Radio: Notch

Last week Marion Perloff fell/jumped out of a window in the office of Girl Scouts, Inc., on the eleventh floor of the TIME & LIFE Building, Manhattan. And television cut another notch in its growing list of achievements. Conducting outdoor television tests in Rockefeller Center’s Plaza, NBC’s Iconoscope Cameraman Ross Plaisted was shifting his camera’s focus when he caught the girl’s falling body at the sixth floor, followed it to the ground. The telecast was not on the air but NBC engineers were watching the cabled tests in an RCA Building control room. While the camera was turning, the engineers were concerned with other parts of their reception apparatus. Death for the first time flashed across a television screen. But no one saw the passing picture.