'Radio Free' Montone: Power To The People
By John Montone, 1010 WINS
If you're one of the millions of listeners who wakes up each morning to 1010 WINS, you're likely familiar with the voice, and tone, of the station's intrepid reporter John Montone.
Best known for his no holds barred, man on the street reporting, Montone has been getting in the faces — and ears — of New Yorkers for what seems like an eternity.
Montone is ready to add to his repertoire and bring his unique reporting style to print.
So please take a look and listen to John's new venture: Radio Free Montone — a weekly blog where Montone takes you behind the scenes of news radio in New York City, and gives his observations on reporting in the greatest city in the world.
Labor Day celebrates a movement that has improved working conditions and wages for tens of millions of Americans. But the union executives and politicians who pontificate at Labor Day parades rarely mention the thugs like Jimmy Hoffa who got cozy with the mob and looted the retirement accounts of their dues-paying, lunch bucket rank and file.
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – When I think of this final summer holiday, it reminds me of the men and women I see and often talk to on the streets and in the subways of our city early in the morning.
Some get up long before dawn as I do, others rise with the sun.
Radio Free Montone: Power To The People
And some head off to work as most people are heading back home. There are the truckers and the hard hats and utility workers finishing up their overnight work day; the 4 a.m. shift change guys and gals over at UPS on the West Side; cabbies rolling in from Queens to begin another 12 hours of bucking mid-town traffic; the coffee-cart guys stocking bagels and donuts; cops, firefighters and EMTs who are out and about under starlit skies on frozen nights and under the blazing summer sun; the waitresses and the bicycle messengers...
I see them waiting on lonely station platforms or pouring out of packed trains -- moving forward, side-to-side, sometimes bumping bodies to get to the office, the construction site, the deli, the department store or the school.
They sit in cars on crowded highways, crane their necks at bus stops and hail cabs to begin another day. They carry briefcases or pails of water to wash windows.
They are heading to their jobs -- jobs that are rarely glamorous and rarely make them rich. They toil to pay their rents and mortgages and so many of them do it to raise their children to have better lives than their own.
And it's these people -- not the labor leaders and politicians up at the podium boasting of their accomplishments -- it's the men and women I see and talk to and share the city with every morning who inspire me.
Monday is their day.
Be well,
1010 WINS News
