N.Y. Wire/Whistle: December 2007 Archives

Sidney Poitier smiles while making his way to the podium at the Valencia Ballroom in 2002. Poitier was the guest speaker of The Junior League of York's "In The Spotlight" Speaker Series. For more on the Valencia, see below. Background posts: Original WSBA station hands mic to demolition team and Valencia Ballroom became cool place during Depression.
You're sitting in the living room surrounded by visiting loved ones.

And the talk perhaps turns to York County, its strengths, weakness and befuddling quirks.

And you want to show your smarts about this complex, often perplexing county, which boasts of a bottomless fund of history.

So began my most recent York Sunday News column:

So to help you strut your intelligence, we continue what we started last Christmas and come up with another 20 questions for you to pose (search on this blog for additional details) ... .

Whistlemaster Donald Ryan is at the helm of New York Wire Cloth's steam whistle controls, continuing the Christmas concert dating back to the 1920s. The concert is set again this year at 12:15 a.m., Dec. 25. "Mr. Ryan is excited about continuing the concert tradition this year but is keeping the carol lineup a surprise because many listeners like to guess the tunes," a news release states. Background posts: The world's loudest music without amplification from a non-musical instrument and Encore.

York Town Square posts on the New York Wire Cloth steam whistle score among the highest traffic of any individual entries in the two-plus-year history of this local history blog.

But to add to these two-dimensional posts, we now have a sample of what the whistle sounds like - the haunting, fog-horn-like sound that has serenaded York since music teacher, Karl Alex Smyser commenced the performance in the 1920s....