WNYW
Fox flagship television station in New York City
WNYW (channel 5) is a television station in New York City. It is the flagship station of the Fox television network, owned and operated through its Fox Television Stations division. Under common ownership with Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed MyNetworkTV flagship WWOR-TV (channel 9), the two stations share studios at the Fox Television Center on East 67th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood; WNYW's transmitter is located at One World Trade Center.
History
DuMont origins (1944–1956)
The station traces its history to 1938, when television set and equipment manufacturer Allen B. DuMont founded experimental station W2XVT in Passaic, New Jersey. That station's call sign was changed to W2XWV when it moved to Manhattan in 1940. On May 2, 1944, the station received its commercial license, the third in New York City and fifth overall in the United States. It began broadcasting on VHF channel 4 as WABD with its call sign made up of DuMont's initials. It was one of the few television stations that continued to broadcast during World War II, making it the fifth-oldest continuously broadcasting commercial station in the United States (after WNBT/WRCA/WNBC, WCBW/WCBS-TV, WPTZ/WRCV/KYW, and WRGB). The station originally had its studios in the DuMont Building at 515 Madison Avenue, with its transmitter tower atop the same building. (The original tower, long abandoned by the station, still remains.) On December 17, 1945, WABD moved to channel 5.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “WNYW” as fox flagship television station in New York City. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as fox flagship television station in New York City. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1540364. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1956, 1938 and 1940.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “WNYW”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow WNYW primary sources, WNYW archive and WNYW research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “WNYW”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “WNYW” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.