Sound, Light, and New York City's Little Syria: A Look at Michel Macksoud's Original "Radio Lab"

Original photo appeared in Richmond Times Dispatch, December 4, 1955. Courtesy of Shutterstock.com

Back in 2019, in our search for information about record shop and record label owner A.J. Macksoud, we learned about the Macksoud family.  The Macksouds were merchants in Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s Little Syria. They owned a kimono manufacturing business, watch and jewelry stores, and, of course, Abraham J. Macksoud operated his record store since 1907 and a record label since around 1914 on Greenwich then Rector and finally Washington Street including 77, 88, and 89 Washington Street. At the same time A.J. Macksoud managed his phonograph record company, label, and record store, another Macksoud, an M.E. Macksoud, owned and operated his radio and radio components shop at 84 Washington Street. 

Ad for M.E. Macksoud's Radio shop from Radio Digest, November 22, 1924.

A. J.Macksoud Record featuring Zaki Murad. Note the 89 Washington Street address near M. E. Macksoud's Radio Lab. Courtesy of  Richard M. Breaux collection.

This other Macksoud, too, dabbled in mechanical and electrical technologies, with tangential connections to the phonograph industry – Radio and electrical engineering. Radio, however, has its own history; it intersects with the history of phonograph records.  Birthed in 1887 by Guglielmo Marconi, developed by the trifecta of Lee de Forest, Reginald Fessenden, and Edwin H. Armstrong, and commercialized when the Radio Corporation of America or RCA bought out the American Marconi Company, radio emerged from a two-way system of dots and dashes to radio tube-based that could be broadcast from a single site to hundreds or thousands receiver boxes across the United States. One of the earliest commercial broadcasts went out in 1921 from Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company’s station KDAK in Pittsburgh. In the same year, the store that, by the 1970s and 1980s, became synonymous with radio supplies- Radio Shack – got its start in Boston, Massachusetts. Three years later, back in New York City, WNYC went on the air. 

 

Although two separate and independent inventions, Mezzo Soprano Eugenia Farrar in 1907, then Enrico Caruso’s live and recorded voices pioneered the use of radio for mass entertainment. The first three Syrian Americans to sing or perform on broadcast radio were composer and musician Alexander Maloof, Toufic Moubaid, and Elizabeth Awad on Brooklyn’s WBBR in 1924. Audiences could tune in from Rossville, Staten Island, New York City, Hartford, and as far away as Buffalo.

 

 From 1923 until roughly 1935, M.E. Macksoud owned a radio and electronics store, that he dubbed “Macksoud’s radio lab” at 84 Washington Street. According to a 1920s ad, Macksoud sold “new improved types” of vacuum tubes for radio enthusiasts. So, who was this M.E. Macksoud and what are his connections to recorded sound or radio? Eventually, radio attachments amplified the music coming from electric, plug-in gramophones or phonographs. 

Ad for Macksoud Radio Lab at 84 Washington Street in Radio Digest 1924. 

Sophia and Elias Macksoud had Michel Elias Macksoud on 27 December 1899 in New York City. He would be the oldest of three children. Both Elias and Sophia immigrated to the United States some time between 1890 and 1895, both dates they gave to U.S. Census takers vary. The family put down roots in Brooklyn’s Little Syria at 162 Congress Street and by 1910, the household included Sophia and Elias, their children Michel, George, and Laurice, Elias’s mother, plus his two brothers, a sister, and their maid. Elias first labored as a Dry Goods merchant, but by 1920 he and Michel worked for the Macksoud kimono company. Before working alongside his father, Michel attended and graduated Boy’s High School in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn; he also enlisted in and was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army National Guard once before 1920 and twice more after. During his time in the National Guard, Michel further developed his interests in electronics or what today we would call electrical engineering. 

World War I Draft card for Michael Elias Macksoud. Courtesy of Ancestry.com

Around the time, Michel Macksoud re-enlisted in the National Guard, a few small radio and radio equipment shops opened on Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan, almost immediately north of Manhattan’s bustling Little Syria neighbor, commonly called Radio Row. From a single shop owned by Harry L. Schneck, to some 300 stores spreading out over a thirteen-block stretch bound by West Street to Church (west to east) and Liberty to Barclay (south to north), it’s been called a tinkerers paradise, where hobbyists could pickup parts for construction amateur or ham radios for person-to-person communication to increasingly broadcast receivers. Broadcast receivers allowed multiple people to hear commercial broadcasts from a unit in their homes, or eventually from their automobiles, transmitted from various radio studio locations by adjusting a knob on their personal unit. Parts sold at stores on Radio Row included vacuum tubes

 

With the advent of broadcast radio popular Syrian American musicians who recorded on 78 rpm disc also performed live over the air including some well-known Arab American musicians. As noted above, in 1924 Columbia singers Toufic Moubaid and Elizabeth Awad could be heard on WBBR 272.6. They regularly appeared from 1924 and 1926. Listeners could pick-up WBBR from as far away as Buffalo. On other nights of the week on the same station between 1924 and 1927, Syrian immigrant and Syrian American audiences could also catch Alexander Maloof performing live as a soloist or with his “Oriental” orchestra on WBBR as far south as Macon, Georgia, and as far north as Buffalo and Boston. These broadcast program preceded the creation of the 1930s to 1950s Arabian Nights Radio programs created first by Sabri Andria and Joe Bailouny on WCNW and WWRL. 

Toufic Moubaid and Elizabeth Awad's program on WBBR in 1924. The Buffalo Times. 31 December 1934. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

Alexander Maloof regularly appeared on radio in the 1920s. Boston Globe 9 November 1926. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

After a third honorable discharge in the US National Guard, the establishment of additional shops on radio row, and Maloof’s, Award’s and Moubaid’s popularity grew with radio broadcast exposure, Michel Macksoud opened Macksoud’s Radio Lab at 84 Washington Street in the heart of the lower westside’s Little Syria neighborhood. The Radio Lab operated just a few doors down from A.J. Macksoud’s Phonograph Records. By opening a store in Little Syria, instead of on Radio Row, Michel could cater to Arabic-speaking music and radio enthusiasts in the immediate neighborhood. He could communicate easily and effectively with others about options available to Arab Americans, and New Yorkers in general, about which brands and models best suited their needs and tastes. Macksoud’s Radio Lab sold transmitting cabinets, amplifiers, speakers, phones, antenna, generators, chases, remote control boxes, vacuum tubes, and other equipment. Eventually, he could attach an electric phonograph to an electric radio to amplify the record’s sound even more. The Radio Lab also sold crystal sets, DIY radio sets with transmitters and receivers of various brands including those designed and manufactured by Western Electric. Military grade radio equipment especially attracted customers. By 1925, Macksoud could afford to hire his father so the two could work together. 

 

Other facets of Macksoud’s personal life significantly changed at the same time he opened his Radio Laboratory. In 1926, Michel Macksoud married a Russian immigrant named Sylvia who was four years his junior. Within a year of their nuptials, Sylvia gave birth to the couple’s only child, Louise (b.1927- d. 2010).  The young family moved to 116-11 219 Street in Queens by 1930.

 

At some point, Macksoud left his business on Washington Street and began working for Western Electric Corporation. A few years prior to 1925, a former Columbia Phonograph Company employee named John Scully created a weight-driven lathe for use by manufacturers of phonographs. Because Scully’s newly established company only produced one disc cutting lathe per year, he did not sell one to Western Electric until 1924. Within a year, Western Electric’s Westrex electrical system, which would replace the previous used mechanical system used to cut records, was being licensed by the record industry’s two giants Columbia and then the Victor Talking Machine Company.  By 1933, RCA Victor ordered twenty disc cutting lathes to be delivered by 1937. Western Electrics electrical system was now the industry standard. As Western Electric solidified its connections to the phonograph record industry, Macksoud began patenting vacuum tube related devices and inventions for Western in 1935. One of his first patents combined incandescent and ultraviolet lamp merging a lamp aide in both illumination and therapy. 

M.E. Macksoud's patented light. Filed 1935, Approved 1940.

Another 1936-Macksoud design patented an electric lamp that could “direct and concentrate light in a pre-determined beam or field.” Four years later, the Macksouds rented a home on Western Avenue in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and from here, in 1943, he designed and invented the automatic electronic starting gate for horse racing. The invention “provides for having the horses [versus a human] actuate the controls for opening the starting gates. The arrangement is that the gates cannot been opened until all the horses are in exact alignment for starting and when they are in alignment, the gates are automatically and simultaneously opened.” Additional lamp-related patents followed in 1948 with work completed for Cooper-Hewitt Electric Company. The Macksouds returned to Queens, but this time to 141-25 Northern Boulevard. 

Electric Horse Racing Starting Gate. Filed by M.E. Macksoud in 1940. Approved 1943.

World War II Draft Card for Michel Elias Macksoud. Courtesy of Ancestry.com

Macksoud's contribution to horse racing technology reminds us of Russell Bunai's song about the possibilities, perils and pitfalls of betting on horse races. Courtesy of Richard M. Breaux collection.

https://soundcloud.com/profbro/russell-bunai-cr-1013-1014-fighting-the-horses-star-of-the-east?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

Sadly, close to the same time Michel Macksoud began to receive national recognition for his inventions, his wife fell ill. On 20 September 1954, Sophie Macksoud died unexpectedly. She left her husband and one daughter. Around November, 1955, Macksoud worked as an executive research director of the Duro Test Corporation in North Bergen, New Jersey. Macksoud’s “fluomeric lamp” featured “three modern light sources, incandescent, fluorescent, and mercury vapor.” Stories about Macksoud’s inventions filled the press and two photos circulated along with some of the articles. One photo shows Macksoud standing alongside Charles Edison, former New Jersey governor and son of Thomas Edison, discussing Macksoud’s improvements on Edison’s “incandescent light bulb.” The other photo captures Macksoud demonstrating various light bulbs including his own recently patented bulb.

Story showing phonograph creator Thomas Edison's son, Charles A. Edison, with Michel Macksoud. Citizen News, 30 November, 1955. Courtesy of Newspapers.com

 

Over the next decade, Macksoud’s name disappeared from the mainstream press and he submitted no new applications for patents. We are uncertain as to whether he retired, went to work for himself, and joined another company. Whatever the cause for his disappearance, one of the last mentions of Macksoud showed him living in Chicago’s posh Lincoln Park neighborhood at 2202 North Cleveland Avenue.

 

Michel Macksoud had come a long way since the early days of “Macksoud’s Radio Lab” on Washington Street in Manhattan’s Little Syria. For the last years of his life, Macksoud remained in the comfort of his Chicago, Illinois home. There he died on 17 May 1967. 

Richard M. Breaux

@Midwest Mahjar