a towerA worker balances atop a partially disassembled KYUK communications building astatine 640 Radio Street successful Bethel connected Aug. 7, 2024. (Josiah Swope/KYUK)

A salient characteristic of nan Bethel skyline has been retired aft astir 50 years of service. KYUK’s iconic orangish and achromatic communications building was primitively intended to beam tv programming, including section TV news, acquisition productions, and celebrated programs for illustration Sesame Street, locally since astatine slightest arsenic early arsenic 1975. In much caller years, it carried FM power programming arsenic well.

In 2022, a helicopter swooped in to region nan damaged precocious 80 feet of nan formerly 260-foot tower. It remained operational until this summer, erstwhile crews disassembled it pinch a crane and erected a marque caller metallic building adjacent to wherever nan aged building erstwhile stood.

The caller 180-foot building will beryllium an basal constituent of section emergency and nationalist information operations, and it is built to big further antennas aliases cellular instrumentality arsenic needed. The building intends to beryllium an important plus successful Bethel and nan Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for decades to come.