Tim Quinn’s Amazing Run

I grew up with Tim Quinn. His voice was usually the first I heard in the morning from my sophomore year in high school until Friday morning when he delivered his final newscast on WICC after a 36-year run.

No one in radio had better pipes or a quicker wit than Quinn. He is a national voice that decided to stay local. I met him my senior year in high school in 1976 during a two-week internship at WICC and The Bridgeport Post. He was a young man in the radio business talking to a teenager interested in a communications career.

His was the voice I heard during the long lines and short tempers of the gas shortage in the late 1970s. When Gov. Ella Grasso, the first woman governor in the USA elected by the people, died in 1981 from cancer his voice notified me with the following words: “The suffering is over for Ella Grasso. She has died.”

He was there for the organized crime hits, the sweet-and-sour Mayor John Mandanici, the court fight between Mayor Lenny Paoletta and Police Superintendent Joe Walsh, the L’Ambiance building collapse that claimed 28 lives in downtown Bridgeport, the election of the city’s first woman mayor Mary Moran and her subsequent municipal bankruptcy filing in federal court, the election of the city’s youngest mayor Joe Ganim, his successes and downfall, and a whole bunch more.

Quinn moved me in ways I could not have imagined. After I screwed up 10 years ago and appeared before a federal judge to say so in 2001, Quinn’s words about me on the morning newscast are indelible: “Lennie Grimaldi will be writing his next book in a prison jumpsuit.”

Son of a bitch, after hearing that, I had to write something before that happens, even if it sucks. In 2002, I wrote Connecticut Whistle Stops, a journey of the towns along the train line from Greenwich to New Haven. Yeah, I know, you never heard of it.

Quinn had the ability to rip out your throat with a question or observation, but in his later years at WICC he stopped asking the tough questions. Whether it was mayors Joe Ganim, John Fabrizi or Bill Finch he fundamentally decided every time he had them on for the regularly scheduled first Monday of every month it was an insufferable exercise in slowpitch softball.

Here, let me lob it to you; if you lie I don’t care. He never ever challenged them because he wanted to make sure they kept coming on the show. Worse yet, if a caller challenged the mayors he’d cut them off.

There was also a time he’d only interview advertisers during his Coffee Break chat. Not Quinn’s fault, orders from corporate.

And that in the end is why Quinn was let go after a marvelous career at WICC: it had nothing to do with his talent, and everything to do with his salary as Cumulus Media, the station’s mega communications owner, had to cut back with declining revenues in this sucky economy in this most cold-blooded of industries.

I don’t know if Quinn wants it, but it would not surprise me to see him land in a high-profile job. He’s that good.