Why I listen to the traffic report

Notes on home and local radio

I often say that one of the surest signs you really know a place is when you can understand the traffic report on the radio. Let me explain: I say this mostly to my mother, whenever we are in the car together and she tunes the dial to one station in particular, New York’s WCBS 880 AM. She listens to this station constantly; therefore, I grew up listening to it too, and it is very familiar to me. WCBS 880 has “traffic and weather together on the 8s.” A man named Tom Kaminski is usually up in a helicopter (“Chopper 880”), from which, loudly over the roar of its rotor, he methodically, breathlessly surveys the damage on the roadways, intersections, and interchanges in what can only properly be described as code. Outbound George, one lane closed due to roadwork on the lower level, so the upper level’s going to be your best bet… There’s a crash on the L.I.E heading into Queens, you’re better off on the Grand Central... the B.Q.E.… The Holland and the Lincoln…the Cross Island…

For some reason, as I’ve grown up, I have become unreasonably proud of the fact that I can understand pretty much exactly what he’s talking about. Sometimes, I even listen for fun. I empathize with those sitting in traffic on the Belt Parkway—backed up from the Verrazzano Bridge all the way out to Cross Bay Boulevard—and even though I’m far from the Cross Bronx, I find myself relieved to know that it’s moving nicely for a change. These feelings are especially magnified after long periods away from home.

I write all of this because, just a few days ago, it was announced that WCBS AM 880 will permanently close at the end of the month—news that has prompted an outpouring of disappointment and sadness from people who apparently feel the same way as me. Most have been listening to the station for far longer than I have (it’s been on the air for nearly 60 years). Many are lamenting the coming loss of the station’s most familiar voices—like Kaminski, along with meteorologist Craig Allen, anchor Wayne Cabot, and reporter Sophia Hall. Others are remembering a bygone era, long before smartphones, when 880 was everywhere, pulsing from bar-counters and taxicabs, a sort of soundtrack to the city.

It got me thinking about how even the most mundane radio broadcasts can color our lives, and how much we’ll lose when the last ones are gone. Yes, there will still be podcasts and audiobooks and Spotify, but for a certain age range (of which I am likely at the tail end) still nothing quite compares to the surprise of hearing a song you love come on the air, or the comfort of your favorite voices at a certain time of day, or the satisfaction, yes, of a traffic report laden with the names of familiar streets.

There’s a website I like called Radio Garden, which allows you to tune in live to any radio station in the world that has an online broadcast. Radio Garden looks like a version of Google Earth speckled with little green dots, each a local station streaming live from someplace. Spin the globe and you might find yourself eavesdropping on Ulaanbaatar, or Pucallpa, or Saint Helena.

Ask someone where they would choose to listen first, and their answer might surprise you. I’ve noticed that each of us seems to have our own criteria for choosing, based on the languages we’re trying to learn, or the places we’ve been, or the countries where our ancestors are from. Maybe that’s why immigrant communities so often start their own radio stations wherever they are, and on Radio Garden you can also listen to a Kurdish radio in Germany, an Okinawa Japanese channel broadcast out of Honolulu, or a Malayalee community station in Qatar.

I remember there was a time, some years ago, when I was living in North Carolina for a few months. One evening, I got in the car and instinctively tuned the frequency to 880 AM. To my great surprise, the signal from New York was coming through, crackling and weak, from 500 miles away. There was traffic on the Major Deegan, the Lincoln Tunnel had an inbound delay of 30-40 minutes, the Southern State was jammed up from the Meadowbrook all the way out to Eagle Avenue. I smiled. A city as expansive as the many worlds contained within it could somehow be summed up every ten minutes in a way that we could all understand. This, in itself, was a comforting thought. The sky was a golden-orange when I turned off the radio and realized it was time for me to get back home.

Let me know what you thought of this letter! Hope to hear from you.

All my best,

Jordan -