Significant WNYC

The striped paw of Tammany, which ordinarily shuns inquiries as the devil shuns holy water, has guided a committee of Manhattan's City Council in an investigation of the local Civil Service. Designed to make Fiorello LaGuardia look bad in case he runs for mayor again, the investigation has prowled leisurely along, centring its initial snooping on the affairs of the city-owned station WNYC. Last week the probers unearthed one Alexander Leftwich Jr., who claimed he had been fired as assistant in WNYC's dramatic department for refusing to produce a show that was "red as hell." Replied Director Morris Novik of WNYC: "He lacked a sense of social significance."

Chock-full of a sense of social significance is energetic little Morris Novik, 38, who in his three years as headman at WNYC has made it the best-run of the 30-odd non-commercial stations in the land. A onetime rabbinical student, Novik used to be an ardent "Yipsel" (Young Socialist Leaguer), trained for his present job by serving as social director of an International Ladies Garment Workers camp in Pennsylvania.

During his three years with WNYC, ex-Yipsel Novik has been consistently successful with educational and musical shows. He has also been rather consistently at odds with some of the less socially-minded of New York City's 7,000,000 inhabitants and taxpayers. On WNYC's

Where To Buy, Frances Foley Gannon of Manhattan's Bureau of Markets tips off housewives on how much they should be paying for foodstuffs, once drove down an artificially sustained egg market 4-c- a dozen in a single day.

Last week while the City Council's investigation weaseled along, Novik was busy with WNYC's second annual ten-day musical festival, which includes music by everyone from Metropolitan soloists to Tommy Dorsey and his band, all serving gratis. He and Mayor LaGuardia thought that one up last year to make everybody feel better in bad times.

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