A Jersey City lunchtime moment shared 

It’s probably true of all major metropolitan regions, but New York City TV weathermen differentiated themselves with their own, often quirky, brands and approach. 

Tex Antoine on ABC had a David Niven mustache and drew cartoons illustrating the current or forecasted weather. One got the sense that his first drafts were done on a cocktail napkin that afternoon. NBC’s Dr. Frank Field had head of the high school science department gravitas. Mr. G on CBS was the nice Jewish bachelor all the older women were trying to fix up on dates with their unmarried daughters. Roberto Tirado on PIX was smooth and stylish; you pictured him dancing the Latin Hustle with the top buttons of his shirt undone. 

WOR’s Lloyd Lindsay Young’s appeal was his corny, everyman exuberance. He had a booming voice and began each of his spots by loudly acknowledging a local city or town with his trademark “Hellooooo (insert name here)!” 

Young: “That all started by accident. I was working in Idaho Falls in television, and one day—and I don’t know what possessed me—but I knew there were viewers up in Wyoming, so I just blurted out “Hello Jackson Hole!” A bunch of people called the station. I thought, wait a minute, I might be on to something. The next day: “Hello Pocatello!” and a bunch of people called in again. The rest is history.” 

He carried it over to WOR, and it became something that people tuned into and talked about. What town would it be today? Greenwich? Farmingdale? Bushwick? Edison? Maybe your hometown! 

Dad comes home from work and the kids greet him. “Daddy, Lloyd Lindsay Young said Piscataway today – that’s where we live!” “That’s great. Is dinner ready yet?”

I was reading the electric and gas meters in a Jersey City bar. It was noontime and the place was packed with construction workers, guys in hardhats working on the office towers and apartment houses going up along the Hudson River waterfront at the time. 

The meters were accessed through a trapdoor behind the bar, and while I waited to get the bartender’s attention – the hardhat horde stood three deep, and he was kind of busy – Young’s weather segment came on the big TV mounted to the wall. 

The room became suddenly quiet. No doubt there were guys there from all over New Jersey and the five boroughs. One of our hometowns was surely going to be selected in the day’s Lloyd Lindsay Young lottery. 

On this afternoon, Young held the note, stretching out his hello seemingly forever, while everyone in the bar was suspended in mid-air holding our collective breath. 

When he finished with “Jersey City,” it was as if we’d all chipped in on a lotto ticket and won. The place erupted with a liquid lunch roar. It may have been my imagination, but I’m sure there were guys hoisting their beer mugs saluting Young, while others hugged and clapped each other on the back. It was Bastille Day, V-E Day and V-J Day all at once. 

For all I know, some of them may have filed out into the street to kiss the first stranger they came across. 

Construction worker home from the job. “Honey, Lloyd Lindsay Young said Jersey City today.” “That’s great. Dinner’s ready.”