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For more than 30 years, John Kiesewetter has been the source for information about all things in local media — comings and goings, local people appearing on the big or small screen, special programs, and much more. Contact John at johnkiese@yahoo.com.

A first look inside the renovated VOA Broadcasting Museum

A new doorway allows visitors easy access to a radio collection in a room behind the 1951 Crosley Hot Shot, Crosley Field seats and the Shelvador refrigerator.
John Kiesewetter
A new doorway allows visitors easy access to a radio collection in a room behind the 1951 Crosley Hot Shot, Crosley Field seats and the Shelvador refrigerator.

Visitors to the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting in West Chester Township will notice the first improvement immediately after turning into the driveway off Tylersville Road.

New pavement covers the old potholes.

That’s just one of many enhancements at the 1942 VOA building thanks to $500,000 from the state of Ohio. The museum reopens this weekend (Jan. 25-26) after a seven-month renovation with a reconfigured exhibition space, more TV monitors, a revamped Cincinnati broadcasting area, and new lighting, carpeting, drop ceilings, and heating and air conditioning systems.

“It’s now beginning to look like a real museum. This is a major, major, major, major infrastructure improvement,” says Jack Dominic, museum executive director.

“This changes everything. We’ve got heat and air conditioning, and carpeting everywhere. We now have a building that is up to code and able to be a welcoming place for all visitors. We don’t have to apologize any more.”

The east entrance added as part of the building's east wing several years ago allowed access to most of the rooms — except for the stairs up to the original main lobby and second floor conference room and offices.

Crosley's Shelvador was the first refrigerator with shelves on the door. This model also had a radio above the door.
John Kiesewetter
Crosley's Shelvador was the first refrigerator with shelves on the door. This model also had a radio above the door.

One of the most noticeable changes is in displays on the west side of the main VOA control room. Openings were cut into concrete block walls which originally enclosed VOA’s six huge transmitters for easier access to displays. (The 250,000-watt transmitters heated the building until the VOA ended operation in 1994. The West Chester facility, built during World War II, broadcast VOA programs to Europe, South America, and Africa.)

The new entranceways allows the “back rooms” to be integrated with the area’s largest collection of items related to Powel Crosley Jr., and his broadcasting and manufacturing companies.

Opened in 2017, the Crosley exhibit includes several Crosley radios and televisions; a Shelvador refrigerator (with shelves on the door); an Icyball refrigerated unit; Go Bi-Bi toddlers’ walker; the short-lived Xervac hair growth device for balding men; a 1951 Crosley Hot Shot convertible subcompact car; seats from Crosley Field (Crosley owned the team from 1934 to his death in 1961); and the top-secret proximity fuze anti-aircraft device.

Also new is a transmitter from Cincinnati Police’s old “Station X” communication center in Eden Park, and a street corner “call box” with a telephone for officers to respond to a message from Station X.

On the east side of the control room, the Cincinnati broadcasting exhibit has reopened with just a fraction of the items previously displayed by Media Heritage, the local broadcasting archives.

Ruth Lyons' loveseat from her Fifty-Fifth Club show in the 1960s on WLWT-TV.
John Kiesewetter
Ruth Lyons' loveseat from her Fifty-Fifth Club show in the 1960s on WLWT-TV.

The new space is devoted to Larry Smith’s puppets; talk show host Ruth Lyons (with a loveseat, corner hutch and bouquet-covered microphone from her WLWT-TV show); a recreation of a 1930s radio studio; items from children’s TV hosts “Uncle Al” Lewis and wife Wanda Lewis; a hands-on radio sound effects collection; 20-seat theater; and the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) lab relocated from the second floor.

Lyons, Cincinnati’s “first lady of broadcasting,” was so popular that fans waited more than three years to get tickets to her Fifth-Fifty Club show broadcast live at noon weekdays on WLWT-TV and sister stations in Dayton, Columbus, and Indianapolis. It also was simulcast on the NBC network for a year (1951-52). Lyons also was Channel 5’s program director in the early 1950s.

Visitors can hear vintage clips of Doris Day, Red Skelton, the Mills Brothers and Bob Braun at the touch-screen WLW Listening Station.
John Kiesewetter
Visitors can hear vintage clips of Doris Day, Red Skelton, the Mills Brothers and Bob Braun at the touch-screen WLW Listening Station.

“In an industry dominated by men, Ruth Lyons was one of the first women to have a TV program that she controlled. She was the star,” Dominic says.

An interactive WLW Listening Station allows visitors to hear clips from future national stars on the Cincinnati airwaves in the 1930s and ’40s (singer Doris Day’s audition, Eddie Albert, Red Skelton, jazz great Fats Waller, the Mills Brothers and Ink Spots) and audio samples from popular shows (Bob Braun Morning Show, Everybody’s Farm and a 1966 helicopter traffic report).

A nearby slideshow loop features a photo and one-sentence description of famous Cincinnati broadcasters, mostly from WLW-AM’s “Cradle of Stars”: Singers Day and Andy Williams; entertainer Skelton; musicians Chet Atkins, Grandpa Jones and Waller; sportscasters Red Barber and Harry Hartman; radio-TV hosts Lyons and Braun; TV’s Midwestern Hayride country music showcase; broadcasting visionaries Fred Ziv, Powel and Lewis Crosley; and WCPO-TV newsman Al Schottelkotte.

Jack Dominic makes train sounds by rubbing a scrub brush on coarse sandpaper.
John Kiesewetter
Jack Dominic makes train sounds by rubbing a scrub brush on coarse sandpaper.

Visitors of all ages should have fun in the sound effect room using dozens of devices to recreate noises for everything from trains and thunder to phones and footsteps.

“We’re encouraging people to play,” he says.

With the major upgrade and open floor plan comes a new “less is more” philosophy for the museum. Unlike in the past, not every antique 1920s radio, glass radio tube, ham radio set or 1960s portable radio is packed into display cases.

“We have a thousand of them, and will rotate them every six months,” Dominic says.

The same goes for the scaled-back display of puppets used by Smith on Cincinnati TV in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. The new exhibit has 17 puppets and his castle set. The VOA’s 2018 display shortly after Smith died at age 79 featured 46 puppets; life-size Rudy and Teaser costumes; his Fifth/Third Bank Lion and Mr. Bass Man puppets; and treehouse set.

“We’re not going to show them all. We’re going to cycle them through,” Dominic says.

Larry Smith's Hattie the Witch, Rudy and Teaser, Snarfie R. Dog, Mean Old Cat and other puppets displayed at the VOA Museum.
John Kiesewetter
Larry Smith's Hattie the Witch, Rudy and Teaser, Snarfie R. Dog, Mean Old Cat and other puppets displayed at the VOA Museum.

Also not making the cut from the previous Cincinnati TV history exhibit are the rubber chickens married on the Paul Dixon Show in 1969; Jim Scott’s microphone and headphones; life-size cardboard cut-outs of Nick Clooney and Lyons; and the city's first TV radar unit used by WLW-TV in the 1950s.

More than 50 volunteers helped in the major upgrade.

“When you have a good group of volunteers you can make the dollars go further as they provide labor,” he says.

The National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting, 8070 Tylersville Road, one mile east of I-75 in West Chester Township, will be open weekends noon-4 p.m. starting Saturday, Jan. 25. Cost is $10 for adults and $9 for veterans and active military. Children 16 and under are free.

Updated: January 24, 2025 at 1:31 PM EST
The museum is a financial supporter of Cincinnati Public Radio.
John Kiesewetter, who has covered television and media for more than 35 years, has been working for Cincinnati Public Radio and WVXU-FM since 2015.