Like skyscrapers, improv comedy or even a good hot dog, the cellphone was born in Chicago but quickly claimed by New York City as its own.
Motorola executive Martin Cooper was standing on Sixth Avenue just blocks from Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan on April 3, 1973 — 50 years ago today — when he dialed his Chicago-built cellphone prototype. The 2.5-pound, 10-inch-long model’s inspiration came from a bespoke, two-way radio system that the company created in the 1960s for the Chicago Police Department.
Cooper officially claimed the first-ever cellphone call in history when Joel Engel — his rival at AT&T — answered.
