"Radio transmission of both sight and sound is near realization. Radio waves have carried both audition [sic] and vision into homes here to prove the engineers' contention that television is ready to leave the laboratory for the home. Some further simplification and a regulation of cost of apparatus is all that stands in the way of household use of television, they declare.

"A small audience, seated in a home here, saw, in minute detail, the actions of artists whose voices they heard from a common radio loud speaker. The transmitter was located three miles away; the demonstration was given newspaper men by the General Electric Company, in whose laboratories the television transmitter and the home receiver were developed." Considering that talking pictures (with sound synchronized on the film) weren't even a year old, this was pretty remarkable. Those lucky enough to be invited to a viewing saw a phonograph cabinet with a three-inch square opening in which the picture tube sat.

"First was seen merely a streak of parallel lines, but under the manipulations of the operator these disappeared and a luminous field appeared. As a voice came over the loudspeaker saying that the demonstration was about to begin, the face of the speaker was seen. He was followed by a ukulele performer, but due to the limited size of the screen merely the face was visible. A girl appeared with a book in her hand, and when she held a page to the transmitters, even pictures on the page could be seen. A tie which she said was highly colored, however, merely appeared as a piece of flat cloth without any distinguishing colors."

Alexanderson was demonstrating a form of mechanical television, by which spinning discs captured images in frames. Out on the west coast, Philo Farnsworth had already demonstrated the most rudimentary form of electronic television, but it would be some years before that technology would overtake the mechanical version.

"Television, engineers explained, is based on the conversion of light beams into radio impulses through the use of photo-electric cells. Through a rotating or 'scanning' disc, in which are more than two-score minute holes, is projected a brilliant light. The light, passing through the rotating disc, throws fleeting beams of brilliance across the subject's face. Each rotation of the disc literally paints a complete picture and the high speed of the disc renders continuity of a moving picture. The picture so drawn by each rotation of the disc is imposed on the photo-electric cells, converted into radio impulses and as such are radiocast to be picked up by the receiver."

There are several references to the demonstrations having taken place in three homes, but the only address we've seen for certain is that of Alexanderson's home, which was 1132 Adams Road in the GE Realty Plot.

The broadcast was an experiment on the part of the General Electric Company at Schenectady and the station of the British Marconi Company at Chelmsford, England. The transmission from the United States to England was by experimental station 2XAD of the General Electric Company, operating on a wave length of 21.96 meters. The transmission from 5FW, the Chelmsford station, was on a 24-meter wave.

Both the receiving and the transmitting instruments fed their output into the transmitter of WGY, operating on a wave length of 379.5 meters, by which the entire proceedings were rebroadcast. The experiment lasted an hour.

"Hello, 5FW; this is 2XAD," said L.A. Taylor, who was talking from Schenectady.

After a pause the reply came:

"Are you there, 2XAD? This is Chelmsford. Can you hear me?"

"Not very clearly," replied Mr. Taylor.

"Suppose we send you over a gramophone record," said the British announcer, whose name was Wilson.

Then came the strains of a musical composition which, Wilson said, was entitled "Twenty Million Frenchmen can't go wrong." [title sic]

During the transmission of the phonograph music, conditions improved, and then C.P. Edwards, of the Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries at Ottawa, who is visiting in England, sent a message of greeting to be transmitted to E.P. Edwards, of the General Electric plant at Ottawa.

Schenectady and Chelmsford then compared notes on the quality of reception of previous trans-Atlantic broadcasts. Schenectady inquired regarding "intelligibility."

"I say that's a regular two shilling word," the Englishman answered.

The experiment of rebroadcasting phonograph music sent by the Schenectady short wave station to Chelmsford, and rebroadcast from there back to the United States and then "put on the air" by WGY followed. The record chosen was "Down South" by the British composer Myddleton. The rebroadcast, as measured by delicate time-pieces, was one-twentieth of a second behind the original production.

On Feb. 20, 1926, WGY Radio, broadcast from Schenectady, celebrated its fourth year on the air.  The Christian Science Monitor wrote, "Many advances have been made in the science of radio but WGY has never lagged behind . . . It was WGY that radiocast for the first time in this or any other country on 50,000 watts; it was WGY that conducted a series of experiments using alternately horizontal and vertical radiation; it was WGY that perfected successful 250-mile radio relay on 560-meter wavelength." In the radio-crazy days of the '20s, it's likely the average reader actually had some familiarity with all those terms and what they meant. But the accomplishments weren't just technical:

"From the time of its formal opening four years ago, WGY avoided the inclusion of 'mechanical' numbers, that is, selections produced by photograph or player piano. The Department of Commerce recognized the studio-produced program by creating a special class, known as Class B, in which were included only those stations which did not depend upon mechanical music."

The article noted that from the start Martin Rice, manager of radiocasting for General Electric, saw the need for programming that originated outside the radio studio, and in the first year WGY began development of remote stations connected to the studio by wire. "Public halls, churches and theaters in Schenectady were first brought into the studio by wires; then Albany was covered in a similar way, and a short time later a pair of wires spanned the 150 miles to New York." This meant that in those early days, Schenectady-based actors, singers, musicians, lecturers and more were being heard throughout the region. With connections to WFBL in Syracuse, WHAM in Rochester and WMAK in Buffalo, "practically the whole State becomes the studio of WGY and anything originating in any city in the system is made available for radiocasting."

Trained as an electrical and mechanical engineer in his home country of Sweden, Alexanderson did post graduate study at the Technical University in Berlin, where he read Charles Steinmetz and determined that he wanted to work with the electrical genius. He arrived in Schenectady in 1902 and enrolled in the General Electric engineering course. He became a generator designer and was the one called on when radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden needed a high-frequency alternator, which he believed would allow the long-distance transmission of radio. It did, resulting in the first radio program, featuring voice and violin, on Christmas Eve, 1906. Alexanderson continued to improve radio, including creating the tuning device that was used forever after, and making broadcasts over longer and longer distances possible. By 1911, the Alexanderson Alternator (as it was known) made reliable trans-Atlantic radio communications possible.

He also improved the electric motors used in transportation, including ship motors and electric railroads. In 1924, he sent the first facsimile (fax) message across the ocean. He served as the Chief Engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, a sort of spin-off of GE that was designed to break British dominance over the radio industry in the U.S. Over the course of his career, he was awarded 322 patents.

But all this is somewhat overshadowed by his experimental work in television. Using a mechanical spinning disc system for creating and transmitting images, he sent a signal to an inch-and-a-half screen in his home in January, 1928. In 1930, he made the first major public demonstration of television, presented at Proctor's Theater. And it is for these accomplishments he is most remembered.

Dr. Alexanderson lived until 1975, and is buried in Vale Cemetery.

In 1927, the law finally caught up with the other kidnapper, Stanley Crandall, in Aberdeen, Washington. In Crandall's mind, the kidnapping was all Fairbanks's doing, and he just happened to be in the car at the time. And just happened to be with him when they drove the boy up to the vicinity of Alexandria Bay. And just happened to be with  him when they escaped across the river into Canada. He was quoted as saying that Fairbanks had hypnotised him, but denied he had said that. He served time for the crime, but somehow the stigma of being a kidnapper stuck with him. When the son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped in 1932, the Alexanderson kidnapping was still fresh in many minds, and police paid a visit to Crandall, but were satisfied he had nothing to do with the case.

"Verner Alexanderson, kidnapped Schenectady lad for whom a nationwide search was conducted for 72 hours and who was found yesterday evening in a shack on the Indian river near Theresa, 25 miles from [Watertown], started for home today after a joyful reunion with his mother and father at the home of Sheriff Ernest Gillett. With him goes a dog, a present from his kidnappers, the lad insisting that unless his new pet accompanied him he did not want to go."

The kidnappers had been identified as Harry Fairbanks of Ogdensburg and Stanley Crandall of Rochester, who managed to escape across the St. Lawrence into Canada before the authorities closed in. The boy was found with a Mrs. H.D. Grennel of Alexandria Bay, "who is said to be the foster mother to Fairbanks' wife." She claimed not to know the men who brought the boy to her, saying they hired to care for him in a secluded shack half a mile from her village. "In her possession was found a letter, addressed to Dr. E.F.W. Alexanderson, father of the kidnapped boy, in which she asked information about the two men. This letter she did not post and the authorities believe it was written as an alibi for her in case the boy was found and she was arrested." He was, and she was. When authorities told her they knew of her connection to Fairbanks, she claimed not to know anything about the identity of young Verner, "saying that she thought it was a 'liquor deal.'"

Not sure what kinds of "liquor deals," even in the midst of Prohibition, involved little boys.

Tomorrow: Justice delayed

Ernst F.W. Alexanderson was a Swedish-born scientist who had come to the United States in 1902 and, working for General Electric, developed several important patents that made modern radio possible, including the Alexanderson alternator. When General Electric was asked to create the Radio Corporation of America (RCA, as it came to be known), Alexanderson was named chief scientist. On April 30, 1923, his son Verner and daughters Edith, 11, and Gertrude, 7 were playing in the front yard of their home in the GE Realty Plot "when a young man, who previously had told them he would give them some rabbits, approached, told the girls to 'get a box for the bunnies,' took Verner by the hand and started down the street. The girls returned with a box, but the man and their brother had disappeared."

Not surprisingly, the man "whose abilities have gone far to develop radio communication" took to the airwaves to broadcast a personal appeal to radio enthusiasts throughout the country (radio station WGY was barely a year old at the time, and commercial radio didn't exist). He offered a reward of $1,000, which was matched by the City of Schenectady, to persons who could furnish a clue that would lead to Verner's recovery.

"I make this personal appeal by radio realizing that it reaches instantly many localities not reached in any other way. Any information which you can give or any service which you can render will be more than appreciated by an anxious father and mother," Alexanderson said.

One clue came when police were informed by a garage proprietor at Northville, near Gloversville, that a touring car had passed through driven by a man, containing a second man and a boy who was thought to be Verner.

"Boy Scouts have been on duty in all sections of the city to-day watching for the missing lad or either of the men; ravines in and near the city have been searched, and the entire police and detective force has been placed on the case."

Tomorrow: On the trail

Police thought perhaps the victim was related to the circus, which had just been in town. They thought perhaps it was this woman or that woman; it's a bit alarming just how many women were apparently unaccounted for in 1914, just waiting to be named as murder victims.

Then, on July 14, police announced that the victim was Eva Kenska, of New York City, a "Russian Pole" who had come to Schenectady in May, worked in a hotel and lived with a man in a small shack along the railroad tracks. The woman disappeared a few days later, and the man was seen around the city selling off household items, including "a large rug, showing what the police declare to be blood stains, and a trunk of woman's clothing all measuring twenty-five inches about the waist, identical with the measurement of the torso." Numerous other clues, including pieces of concrete in the yard "similar to that tied to the torso, and also a number of empty sacks, identical with those in which the portion of the body was tied up," as well as the "peculiar life" of the male companion, who claimed to be a blacksmith but who sought no work, convinced police they finally had their victim and their suspect, and they went to the morning papers with the name Eva Kenska.

Then they went to the evening papers, on the same day, to say "never mind." "The victim was believed to be Eva Kenska, who came here with Karol Devatchenko from New York. They lived together for a while at a roadhouse and then disappeared. The police to-day learned that the woman accompanied the man back to New York and could not have been the murder victim."

Some time later, they thought again, and determined that perhaps Eva Kenska was their victim after all. There was apparently some form of love triangle between Kenska, her husband, and Devatchenko. Kenska was apparently not seen again. In October, a suicide was discovered in the woods in Hastings, and in his pockets were only two things: a street car transfer, and a marked article about the murder. Later that month, mention is made that Kenska's husband came to Schenectady to collect her effects, including a dog that figured in the case. While in his care, the dog bit a mailman, making the last bit of news associated with this case.

In the meantime, police were pursuing any "clew" they were given. Joseph Foley, a barge canal engineer, said he had seen a "stranger of disheveled appearance" loitering on the bank of the Mohawk near Shear's Quarry on the night of May 30, a mile below where the torso was found. Foley and others were walking along the bank when they saw the man, noting that "he did not have a hat, his shirt was torn open in front and he appeared excited." Not having a hat in 1914 was very close to a criminal act.

About a dozen other women were considered to potentially be the victim, from as far away as Brooklyn. One was Theresa Faust, an 18-year-old from Germania Street. Miss Faust was visiting her aunt in New York City and, hearing of her own possible demise, walked into the local police station there. The NYPD immediately notified Schenectady Police that she was alive and well, and Schenectady police sent a detective with a warrant for her arrest. Her mother had brought a charge of petty larceny against her, alleging that Theresa took $20 belonging to the mother before she left home.

The Schenectady Board of Supervisors offered a reward of $500 for information on the torso. This bit of morbid logic was attributed to an unidentified member of the police department:

"The head is the key. If we found an arm it might be most helpful, for we might find it marked, or a finger might hold a ring by which identification could be made. It is strange that in the narrow Mohawk some other part of the body has not been found."

The AP reported "The stranger loaded a burlap bag and a piece of concrete into the boat just before starting. The torso was wrapped in such a sack and weighted down with concrete. A section of rope which was tied around the bag is declared to have been cut from the boat. Hanlon recalls the appearance of the man distinctly and thinks he was not a resident of Schenectady.

"For several hours before renting the boat the stranger sat on a bench near the river carefully guarding the burlap bag. Finally he approached Hanlon and declared he desired to rent a boat to go fishing. As it was a cold day and no one was fishing Hanlon remarked on this, but the man made no reply. He was not provided with poles or tackle."

Apparently the stranger deposited the burlap bag and a piece of concrete in the boat, and rowed off, and Mr. Hanlon thought very little of it. Though the stranger left in daylight, and hadn't returned with the boat when Mr. Hanlon went home at midnight, the boat was at the dock the next morning. "Nothing about it indicated that it had been used on a fishing excursion." And yet Mr. Hanlon, who lived on Governors Lane in the Stockade section, didn't say a word until the bag was found by fishermen nearly a month later.

The police had a shadowy suspect, and no real idea who the victim was. "The suspicion that the torso might be that of May Kaeda, 16 years old, who disappeared from her home here four weeks ago proved unfounded today. She was found at a hotel, where she is working. It developed to-night, however, that Sarah Meader, 25 years old, has been missing from the home of her uncle, Thomas McDowell, here for about a month. Police are investigating this case."

Tomorrow: It's Sarah Meader, unless it's someone else.

Just about 99 years ago, the region was gripped with the discovery of a gruesome murder. On Friday, June 19, "fishermen brought to the surface of the Mohawk River the torso of a well proportioned woman, wrapped in a burlap bag, which had been weighted and sunk to the bottom of the river about thirty feet off shore near the Vedder farm just north of the city line, opposite the D. and H. Glenville coal transfer shed" [just north of Freeman's Bridge].

Hoxsie will spare you the gruesome details of the state of the corpse, other than to say that when found, "it was not removed from the burlap, the police being satisfied with their first glimpse to assure them they had a mystery on their hands." Sharp ones, they were.

Theorizing began immediately. "It is believed the murder took place near the river, in either a camp or a house. This opinion is strengthened by the fact two table oilcloths were used to wrap the torso in." Sherlock Holmes would roll his eyes.

At that time, the Mohawk riverfront just downstream of the city was still lined with shacks and camps. "The location of the torso at the time of the finding leads to the belief the bundle had been thrown overboard from a rowboat or launch. This gives rise to the feeling the crime may have been committed in some camp or shack along the river, and the dismembered parts distributed over a considerable area."

Then, as now, there was hardly a crime so horrible that we couldn't instantly ascribe it to immigrants. "The boat theory is given credence in police circles. This, however, does not eliminate the theory the crime was committed in a foreign speaking community. The cheap oil cloth and the inexpensive pieces of garments limit the field of speculation considerably and must be seriously considered."

And journalistic standards were as stringent then as they are today: "About 10 days ago two persons passed through Van Vranken avenue by Vedder's crossing, early one morning. One of the two was a young woman. She is described by persons who either saw or heard her as having been very much under the influence of liquor. Nothing more definite concerning the mysterious couple could be learned. It is not seriously believed that the girl was the victim of the murder." But we'll mention it anyway.

Tomorrow: Police Seek Stranger!

"Eleven men were being sought in various cities of the East to-night for complicity in plots to kill police officers in Schenectady. Their identity was disclosed to-day by William Mundia, alias William Ross, and known as "Willie the Wop," who is to be sentenced to-morrow for first-degree robbery in a highway hold-up near here a few weeks ago.

"Mundia told police the names of five men who plotted the slaying of Acting Police Captain Albert L. Youmans, of Schenectady, who was fatally shot while on duty last November; of four who laid plans for the proposed murder of Police Chief William H. Funston, of Schenectady, and of two men who shot and killed Sergeant Thomas P. Oates, of Troy, in April."

Willie told police that a New York gunman was brought in to murder Youmans for $6,000, brought in by a Schenectady resident "who said he was the 'boss' and that he was 'all right with the District Attorney' and that he 'had his own judge on the bench.'" The "boss" apparently felt that Youmans was framing him and wanted him out of the way.

Willie himself was supposed to receive $7,400 and a sawed-off shotgun for killing Chief Funston, but when he only received a few hundred dollars in advance, he chose not to go through with it. Willie was also involved in a scheme with a local hotel proprietor -- Willie robbed some hotel patrons and split the take with the hotelier.

In the end, though, the naming of Youmans's purported killer wasn't enough. A Staten Island thug named Sammy Gross was held and questioned for a time, but police were unable to pin anything on him. The murder of Albert Youmans was never solved.

He came well-recommended. It was New York Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, who went on to do some other things, who appointed Funston, who had served in Cuba and the Philippines. "Mr. Roosevelt at that time was shaking up the department and looking for men of exceptional fitness … There was something about the tall and good-natured middle Westerner which made his progress in the department rapid from the first. Six feet in his stockings, broad-shouldered, blond-haired, with something of that school girl complexion of which we read, quick-witted and yet a man of few words, 'Billy' Funston was soon chosen for tasks which required tact and common sense …

"He knows every inch of the underworld, and when it is necessary for him to trail gunmen and yeggs he knows where to go. His memory for faces is photographic."

Of course, criminal elements who were willing to ambush a police captain were unlikely to simply close up shop because a famous detective from the big city was coming north. The New York Herald Tribune reported on Jan. 4, 1925, that "Underworld threats against the life of Captain William H. Funston, New York detective, were reported on the streets here to-day following his arrival to take charge of the Schenectady Police Department … Captain Funston, who was met by Mayor William Campbell and a delegation of city officials, was inclined to treat the reports with little seriousness. Every effort will be made to guard the officials in their movements."

"Schenectady's 'gut' reopened for business to-night, quietly, for the first time since Police Captain Albert L. Youmans, Nemesis of the underworld, was shot to death last Friday night where Cow Horn Creek crosses Edison, Van Guysling and connecting streets. Lights shone brazenly from the Globe Hotel. Sadies's, Mme. Anderson's and other notorious resorts gave evidence of activity by shafts of light which reached the street front."

Capt. Albert Youmans, a 22-year veteran of the Schenectady police force and "the Nemesis of the underworld" was murdered by a shotgun blast November 28, 1924. He was apparently putting too much pressure on the elements that ran that part of the city, which included houses of prostitution, gambling, and speakeasies. Seizing the opportunity, Mayor William Campbell demanded the resignation of the longtime Chief of Police, George F. Rynex, as well as Detective Sergeant Diamente Ragucci, presumably for their complicity in allowing vice to flourish, and vowed to clean up the police department and the city.

"It was learned that the county and city authorities virtually have agreed that a man known as 'the King of the Underworld,' strangely missing from Schenectady since last Saturday, holds the key to the murder mystery. This man is being sought in a New England city...

"Mayor Campbell is on trial before the Chamber of Commerce and other social and moral agencies of the community. So far these bodies have supported his declarations enthusiastically. The ministerial association meets tomorrow morning and it is considered certain that it will pass a resolution indorsing the Mayor's intention to rid the city of its strongly intrenched underworld."