General Information

Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is a combination of the older and original 14 Art Deco office buildings from the 1930s, and a set of four International-style towers that were built along the west side of Avenue of the Americas during the 1960s and 1970s. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

History: Highlights

Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928 and developed it from 1930. The initial cost of acquiring the space and razing some of the existing buildings and constructing new ones was an estimated $250,000,000 dollars; a staggering sum in 1930.

History: Explained

Construction of the original 14 buildings began on May 17, 1930 and was completed in 1939. Rockefeller initially planned a syndicate to build an opera house for the Metropolitan Opera on the site, but changed his mind after the stock market crash of 1929 and the Metropolitan’s continual delays to hold out for a more favourable lease, causing Rockefeller to move forward without them.

He took on the enormous project as the sole financier, on a 27-year lease (with the option for three 21-year renewals for a total of 87 years) for the site from Columbia; negotiating a line of credit with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and covering ongoing expenses through the sale of oil company stock. It was the largest private building project in modern times.

It was public relations pioneer Ivy Lee, a prominent adviser to the family, who first suggested the name “Rockefeller Center” for the complex, in 1931. Rockefeller, Jr., initially did not want the Rockefeller family name associated with the commercial project, but was persuaded on the grounds that the name would attract far more tenants.

Radio City Music Hall: Highlights

Radio City Music Hall was completed in December, 1932. At the time it was promoted as the largest and most opulent theatre in the world. Its original intended name was the “International Music Hall” but this was changed to reflect the name of its neighbour, “Radio City,” as the new NBC Studios in the RCA Building (today’s GE Building) were known.

Radio City Music Hall: Explained

Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was one of the complex’s first and most important tenants and the entire Center itself was sometimes referred to as “Radio City.”

The Music Hall was planned by a consortium of three architectural firms, who employed Edward Durell Stone to design the exterior. Through the direction of Abby Rockefeller, the interior design was given to Donald Deskey, an exponent of the European Modernist style and innovator of a new American design aesthetic. Deskey believed the space would be best served by sculptures and wall paintings and commissioned various artists for the large elaborate works in the theatre.

Its interior was declared a New York City landmark in 1978. In the next year, after decades as a premiere showcase for films and elaborate stage shows, the theatre converted to presenting touring performers and special events. Each holiday season features the annual musical stage show, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, a tradition for more than 70 years. The enormous stage, with its elevators and turntables, has also presented Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, the Grammy and Tony Awards, and countless other events.

Painstakingly restored in 1999, the Music Hall interiors are one of the world’s greatest examples of Art Deco design. The Music Hall seats 6,000 people and after an initial slow start became the single biggest tourist destination in the city: it has been attended by more than 300 million people.

GE Building: Highlights

The centrepiece of Rockefeller Center is the 70-floor, 266-metre GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza (“30 Rock”, also the name of a comedy television show) formerly known as the RCA Building – centred behind the sunken plaza. The building was renamed in the 1980s after General Electric (GE) re-acquired RCA, which it helped found in 1919.

GE Building: Explained

The skyscraper is the headquarters of NBC and houses most of the network’s New York studios, including 6A, former home of Late Night with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O’Brien and current home of The Dr. Oz Show; 6B, home of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon; 8H, home of Saturday Night Live; plus the operations of NBC News, MSNBC and local station WNBC. NBC currently owns the space it occupies in the building as a condominium arrangement.

Unlike most other Art Deco towers built during the 1930s, the GE Building was constructed as a slab with a flat roof, where the Center’s newly renovated observation deck, the Top of the Rock is located, which was first built in 1933.

The $75 million makeover of the observation area was carried out by the Center’s owner, Tishman Speyer Properties and was finally completed in 2005. It spans from the 67th to the 70th floor and includes a multimedia exhibition exploring the history of the Center. On the 70th floor, reached by both stairs and elevator, there is a 6.1-metre wide viewing area, allowing visitors a unique 360-degree panoramic view of New York City.

At the front of 30 Rock is the Lower Plaza, in the very centre of the complex, which is reached from 5th Avenue through the Channel Gardens and Promenade. In 1933, the acclaimed sculptor Paul Manship was commissioned to create a masterwork to adorn the central axis, below the famed annual Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, but all the other original plans to fill the space were abandoned over time. It wasn’t until Christmas Day in 1936 that the ice-skating rink was finally installed and the popular Center activity of ice-skating began.

Art in Rockefeller Center: Highlights

Rockefeller Center represents a turning point in the history of architectural sculpture: it is among the last major building projects in the United States to incorporate a programme of integrated public art. Among artists whose works are presented here are Carl Milles, Hildreth Meiere and Leo Friedlander. Apart from sculptures, it also boasts a famous mural by Josep Maria Sert.

Art in Rockefeller Center: Explained

Sculptor Lee Lawrie contributed the largest number of individual pieces – twelve – including the statue of Atlas facing Fifth Avenue and the conspicuous friezes above the main entrance to the RCA Building.

Paul Manship’s highly recognisable bronze gilded statue of the Greek legend of the Titan Prometheus recumbent, bringing fire to mankind, features prominently in the sunken plaza at the front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The inscription from Aeschylus, on the granite wall behind, reads: “Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends.”

A large number of other artists contributed work at the Center, including Isamu Noguchi, whose gleaming stainless steel bas-relief, News, over the main entrance to 50 Rockefeller Plaza (the Associated Press Building) was a standout. At the time it was the largest metal bas-relief in the world.

In 1932, the Mexican socialist artist Diego Rivera, whose sponsor was Museum of Modern Art and whose patron at the time was Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was commissioned by their son Nelson Rockefeller to create a colour fresco for the 99-square-metre wall in the lobby of the then RCA Building. This was after Nelson had been unable to secure the commissioning of either Matisse or Picasso.

Previously Rivera had painted a controversial fresco in Detroit entitled “Detroit Industry,” and it came as no surprise when Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads” aroused controversy as well, as it contained Moscow May Day scenes and a clear portrait of Lenin, not apparent in initial sketches. After Nelson issued a written warning to Rivera to replace the offending figure with an anonymous face, Rivera refused (after offering to counterbalance Lenin with a portrait of Lincoln), and so he was paid off and the mural papered over at the instigation of Nelson. Nine months later, after all attempts to save the fresco were explored – including relocating it to Abby’s Museum of Modern Art – it was destroyed as a last option. Rivera recreated the work later in Mexico City in a modified form, from photos taken by his assistant.

Rivera’s fresco in the Center was replaced with a stunning, larger mural by the Spanish Catalan artist Josep Maria Sert. His “American Progress” shows a vast allegorical scene of men constructing modern America. It contains the figures of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it is wrapped around the west wall of the Grand Lobby at 30 Rock.

Interesting Facts

GE Building is the setting for the famous “Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper” photograph, taken by Charles C. Ebbets in 1932 of workers having lunch, sitting on a steel beam, without safety harnesses.