The great Bronx radio tower tiff is history.

Eleven years after the construction of a mammoth antenna for the WFUV radio station on the Fordham University campus enraged its neighbors at the New York Botanical Garden, officials from both institutions and Montefiore Medical Center watched the biggest crane in New York City hoist a new tower and antenna atop a Montefiore-owned apartment building in Norwood.

The new antenna means that Fordham will be able to dismantle the half-complete tower on its campus once the wiring for the new one is all hooked up next spring. It also means that the Garden has essentially won its long battle to reclaim an uncluttered vista. Garden officials and some patrons felt the towers particularly marred views of its landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
 

 

Fordham had begun construction of what would have been a 480-foot tower in 1994 to comply with new Federal Communications Commission standards and to reach a wider listenership. But the Garden successfully appealed to halt construction, leaving the tower unfinished at 260 feet. Years of hearings and court rulings followed, as did fruitless efforts to identify another suitable site.

But in May 1994, Montefiore president Spencer Foreman, MD, announced that it could provide the roof of a Wayne Avenue building — for $100,000 in yearly rent to cover maintenance — as a surefire remedy for Fordham’s 11-year headache.

Last week, workers began assembling the antenna and tower on a vacant Montefiore-owned plot across from the building at the corner of Wayne Avenue and East 210th Street.

And on Sunday, officials assembled on top of a parking garage across the street for a press conference and dramatic viewing of the tower being hoisted section-by-section onto the roof of the building known as Monte II, a 28-story, 299-unit residence for Medical Center staff.

The new structure is slimmer and shorter than the one on Fordham’s campus. It has an 80-foot supporting mast and a 60-foot antenna on top of that. It is 10 feet wide at its base and tapers to four feet as it rises. But by basing it on top of the tall building, which sits on the highest point in the city at Gun Hill Road, it gains the necessary height.

Fordham’s president, Fr. Joseph McShane, expressed gratitude to Foreman and Montefiore for offering the roof and brokering the peace between Fordham and the Garden.

He said the solution was “an answer to our prayers.”

“Without Montefiore, we’d probably still be looking for a site and still be at sea,” McShane said, adding that the resolution of the dispute “helps us mend a relationship [with the Garden] and bring it back to that level of affection and respect that has always been there.”

Garden president Gregory Long was out of the town, but other Garden officials were present.

The tower will not be fully operational until it is fully wired and tested next spring. At that time, WFUV, an FM station at 90.7 known particularly for its folk music programming, will have the ability to increase its reach to 13 million potential listeners from seven million it broadcasts to nownow.

Ed. note: Mosholu Preservation Corporation, the publisher of the Norwood News, is a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center.