WCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–licensed independent station WLNY-TV (channel 55). Both stations share studios within the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, while WCBS-TV's transmitter is located at One World Trade Center. History Early years (1931–1951) WCBS-TV's history dates back to CBS' opening of experimental station W2XAB on July 21, 1931, using the mechanical television system that had been more-or-less perfected in the late 1920s. Its first broadcast featured New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin. The station had the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week. Among its early programming were Harriet Lee (1931), The Television Ghost (1931–1933), Helen Haynes (1931–1932), and Piano Lessons (1931–1932). Because W2XAB was broadcasting its video on 2750 kc and audio separately on W2XE at 6120 kc in the shortwave band in 1931, the experimental station's signal could be received in nearby states beyond the New York metropolitan area, as far away as Boston and Baltimore. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, some distant, the local newspaper even listed W2XAB's daily program schedules, for example, as did the Ithaca Journal in upstate New York, northwest. Announcer-director Bill Schudt was the station's only paid employee; all other staff were volunteers. W2XAB pioneered program development including small-scale dramatic acts, monologues, pantomime, and the use of projection slides to simulate sets. Engineer Bill Lodge devised the first synchronized sound wave for a television station in 1932, enabling W2XAB to broadcast picture and sound on a single shortwave channel instead of the two previously needed. On November 8, 1932, W2XAB broadcast the first television coverage of presidential election returns. The station suspended operations on February 20, 1933, as monochrome television transmission standards were in flux, and in the process of changing from the limited mechanical operation to an all-electronic system. W2XAB returned with an all-electronic system in 1939 from a new studio complex in Grand Central Station and a transmitter located at the Chrysler Building broadcasting on channel 2. W2XAB transmitted the first color broadcast in the United States on August 28, 1940. On June 24, 1941, W2XAB received a commercial construction permit and program authorization as WCBW. The station went on the air at 2:30 p.m.