His strength was his humility. His stature was his dignity. He was just over 5 feet in height but was a giant of a man. 1010 WINS senior correspondent Stan Brooks died peacefully at his home on Monday afternoon. He was 86 years and 11 months old. He worked until he was 86 years and 10 months old.

How do you tell the story of the story teller? How do you provide perspective on the man who pioneered the most successful and recognized all-news brand in radio history? How do you compose a symphony that plays the notes of a 60-year love affair between a husband and wife? How do you let go and say goodbye?

For more than 50 years Stan has been telling news stories on 1010 WINS. He was doing it when WINS was still a rock-n-roll station. In fact he’d been doing it for so long, his colleagues often joked that everyone in New York City had been interviewed by Stan at least once. His favorite song lyric came from Neil Young’s “My My, Hey Hey.” He quoted it whenever anyone asked him when he was going to retire: “….Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away.”

1010 WINS Stan Brooks Retrospecitve

Brooksie, as he was called by just about everyone who knew him, “Was a child of the Bronx, small and shy, 182nd Street and Walton Avenue home ground, played in the streets, stick-ball, hockey (on roller skates), marbles, urban baseball (against the walls) and for a 13th or 14th birthday, was given a fortuitous little printing press out of which was born The Walton Avenue News, the inception of his journalistic career,” according to Eve Berliner, former editor of The Silurian News.

Stan told Berliner that he listened to Uncle Don and the old radio serial shows, his favorite, NBC’s stentorian-voiced Kenneth Banghart. His real interest was in the newspapers that his father would bring home with him each evening: The New York Post, The Journal American, PM, Compass and The Star.

He wrote for his high school newspaper, “The Clinton News” at DeWitt Clinton H.S. It was a general news column entitled “The Gossiper” and later changed to “Babbling Brooks.” He was a blogger before there was a name for it!

He told Berliner that his heroes were Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, the Brooklyn Dodgers and his brother, Alan Brooks, sports editor of The Heights Daily News at NYU, his inspiration who went on to become a doctor.

And then, there was the trombone (add Tommy Dorsey to that list of idols) which now sits on a stand in his bedroom, a gift from his three sons who had it repaired and re-polished. His son George, a virtuoso jazz saxophonist, took up the mantle of music.

According to Berliner, Brooks had been drafted out of City College into the Infantry in 1945 landing him overseas post-World War II as a trombonist in a dance band entertaining the troops in Hawaii! The aspiring trombonist returned to the states, graduated from Syracuse University and became a reporter and editor at Newsday for the next 11 years. In 1962, he landed a job at 1010 WINS. Before ‘You Give Us 22 Minutes, We’ll Give You the World’ became a household slogan, Stan was doing a two minute newscast at the top of the hour, working alongside legendary deejays like Murray the K and Jack Lacey.

Watch the wonderful Michael Stoler interview below to learn more about Stan’s life:

In December 1964, the bosses at Westinghouse (owners of 1010 WINS at the time) asked Stan what he thought about changing the station format from Top 40 to all-news. Stan responded, “All-news? What’s that? That of course became the launch of All News. All The Time and Stan was the station’s first News Director.

In 1967 he was named National Correspondent for Westinghouse Broadcasting. He covered the major stories of our generation and the generation before that: The fight for civil rights; the Watts riots; Chappaquiddick; the Vietnam War demonstrations; the ’68 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Malcolm X’s funeral; the crash of TWA Flight 800; the attacks on September 11th and innumerable others. He would eventually step down to go back to reporting but he continued to be the heart and soul of the station.

Stan recounts the birth of 1010 WINS: Stan recounts his first time on the air:

On September 9. 1971, Stan covered the Attica Prison uprising when about 1,000 of the Attica prison’s approximately 2,200 inmates rebelled and seized control of the prison, taking 42 staff hostage. During the following four days of negotiations, authorities agreed to 28 of the prisoners’ demands, but would not agree to demands for complete amnesty from criminal prosecution for the prison takeover or for the removal of Attica’s superintendent. By the order of then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller, state police took back control of the prison. When the uprising was over, at least 43 people were dead, including ten correctional officers, civilian employees and 33 inmates. The first voice you hear is that of attorney William Kuntsler. You can hear Stan choking on tear gas as he reports on the state troopers and guards storming the prison yard: