Andy Lanset

Director of Archives, New York Public Radio

Growing up in New Jersey, Archivist Andy Lanset was probably the only 8-year-old who spent all of his paper route money on records and wind-up phonographs at the flea market and then cataloged them all in a 3x5 card file. Since then, he has gone on to amass an archive of his own as well as to collect, organize, and preserve thousands of recordings, photographs, and station-related ephemera for the WNYC and WQXR archive collections.

Since establishing the Archives in 2000, Andy has been working in-house with recordings in nearly every possible format. At the same time, he has been reaching out to former producers around the country for New York Public Radio materials that have migrated over the stations' long history.

After receiving a B.A. in Sociology from the State University of New York at Purchase, Andy began his public radio career in 1981 as the staff reporter for WBAI. By the mid-1980s, he was freelancing reports, features, and documentaries for NPR, CBC, BBC, Monitor Radio, and other public radio outlets. He produced several award-winning documentaries for NPR, including Scottsboro: A Civil Rights Milestone, which aired in 1992.

During the 1990s, Andy worked closely with David Isay and Henry Sapoznik on the Peabody award winning Yiddish Radio Project. He has also evaluated and preserved audio materials for NYU's Wagner Labor Archives, Columbia University, Cornell University, Union Theological Seminary, The Cleveland Public Library, The YIVO Institute, and other specialized and academic collections. Andy also has an MS and archives certificate from The Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Sciences. In October, 2009 he was awarded the Archivists' Roundtable of Metropolitan New York Award for Archival Achievement for his work at WNYC. You can e-mail Andy at alanset@nypublicradio.org.

Andy Lanset appears in the following:

The 'King of the Twelve-String Guitar' is a WNYC Regular Through the 1940s

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

A legendary folksinger leaves his mark on radio at WNYC.
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Comment

The WNYC-WNYE Connection

Monday, November 13, 2023

Once a sister station with whom we shared a significant amount of programming. 
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Comment

Could You Keep Up With Franklin Roosevelt's Schedule?

Friday, October 27, 2023

Campaigning in an open car.
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Comment

Early Radio Documentary and Recording at WNYC

Monday, October 09, 2023

When the radio documentary was an emerging genre.
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Comments [1]

Christie R. Bohnsack: WNYC's First Director

Thursday, May 11, 2023

A creature of Tammany Hall and City Hall, he made the best of a limited budget.
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Comment

Civil Rights Music For King's Time, And Ours

Monday, January 16, 2023

Ann Powers on music for racial justice.

Comment

WNYC: The Station That Dodged Bullets

Monday, April 25, 2022

By most measures, WNYC should not exist. You might even call it a radio station with more than nine lives.
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Comment

Ukraine Independence

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Independent Ukraine speaks.
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William Warfield Live in the WNYC Studio

Thursday, February 24, 2022

 "A star in every field open to a singer’s art."
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Comments [1]

WNYC's New Studios in 1937

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

The Federal WPA-sponsored new digs compete with the big boys.
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Comments [2]

French Philosopher Jacques Maritain Speaks Out Against Anti-Semitism Over WNYC

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

In the wake of Kristallnacht and Father Coughlin's diatribes a French Catholic philosopher strikes back.
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Comment

Novik Tours Postwar European Broadcasters

Wednesday, November 03, 2021

WNYC's director gets a gander at an early tape recorder.
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An Award for WNYC, a Concert, and the Raised Hackles of a Times Reviewer

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

A concert that lifted the temper of the Times.
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WNYC: Champion of Oral Prophylaxis!

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Aural oral hygiene!
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WNYC's 1979 Storytelling Festival

Monday, September 06, 2021

WNYC's first grant-funded program series. 
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Einstein Listened

Thursday, July 22, 2021

Einstein had subscriptions to both the WNYC and WQXR program guides!
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Paul Strand on WNYC's Art In New York

Sunday, July 18, 2021

The first living photographer to have a retrospective at MOMA. 
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A Shorthand Contest on the Radio?

Wednesday, June 02, 2021

More exciting than watching paint dry!
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Comment

A 1939 Snapshot of WNYC

Saturday, May 29, 2021

"The science of physics is master here. The transmission of sound is the paramount problem."  
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Promoting Tidy Streets and Tidy Minds: The Junior Inspectors Club of the Air

Thursday, April 29, 2021

Imagine, for a moment, the Boy Scouts run by the New York City Department of Sanitation with a regular radio program, but no uniform.
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