From humble beginnings broadcasting from a New York restaurant, East Village Radio became a launchpad for names like Mark Ronson before falling foul of licensing laws. Now, it’s been born again

East Village Radio’s origin story goes something like this: back in 2003, Frank Prisinzano, the owner of the restaurants Supper, Lil’ Frankie’s, and Frank, had a little extra money, a little extra space, and a big passion for radio and he decided to do something about it.

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“He had some extra space in one of his restaurants and he and a friend came up with the idea for a radio station based off, I think, Free Radio Austin,” said Peter Ferraro, the longtime manager of East Village Radio. “They went out and bought the equipment, climbed up on the roof of the building that houses Lil’ Frankie’s, and started broadcasting.”

In its first iteration, EVR was purely terrestrial – broadcasting on 88.1 FM as a small “pirate” station with no license and no real plan for what to do if it was raided by the police. “I told them there was a little-known law that in wartime it was legal to broadcast within a five-watt signal. We started out with a 100-watt box, but we kept it at 10,” said Ferraro.

Almost immediately, the radio station attracted a lot of attention from the community. “There was some pretty cool stuff pretty early on,” said Ferraro, who was in the mix almost from the beginning. The station started broadcasting an eclectic mix of obscure songs and steadily building a fan base out of listeners within the diminutive broadcast range. After a story on the station ran in the New York Times, the FCC sent EVR a cease and desist letter ordering the station to shut down operations immediately.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest EVR helped Mark Ronson make his name. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

In order to stay open, the station moved online. “In 2003, EVR became one of the pioneers of internet radio,” said Ferraro. While the station itself existed on the internet, the studio moved onto the street, taking over a storefront on First Avenue where it soon became an integral part of the East Village’s landscape, with DJs playing music throughout the day and night, while New Yorkers and tourists would go about their daily lives, glancing into the studio as they walked by. “EVR was pretty much born there,” said Ferraro. It’s also where EVR died, only to be born again.

“I was always a listener,” said Scott Keeney, better known as DJ Skee. “The shows that they had there were incredible. Everyone knows about Mark Ronson, but they had so many other cool shows who were breaking so many acts. Drake would go on Elliott Wilson’s show – or hearing Chances with Wolves, which is one of the coolest radio programs you’d ever hear. It reflected the East Village and New York as a whole, and what great radio can be.”

To call the station cool is an understatement. It gave its DJs free rein to dig through their record collections and find the oddest, most arcane pieces they could find, be they obscure early 80s vinyl or old film scores or bands that no one had ever heard before.

Mark Ronson got his start on EVR, taking over the air every Friday night with his show Awesome Shit

That freedom attracted an intense loyalty among music fans and band members, who would swing by the studio and make the most of their seeming open-door policy to hand out copies of CDs. Mark Ronson got his start on EVR, taking over the air every Friday night with his show Awesome Shit. Over the years they have lent their imprimatur of cool to aging acts like Duran Duran – who, thanks to Ronson, debuted songs from their 2010 album All You Need Is Now on EVR’s airways.

As EVR got more popular and its draw got bigger, Ferraro came on board as the station’s manager. “I came in and took a look around and said: ‘This needs a lot of work,’” said Ferraro, who set about the business of making the network of DJs and various shows into an actual station with cross-promotion and a focus on live listenership. “I was a big fan of UK radio. I thought the UK did it better than we did it here,” said Ferraro. “I came in and pointed ourselves right at the UK and changed how we did things.” Under Ferraro’s management, EVR relaunched its website, started a mobile app, and continued to grow from a pirate startup into an actual radio station.

That lasted until 2013, when Ferraro and Prisinzano realized they had reached their limit, both financially, due to changes in licensing legislation, and physically, facing complete exhaustion after years of working 12-hour days seven days a week. They needed money, they needed help, and they really needed a break. “We couldn’t really see a future to continue independently,” said Ferraro. They decided to shut down East Village Radio in May 2014.

Ferraro says he knew the news would bring an outpouring of emotion from the community, but the intensity of it took him aback. “We knew we were doing something special, but we had no idea how special,” he explained. “When you’re in it, you just don’t realize it. We were blown away.”

Among the fans mourning the loss of EVR was Scott Keeney, who was on the cusp of launching an online radio destination of his own, Dash Radio. “East Village Radio was known as one of the coolest and most groundbreaking stations of all time, and when it shut down, it broke everybody’s heart,” said Keeney. “But it was closing right when we were launching Dash and it was kind of a dream station for us to get. I thought it might be a blessing in disguise for us.”

Ferraro said: “Scott called me and told me about Dash Radio. We started a conversation.” That conversation stretched on while EVR shut down with no immediate plans to resurrect itself. “I was on my way to whatever was next,” said Ferraro, but the conversation with Keeney stuck with him. “Scott was genuine,” said Ferraro. “He had been paying attention to what we were doing at EVR.” That authentic fandom paired with Dash Radio’s online presence led Ferraro and Prisinzano to keep the conversation with Keeney going.

Keeney continued his pitch, promising radio free from the tedious back-end of radio work. “We provide licensing tools and infrastructure, technology and distribution, to let them focus on creating the best content and not worrying about anything else,” explained Keeney. It was a good fit and soon, Prisinzano and Ferraro found themselves in a conversation about bringing EVR back from the dead.

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Now, when you visit eastvillageradio.com, it redirects you to Dash Radio’s site. “I’m comfortable that EVR is still EVR. It is on a different platform, but it hasn’t become a different entity,” said Ferraro.

Keeney explained: “They have 100% creative control to do whatever they want. We just provide the best back-end platform around.” That means that some of the classic EVR programming is there, as well as some of the station’s beloved DJs and shows like the groundbreaking Chances with Wolves.

“We were really pleased with how many DJs wanted to come back, and we’re still talking to others,” said Ferraro, who finds himself frequently fielding queries from listeners looking for particular DJs or shows. “People just want things to be how they were,” said Ferraro, who is also working towards that goal. EVR even reopened its storefront on First Avenue (“We built out an entirely new state-of-the-art studio,” said Keeney) and if you walk by you can still hear the music spilling out. “It was pretty much a prerequisite that the studio had to be back on First Avenue,” said Ferraro. “That was such an important part of what made East Village Radio what it is – to be able to see Jimmy Cliff sitting in the studio performing, or Richard Hell is being interviewed. It just had to come back to First Avenue.”

As for Ferraro, he is back to working long hours, but he doesn’t mind: “I’m loving it again.” Undoubtedly, the fans are, too.