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AnnouncementsThe Watchtower—1950 | July 15
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miles away, you should travel by U. S. Route 1 or 22 to either the Holland or the Lincoln Tunnel or the Erie Ferry near the Holland Tunnel. In Manhattan take the West Side Express Highway (no trucks permitted) to 158th Street exit. The bridge at 155th street will take you across the Harlem river to the stadium. There are no parking facilities right at the stadium.
It is hoped talks at Yankee Stadium will be transmitted by telephone lines to the camp for the benefit of those who must be on duty, but to get the real blessing come to Yankee Stadium daily.
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DedicationThe Watchtower—1950 | July 15
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Dedication
1, 2. When and with what exercises was the new Bethel dedicated?
MONDAY, January 30, 1950, was set for dedication of the new Bethel to the consecrated service of the Most High God. That night the first meeting was held in the incomparable Kingdom Hall in the basement of the new home, the hall having entrances both from within the home and from the street at 136 Columbia Heights. Present are the regular Bethel family and brethren from WBBR, Staten island, and about 80 brethren recently arrived from foreign shores to enter the 15th class of Gilead, the entire gathering numbering about 400. All faces are aglow. All hearts are swelling with the joy of Jehovah. At 8 p.m. the dedication exercises open as chairman Brother Knorr announces a Kingdom song for all to sing. All heads and hearts then bowed in prayer while Brother Knorr thanked Jehovah God for His gift of the new Bethel and expressed the dedication of it wholly to the loving service into which He has called us through Jesus Christ. Brother Knorr’s dedication speech now followed. It portrayed how, in fulfillment of Jehovah’s prophecies at Isaiah chapters 54 and 60, expansion was due to come, even as it has come, and his visible organization was to be beautified, improved and better regulated for the marvelous work of bearing witness to his name and kingdom. Various features of the expansion from early times were described as detailed in our preceding pages, and Brother Knorr envisioned our spreading out within but a few years to even beyond the present home and factory when these had reached their capacity. His appeal to the brethren was to be loyal to Jehovah’s Theocratic organization and to cleave to it. He urged or invited the members of the family to make the enlarged Bethel their real home and to enjoy and use it as such to God’s glory and in furtherance of their own part in his blessed service.
2 The directors of both corporations were present in full number. So Brother Knorr then called to the platform for brief speeches the Society’s vice-president, its secretary-treasurer and his assistant, then three members of the board of directors of the New York corporation who included the factory servant and the Bethel home servant, and finally the other three members of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania corporation. All voiced warm appreciation for God’s provision of the new home and its modern appointments and facilities. With earnestness they exhorted the brethren to greater love of His organization and to stick to its work here at headquarters. Concluding the speeches, Brother Knorr pointed to the advantages that the home and its family life offered, and encouraged all to be wise and take full advantage of them. A closing song by the assembly, a final prayer by the vice-president, and then the assembly adjourned to enjoy some ice-cream and cake and informal companionship together.
3. To what use was the Kingdom Hall put immediately thereafter?
3 This inaugurated regular use of the Kingdom Hall. The subsequent Thursday night the new Brooklyn Heights unit of the Greater New York company of Jehovah’s witnesses held its first weekly Theocratic Ministry school and service meeting there. The next night the Brooklyn Center unit, which had just been forced out of its Fulton Street meeting-place, held like meetings. On Sunday the weekly study of The Watchtower and public lectures were held by each of these units at its assigned time for use of Kingdom Hall. The following Monday night the Bethel family met there for its advance study of The Watchtower and its Theocratic Ministry school. After the review questions and the instructor’s talk to all the school in the Kingdom Hall the family divided up into five groups, one group staying in the hall for its three student talks and counsel, the other groups going to four other locations.
4. Where and how did WBBR open up its new studios?
4 In March the radio office force and studio personnel moved from Staten island into Bethel, where it has its offices and elegant studios of floating type, a large and a small one, with the control room in between. The large windows permit visitors in the observation room to clearly view all going on in the studios while they listen in on the loud-speaker. Kingdom Hall itself will be used as the largest of WBBR’s studios, the console of a new and larger organ being located westward of the speaker’s platform. The broad grill-work in front of the organ pipes is just behind and over the platform. Full-scale educational and musical programs carried on by the Bethel family will be radiocast direct from Kingdom Hall. On Sunday, March 12, at 8 a.m., WBBR initiated its broadcasting from its new Bethel studios, the Society’s president fittingly presenting the day’s text and after a musical interlude the Watchtower’s extended comment thereon, as the opening feature of the day.
5, 6. When and how was the new Bethel dining-room inaugurated?
5 Saturday night, April 1, marked the first celebration of the Memorial of Christ’s death held in the Kingdom Hall, first by the Brooklyn Center unit and then by the Brooklyn Heights unit, Brother Knorr conducting the latter. The following Monday, April 3, marked another step in utilizing God’s equipment for his people. For about three and a half years now the Bethel family had eaten cafeteria-style in shifts, without the former table-discussion privileges. But this morning the spacious new Bethel dining-room in the subbasement was opened up. At 7 a.m. the family were all seated, in full number, in groups of ten about each table. Forty such tables are available, besides large serving tables at the western side. Brother Knorr at the head of table No. 7, with the microphone at his place, sat at the eastern end with the entire dining-room well in view. Announcing the restoration of the morning Bethel service, he explained how it would be conducted henceforth, and then demonstrated it. He called for the reading of the day’s text in the 1950 Yearbook by a brother at his table, near the microphone. Questions on the text were called for. On each question Brother Knorr asked several members of the family, brothers and sisters, for their comment and then threw each question open for any voluntary comments. He closed the discussion by giving his own extended comment upon the text as a whole, after which he had the brother read the Yearbook comment. The morning prayer followed, which Brother Knorr offered, thanking God for his loving-kindness and asking his blessing on the day’s activities by his people everywhere and also acknowledging his provision of the morning meal. Only he stood as the one offering prayer, his voice carrying well through all the dining-room without benefit of the microphone; all the rest of the family remained seated.
6 The prayer being finished, the family proceeded to eat their breakfast, the food being efficiently served by the waiters from quietly rolling carriages with six tiers for dishes of food. The kitchen adjoins the dining-room on the north, and when the partitions are rolled up it can be viewed beyond the counter and warming units for keeping trays and pots of food heated.
7. What breakfast-table service do we recommend for households?
7 The family greatly appreciated the resuming of the morning Bethel service. They confess to receiving many blessings from it. It provides spiritual food, our most necessary portion, the first thing in the day for the assembled family. We recommend that all Christian families or households carry on such a morning breakfast-table service, using the daily text and comment published in the current Yearbook or in foreign-language issues of The Watchtower. This helps to start off the day aright for everyone participating. At the close of the meal the Bethel family rose at their places and Brother Knorr offered a short prayer of dismissal. Before each meal a brother is called upon to ask the blessing upon the food. Dismissal at close of the meal is by prayer.
8. What also was opened up that day? What inspection tours followed?
8 The same eventful Monday the new factory was opened up and the office and factory force expanded into it. Overcrowded conditions were at last gone. That night at seven o’clock the members of the family, according to Brother Knorr’s announcement, began a tour of inspection of the new Bethel home and its appointments and operating equipment. From top to bottom they toured, inspecting offices of the president and this staff, the legal and financial departments, the beautiful new library, the sewing-room and laundry which were put in regular operation for exhibition purposes, and the kitchen replete with all its shiny modern equipment. The factory next came in for inspection. All its nine floors were put in full operation. All those inspecting rejoiced at the increased space now available for convenient handling of the work. They marveled at all the machines and apparatus for discharging the tremendous amount of work that the office and factory force must daily turn out. Of special interest and attraction was our new quarter-million-dollar rotary printing press newly installed on the press floor, the sixth floor. It is capable of running off up to 29,000 copies an hour of a magazine like Awake!
9. What spiritual exhortation closed this eventful day?
9 Touring over, the family returned and took their assigned seats in the Bethel dining-room for some ice-cream and cake, shortly after 10 p.m. While all were enjoying their refreshments, Brother Knorr called on eight brothers (none Society directors) who had been members of the family for quite a number of years to come to the microphone and each offer some remarks. We were all glad to hear their words of appreciation and encouragement to be true and faithful in serving God together with his visible organization. Brother Knorr offered the final remarks, exhorting the family members to be regular in attending the morning Bethel service and to partake of all the spiritual food which is the peculiar privilege of the Bethel family. He dismissed them now with prayer. It was past 11 p.m. So off to bed!
PRECONVENTION ACTIVITY
10, 11. (a) What pre-convention rooming work had to be done, and by whom? (b) What meeting and program prepared them for this?
10 The family’s tour was a forerunner of the mammoth-scale tour expected to follow the 1950 International Assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses at Yankee Stadium, New York, July 30 to August 6. In its announcements the Society has been inviting all conventioners to make the tour. The New York company of Jehovah’s witnesses is to play host to them all. Besides thousands of hotel accommodations, it was estimated the conventioners will need 50,000 accommodations in private homes of New York city. House-to-house canvassing for such rooms by workers from companies within a 25-mile radius of Times Square was scheduled to begin Sunday, May 14, preceded by a meeting of all these in the St. Nicholas Arena, Manhattan, at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 13.
11 The arena and hall downstairs were packed with 4,837 witnesses and persons of good-will. Brother Knorr was first to address them, officially announcing the place of the assembly and also the subject of his public address there, “Can You Live Forever in Happiness on Earth?” He showed them the magnitude of the coming assembly, the need of rooms in private homes, and the grand opportunity this offered for penetrating thousands of homes with living witnesses of the Most High God to give an intimate testimony to the Kingdom. His people in this metropolitan area would themselves see to securing the needed rooms; a limited number of days remained for doing it. Talks by the convention servant and his assistants were next presented, also demonstrations on how to apply for rooms tactfully and effectively. Closing the two-hour program Brother Knorr returned to the stage and invited all there to visit the factory and Bethel home the following Tuesday and Wednesday nights, May 16 and 17. The factory would receive them from 7 to 8:00 p.m. and thereafter the Bethel home.
12. How was the invitation responded to and the tour conducted?
12 The tour at the factory started on the ground floor, from an entrance on Prospect street, and moved up floor by floor to the ninth and last. Descending direct to the first floor after nearly a mile of walking through the building, the party proceeded over to the Bethel home. Entering through the stately reception room and passing through our beautiful lounge room, they were guided to the new radio studios, the sewing-room, laundry, kitchen, dining-room and Kingdom Hall. Tuesday night 1,315 friends from many companies toured the factory, 1,260 of whom then visited the Bethel home. Wednesday night, despite rain, 1,165 toured the factory and about a hundred less of these the home. It was about 10 p.m. before they all cleared the home. All were delighted and blessed.
13. For all this provision whom do we thank? We ask what prayers?
13 Now we await the mass visit of the conventioners, from more than 70 lands of the earth. They are keenly interested in seeing all the equipment which our all-provident heavenly Father has given his visible organization to deliver the great Kingdom witness ahead. They will be filled with wonderment and with praise of Him at what they see. As we meditate on His goodness to his organized witnesses, we give him thanks. We ask the prayers of all persons of goodwill that we may faithfully, wisely and efficiently use all these his gifts, as long as he privileges us to do so, to advancing the interests of his righteous new world and to vindicating his holy name and universal sovereignty.
[Picture on page 221]
The opening of the new Bethel
[Picture on page 222]
Kingdom Hall and WBBR Studio
[Pictures on page 223]
The Watchtower Printing Plant
Our new press prints 29,000 magazines an hour
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InvitationThe Watchtower—1950 | July 15
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Invitation
The International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses invites you to hear the public address CAN YOU LIVE FOREVER IN HAPPINESS ON EARTH? by N.H. KNORR President of Watchtower Society. Sunday Aug. 6 3 PM. YANKEE STADIUM. Admission Free. No Collections.
All persons are invited to attend the International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses. July 30 to August 6, 1950. Yankee Stadium, New York.
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