Jackson Heights Life

from http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/04/atts-forgotten-plot-to-hijack-the-us-airwaves.ars

"It was August 28, 1922, and radio station WEAF in New York City was airing a ten-minute talk by a representative of a real estate company praising the virtues of fine literature and suburban living. "It is fifty-eight years since Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest of American fictionalists, passed away," the executive began. "To honor his memory, the Queensboro Corporation, creator and operator of the tenant-owned system of apartment homes at Jackson Heights, New York City, has named the latest group of high-grade dwellings 'Hawthorne Court'."

Many historians identify this highbrow little speech as the first radio commercial. The station charged $50 for it, and another in the evening for $100. But what is less often highlighted is that the frequency in question was owned by AT&T, which, true to its telco spirit, didn't call the ad an ad, but a "toll-cast" presentation."