Allen B. DuMont, a television set and equipment maker, launched experimental station W2XVT in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1938. (whose callsign was later changed to W2XWV when it moved to Manhattan in 1940). On May 2, 1944, the station acquired its commercial license - the third in New York City - and debuted on VHF channel 4 as WABD, the initials of DuMont. It was one of the few television stations that continued to broadcast during WWII, making it the country's fourth-oldest continually running commercial station. The station initially transmitted from the DuMont Building at 515 Madison Avenue, which also included a transmission tower (the original tower, long abandoned by the station, still remains). WABD switched to channel 5 on December 17, 1945. WNBT took up Channel 4 after the FCC reallocated Channel 1 from the VHF TV broadcast spectrum.