The Tonight Show in NYC

On September 27, 1954, Tonight Starring Steve Allen premiered on the NBC TV network. It was the first national late-night talk show of its kind, broadcasting from the Hudson Theater on West 44th Street.

It had begun a year earlier as a local show and, even after it went national, The Tonight Show was still considered a quintessential exemplar of the city, full of New York attitude. Steve Allen would interview people on the street, perform a monologue and various stunts, and usually he and his guests would imbibe a cocktail or two before the show and the night were over. When you watch late-night TV today, all of things that the various hosts -- Letterman, Leno, Kimmel, et. al. -- do, all started with Steve Allen in that midtown theater sixty years ago.

Eventually, Tonight would be migrate to the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center and be hosted by Jack Paar in 1957, and eventually by Johnny Carson in 1962. Then, in May 1972, something tragic happened: following the sad example set by the Dodgers fifteen years earlier, The Tonight Show uprooted itself from its New York origins and headed west to Los Angeles -- broadcasting from "beautiful downtown Burbank."

Like the "Ford to City: Drop Dead" headline, the departure of The Tonight Show from NYC symbolized the declining fortunes of the city in the 1970s. Carson would then host Tonight for the next twenty years and then be replaced by Jay Leno - then Conan O'Brien -- and then Jay Leno again, who will end his run as host on February 6th.

Two articles from this month's Vanity Fair take an interesting look at The Tonight Show's past and future. Jimmy Fallon promises exciting things for the new New York-centric show. But things will probably never be as crazy as when Carson was hosting the show from NYC in the 1960s -- and these were the things happening off the air. It included Carson hanging with mobsters and getting thrown down stairs in bars all the while making Tonight the cultural center of America.

So why did The Tonight Show move from NYC to LA? Basically, it was two things: Johnny Carson got divorced and he wanted to start a new life in a new city, and producer Freddy de Cordova felt they could getting better guests in California. Off it went. 

And on February 17, 2014, The Tonight Show will return to NYC after an absence of 42 years, broadcasting once again from Rockefeller Center. Jimmy Fallon will become host and a new era for the show and our city will begin. Jerry Seinfeld once said that The Tonight Show is the headquarters of show business so, once again, its location will be in NYC.

Two articles from this month's Vanity Fair take an interesting look at The Tonight Show's past and future. Jimmy Fallon promises exciting things for the new New York-centric show. But things will probably never be as crazy as when Carson was hosting the show from NYC in the 1960s -- and these were the things happening off the air. It included Carson hanging with mobsters and getting thrown down stairs in bars all the while making Tonight the cultural center of America.

So why did The Tonight Show move from NYC to LA? Basically, it was two things: Johnny Carson got divorced and he wanted to start a new life in a new city, and producer Freddy de Cordova felt they could getting better guests in California. Off it went. 

And now, after forty-years, it's back -- and hopefully it will be an exemplar of New York attitude once more.