Chuck Scarborough says goodbye to WNBC/4, ending remarkable 50-year career

In an emotional signoff that capped a historic 50-year run at a New York institution, WNBC/4 anchor Chuck Scarborough ended his last broadcast behind the anchor desk with a tribute to viewers, colleagues and New York.

"The pace of breaking news has been relentless" over that last half-century on the job, he said in closing, but "just as important were the stories of forgiveness, kindness, of recovery and resilience." He added, if there's "one overarching lesson" of his career as the top anchor in the nation's top city "it's that we are more resilient than we realize. We get knocked back down and we come back stronger."

And so ended a tenure that was like no other, beginning on March 25, 1974, when Scarborough arrived from Boston. He would go on to anchor or co-anchor all of the station's major news broadcasts, notably the 6 and 11 p.m. weekday ones; he stepped away from the latter in 2016.

No single individual -- anchor or reporter -- has appeared on a New York TV news broadcast longer than Scarborough, who turned 81 Nov. 4. And no one has come to represent so vast a stretch of New York City's tumultuous history over these past fifty years.

Scarborough has anchored Ch. 4's coverage of 9/11, the COVID pandemic, AIDS, Superstorm Sandy, five major plane crashes, three blackouts, a couple of Wall Street crashes and seven mayors, beginning with Abe Beame. There was Son of Sam, a city's near-bankruptcy, John Gotti and Donald Trump.

His final broadcast and farewell message reflected some of this, but there were also surprises, too, notably the appearance of his two grandchildren, Campbell and Grace Brett, who told viewers about a granddad who's "a great skier" and "gives the best hugs." (Scarborough called their appearance "fabulous..a complete surprise.")

There was also an unusual tribute from viewers who thanked him for this historic run, including one -- Susan Winding, a former resident of Rocky Point -- who recalled that as a little girl she wrote Scarborough a letter 40 years ago complaining that her marching band (specifically the Rocky Point Golden Eagles marching band) had not been covered by his program during a sports telecast. She recalled that Scarborough wrote back apologizing. She thanked him for that long-ago acknowledgment. (Scarbrough laughed, saying, "it took us 42 years to get her on.")

And of course, there were tributes from colleagues, some of whom have spent decades with him, like Janice Huff, Ch. 4 chief meteorologist, who said "there are not enough words to express how we feel about you." Then -- her emotions catching up with her -- added, "I think I'm done."

There are believed to be only two anchors in the United States who had done this job longer than Scarborough — Dave Ward, of Houston's KTRK/13 (who retired in 2017 after 51 years) and Don Alhart, of Rochester's WHAM/13, who hit the 50-year mark in 2016 and retired this past June. A little obvious perspective, however: New York City is the nation's largest and most important market, while its TV news competition is the most ferocious.

In 1980, Scarborough was paired with Sue Simmons on the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts, and in time became the most iconic anchor team on New York TV news. Of Simmons, who retired in 2012, Scarborough said in an interview with Newsday last March that he "probably" wouldn't have lasted these 50 years without her. In an interview with Newsday earlier this year on the occasion of his 50th at the anchor desk, Simmons said “I'm not very articulate about this but we were such opposites, and somehow we meshed. He was a lot more on the serious side when I first met him, but I chipped away over the years and he became such a fun guy. He had a wicked sense of humor, but humor most of the time he couldn't do on the air, so viewers always saw him as a straight-up guy.”

Scarborough -- who has called this a "retirement with an asterisk" because he'll continue to contribute to the station's various broadcasts -- will be replaced on the 6 by Ch. 4 veteran David Ushery, who was introduced during the broadcast on Monday's program and said that Scarborough had "walked into this building today the same way he walked in fifty years ago" -- fully engaged, directing the station's coverage on a busy news day.

On Thursday's final program, Scarborough attempted to explain the wellsprings of that professionalism over these many years: "I felt the weight of that [Ch. 4] history and the weight of our responsibility to get it right."