page_title: Rockefeller Center
section_title: Radio City
hierarchical_section_title: Rockefeller Center / Buildings / Landmarked buildings / Radio City
context_page_description: Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th Street and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue, split by a large sunken square and a private street called Rockefeller Plaza. Later additions include 75 Rockefeller Plaza across 51st Street at the north end of Rockefeller Plaza, and four International Style buildings located on the west side of Sixth Avenue.
  In 1928, the site's then-owner, Columbia University, leased the land to John D. Rockefeller Jr., who was the main person behind the complex's construction. Originally envisioned as the site for a new Metropolitan Opera building, the current Rockefeller Center came about after the Met could not afford to move to the proposed new building. Various plans were discussed before the current one was approved in 1932. Construction of Rockefeller Center started in 1931, and the first buildings opened in 1933. The core of the complex was completed by 1939.
  The original center has several sections.
context_section_description: The east side of Sixth Avenue, officially known as Avenue of the Americas, contains most of the buildings that were built specifically for the proposed radio complex. These buildings, which comprise "Radio City", are 1230 Avenue of the Americas, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Radio City Music Hall and 1270 Avenue of the Americas. The idea for an integrated media complex somewhere came in 1920, when Owen D. Young, the chairman of RCA parent General Electric, suggested that RCA combine its then-disparate offices into one location.
  The western half of the southernmost block of the complex along Sixth Avenue, between 48th and 49th streets, contains the former U.S. Rubber Company Building (now Simon & Schuster Building) at 1230 Avenue of the Americas. The last structure in the original complex to be built, it was topped out in November 1939. The 23-story building contains two 7-story wings on its north and south sides. It was renamed after Uniroyal in 1967, and again after Simon & Schuster in 1976. 1230 Avenue of the Americas was expanded to the east in 1954 after the Center Theatre adjacent to it was demolished. The 19-story annex, designed by Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz, had a glass facade on the lowest two stories—reflecting the design of the former American Airlines Building across Sixth Avenue—and a limestone facade above the second story. It is aligned with the axis of 10 Rockefeller Plaza on the eastern side of the block, and its northern and southern elevations contain five setbacks. The exterior also houses an abstract bas-relief created by Naum Gabo.
  The Center Theatre, at 1236 Sixth Avenue, was the only structure in the original Rockefeller Center to be demolished. Originally the "Roxy Theatre", it was renamed after William Fox sued Roxy Rothafel over the naming rights to the nearby Roxy Theatre, which Rothafel had originally managed. The 3,700-seat Center Theatre had a short massing (general shape) in place due to height restrictions at the time, which prohibited construction above theater auditoriums. The theater's stage was enlarged for musicals in 1936, and four years later, 380 seats were removed in order to make way for an ice rink for skating spectaculars. It showed film, musicals, ice-skating competitions, and television through its 21-year existence. Due to its duplication of the larger Radio City Music Hall's activities, it was deemed uneconomical almost from its opening, and was considered redundant by the 1950s. In 1954, it was replaced by the expansion of 1230 Avenue of the Americas.
  The block immediately to the north, on Sixth Avenue between 49th and 50th streets, is occupied by 30 Rockefeller Plaza and its western annex at 1250 Sixth Avenue. The 70-floor, 872-foot-tall (266 m) building anchors the entire complex, and is located on the eastern side of the block. Opened in 1933 as the RCA Building, the building has been renamed multiple times, first to the GE Building in 1988, after General Electric bought RCA, and then to the Comcast Building in 2014 after Comcast's purchase of NBC. 30 Rockefeller Plaza was built as a single structure occupying the entire block between Sixth Avenue and Rockefeller Plaza, and its design was influenced by John Todd's desire for the building to use its air rights to their maximum potential. It has three main segments: the 66-story tower rising from the eastern part of the base with the famous Rainbow Room restaurant on the 65th floor, and, formerly, the Rockefeller family office; a windowless segment in the middle of the base that houses NBC Studios; and a shorter 16-story tower on the western part of the base at 1250 Avenue of the Americas. As an icon of the complex, 30 Rockefeller Plaza's architecture influenced the design of the rest of the complex, with its limestone facade and Gothic-inspired four-leafed spandrels.
  Radio City Music Hall at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, occupying the southwestern portion of the block between 50th and 51st streets. The only remaining theater in the complex, it was similar in style to the Center Theatre, but at a larger scale. Constructi
caption: The southwest corner of Radio City Music Hall, as seen diagonally across the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 50th Street
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2004:12:28 08:50:21", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2036", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6103", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:12:28 08:50:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:12:28 08:50:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "181/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "97349/32768", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "97349/32768", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "173/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1600", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1200", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1412", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "800000/103", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "240000/31", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}