Faint memory of watching this in the early seventies when I was pretty young.
The TV station would sign on. 5 or 6 AM then.
Before kiddie fare would come on.
Instrumental music would play while park gates open and one or two people go jogging. Park gates would close.
Was this central park? Dunno. TV Station. Dunno.
Anyone remember this or know what it was? This was when we only had channels 2-13 and a couple UHF.
My searches with nyc/park/gates/jogger are flooded with central park jogger and The Gates items.
have you tried a YouTube deep dive? Lots of old tv staion promos, sign-offs, and sign-ons. Most of them are from the big affiliates - NYC, Chicago, etc.
I vaguely remember that, too. Grew up in southern CT in the 70s. We got the NYC channels 2, 4, 5. 7, 9, 11 &13. Remember a kind of mellow, unobtrusive. repetitive, rhythmic music without singing, the people jogging by & the gate closing behind them. This is gonna drive me nuts now!
I feel that the music was something very ‘New York’ - like I used to know the tune it used well, can’t remember it now.
Did find a few signon dives on youtube, no luck yet.
Yeah, didn’t know about gates in Central Park, I’ll search with Gramercy Park - but I think it’s too small - at least as a child I saw a big park. My husband mentioned a cemetery in Brooklyn that’s park like, blanked on the name.
Likely channel? I was waiting for Davy & Goliath, and Wonderama most likely.
Had a look at it. My memory is that the gates were on a road, and not connected at the top. Two gates swung wide, and then closed.
Gravel vs paved, not sure.
Wanna say if it was before Wonderama it would’ve meant it was on Channel 5, which was independent (I think) back then, I could be way off though. The gate was tall with stone sides at least in my memory, & slowly closed on it’s own, seemingly automatically. Must’ve just been when jogging was starting to become a thing. Van Cortlandt Park, maybe? Don’t know if there are big gates there or not, but it was a wooded setting in the clip I think, which might match.
Unless the station archived it, that clip is likely lost to time. Anything as ephemeral as a TV station ID prior to the advent of Betamax and VHS in 75-76 is almost impossible to find.
You’re right, of course. I wasn’t thinking of internal gates, but rather gates at entrances.
And that small set – it’s atypical (that’s right by the Museum), but I should have remembered it. I went to high school a block from that very gate, and entered the park there on many, many days after school to hang out.
It’s not quite as I remembered but I doubt they made two of these segments.
Would have sworn two gates opened to the side and not up and down, but I know how memories are not as solid as we think. Being so young, my memory became older people jogging, larger gates and roads, more expansive. [Who else wanted to go through the old Forest gate and path in the Hobbit]
I was coming back to say I looked at some of the station break compilations on youtube. What a time trip, clearly I watched a lot of WPIX - remembered nearly everything.
As fascinating than the tv shows.
Wow, that jogged my memory. I don’t remember seeing the whole intro ( didn’t see much "late movies at that preteen time of my life ) but I do remember hearing a part it used as “bumper music” coming out of commercial breaks for movies shown, usually on sundays. The short snippet can be heard from the 26 to 32, and the 39 to 44 second mark on that youtube video.
Still remember it today, as it made me feel melancholy due to the fact that we ate dinner after the movie, and being sunday, the dreaded school day monday came next.
Hasn’t been mentioned, I’m almost certain, those gates are at The Cloisters, Fort Tryon Park, very northern Manhattan.
(If you really want to see it at a fun time try the end of September when the annual Medieval Festival is going on!)
