The Manhattan Beat: "A Night of New York Stories" at the PlayStation Theater

WCBS Newsradio 880 celebrated the 50th anniversary its all-news format with "A Night of New York Stories" tonight at the PlayStation Theater. The radio station staff interviewed Lesley Stahl and Jeff Fager of the CBS series 60 Minutes, former New York Ranger Adam Graves, former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine, former New York Giants co-captain George Martin, former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly, former Late Show with David Letterman band leader Paul Shaffer, and vocalist Tony Bennett, all of whom shared New York-related stories. In addition, Shaffer and Bennett each performed briefly. The event was hosted by WCBS’ Wayne Cabot and Alex Silverman, and radio personalities Pat Farnack, Steve Scott, Michael Wallace, Joe Connolly, Brad Heller, Craig Allen, Tom Kaminski and others made brief appearances.

Valentine's main story technically was not a New York story, but a story from Stamford, Connecticut, where he opened a restaurant in 1981. An outraged effort to get the street-walking prostitutes to move away from the area led to his being arrested and taken to jail. Valentine's threat to the mayor that he would talk to WCBS' Fran Schneidau and tell her all about the prostitutes on Stamford's streets led the mayor to personally release him. The mayor rescued Valentine at 4:30 a.m. by letting him out the back door of the police station.

The other guests shared rarely-shared personal anecdotes as well, and Shaffer concluded by singing the biggest hit he co-wrote, "It's Raining Men. The final guest, Tony Bennett, revealed that Bob Hope was the person who changed his name from Anthony Dominic Benedetto after asking him to join a Hope tour. Hope told the singer that his name was too long and shortened it for him. Bennett then closed the evening singing two songs accompanied by an acoustic guitarist.