unpaid bills.
But with new leadership in Springfield and Washington, he sounded more hopeful than he has of late about the prospects of completing the gleaming new home for his TV/radio museum and the Radio Hall of Fame he presides over.
Following Harvey's death this weekend at age 90, DuMont has decided the museum, assuming it is finished, will rename the special-events venue that is to take up its fourth floor.
The Paul and Angel Harvey Center will honor the broadcaster and his wife of 68 years and longtime producer, Lynne, who died in May.
The Harveys were major museum supporters, and DuMont is hoping that others who want to pay tribute to the Harveys' memory will write MBC a check.
"This is an opportunity to do something for them that's by, for and about radio and television," he said.
On the home page of the museum's Web site, museum.tv, there is even archival video of Harvey endorsing the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
"I love tomorrow," Harvey says. "I'm enjoying today immensely, but I can hardly wait for tomorrow. So the idea of a museum, the idea of looking backward, is less stimulating. … [But] the study of history is highly instructive, if only because anybody truly in love with tomorrow will not want to repeat yesteryear's mistakes. And there is romance in the yesteryears of radio and television in Chicago."
Harvey invokes the memory of Jack Benny, Orson Welles, Captain Midnight, Fibber McGee, Edgar Bergen, Dave Garroway and Wayne King in the video. DuMont points to the recent deaths of such Chicago broadcasters as Harvey, Johnny "Red" Kerr, Norm Van Lier and "Chicago" Eddie Schwartz.
"Why did their deaths get so much media coverage? Because they're a part of people's lives," DuMont said.
"We're in a unique time, I think, to rekindle the spirit of the museum. I'm aware of the cloud of doubt that hangs over the project. We haven't given up on the project. It's just gone through hell, and hopefully hell and back, before we get our doors open."
Harvey's funeral service is set for 1 p.m. Saturday at Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut St., and will be open to the public.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are being accepted by the Lynne Cooper Harvey Foundation, 1035 Park Ave., River Forest, IL 60305.