Property Record
118 S. Bedford
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | E. Z. Gregory Warehouse |
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| Other Name: | WORT-FM |
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| Reference Number: | 241073 |
| Location (Address): | 118 S. Bedford |
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| County: | Dane |
| City: | Madison |
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| Year Built: | 1949 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 2019 |
| Historic Use: | warehouse |
| Architectural Style: | Astylistic Utilitarian Building |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Concrete Block |
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| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| Additional Information: | City of Madison, Wisconsin Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report: Local community-supported radio station WORT, run by Back Porch Radio Broadcasting, Inc., became a supportive broadcast outlet for self-produced content from the LGBTQ community when it began transmitting in 1975 from a non-extant building at 2049 Winnebago Street. As a volunteer-run, listener-supported, nonprofit radio station, WORT placed no restrictions on content. This policy made WORT airwaves available to LGBTQ organizations. WORT offered access to an audience well beyond what LGBTQ organizations could reach with self-published newsletters. Within WORT’s first year of operation, volunteers were broadcasting In America They Call Us Dykes. Ricardo Gonzalez, a well-known gay business owner who had opened the Cardinal Bar two years earlier, was doing a Latin music and commentary show in 1976. Gay Science Fiction was on the air in the late 1970s, and, in the early 1980s, LGBTQ civil rights were a regular discussion topic. In 1980 the station purchased and rehabilitated the one-story, utilitarian, concrete-block building at 118 S. Bedford Street. WORT began broadcasting from the Bedford Street location in 1982 or 1983. |
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| Bibliographic References: |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |