Development Planning in December 1933, with the RCA Building at center|alt=Black and white photo of the construction of Rockefeller Center in December 1933, with the RCA Building at center The construction of Rockefeller Center occurred between 1932 and 1940 on land that
John D. Rockefeller Jr. leased from
Columbia University. The Rockefeller Center site was originally supposed to be occupied by a new
opera house for the
Metropolitan Opera. By 1928,
Benjamin Wistar Morris and designer
Joseph Urban were hired to come up with blueprints for the house. However, the new building was too expensive for the opera to fund by itself, and it needed an
endowment. The project ultimately gained the support of
John D. Rockefeller Jr. The planned opera house was canceled in December 1929 due to various issues, with the
new opera house eventually being built at
Lincoln Center, opening in 1966. With the lease still in effect, Rockefeller had to quickly devise new plans so that the three-block Columbia site could become profitable.
Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect, came up with the idea to negotiate with the
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its subsidiaries,
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and
Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), to build a
mass media entertainment complex on the site. By May 1930, RCA and its affiliates had made an agreement with Rockefeller Center managers. RCA would lease of studio space; get naming rights to the western part of the development; and develop four theaters, at a cost of $4.25 million per year. A skyscraper at 30 Rockefeller Plaza's current site was first proposed in the March 1930 version of the complex's blueprint, and the current dimensions of the tower were finalized in March 1931. The skyscraper would be named for RCA as part of the agreement; the RCA name became official in May 1932.
Construction The designs for Radio City Music Hall and the RCA Building were submitted to the
New York City Department of Buildings in August 1931, by which time both buildings were to open in 1932. Work on the steel structure of the RCA Building started in March 1932. despite John Rockefeller Jr.'s hesitance to hire Rivera, a prominent communist.
Henri Matisse had been reluctant to commission a highly visible lobby mural, and
Pablo Picasso had refused to even meet with Hood and Todd. '' (1932)|alt=The 1932 photograph "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" Installation of the exterior stonework began in July 1932 and proceeded at a rate of per day. Window installation began the same month. it was part of a
publicity stunt promoting the RCA Building. The building was topped out on September 26, 1932, when an American flag was hoisted to the top of the primary 66-story tower on Rockefeller Plaza. The Indiana limestone cladding had been erected to the 15th floor on the Rockefeller Plaza wing, and the facade of the Sixth Avenue wing had been completed. Officials said at the time that they did not host a ceremony for the stonework's completion because the elevators only ran to the 55th floor. At the time,
The New York Times reported that 1,600 workers were busy completing the interior work. According to the main contractors, the laborers, plasterers, and metal lathers involved in the project would need to be compensated the equivalent of 25,000 eight-hour workdays. The building would require of plasterwork, covering about . By April 6, 1933, there were 1,400 mechanics working to complete the RCA Building, which was 90 percent complete; the upper floors were mostly finished, but the base was still incomplete. As late as April 24, more than 1,000 workers were still fitting out the RCA Building. As a result of the Depression, building costs were cheaper than projected. The final cost of the first ten buildings, including the RCA Building, came to $102 million (equivalent to $ billion in dollars).
Opening and early years Todd, Robertson, Todd Engineering Corporation, which was constructing Rockefeller Center, relocated to the RCA Building on April 22, 1933, becoming the first tenants. Its opening was delayed until mid-May because of a controversy over Rivera's
Man at the Crossroads, which in large part stemmed from the communist motifs of the mural. On May 10, 1933, Rivera was ordered to stop all work on the mural, which was covered in stretched canvas and left incomplete. The Rockefeller family took up space throughout the building to give potential tenants the impression of occupancy. Their
Rockefeller Foundation, as well as the General Education Board and the Spelman Fund of New York, had leased space, NBC was one of the first tenants in the new RCA Building and, with 35 studios packed into the base, it was also one of the largest tenants. Westinghouse moved into the 14th through 17th floors of the RCA Building, receiving the contract for the building's elevators as a result.
American Cyanamid took four floors and part of another. Other space was taken by the Greek consulate, the Chinese consulate, the
National Health Council, and a branch of the
Chase National Bank. A double-height space at the center of the ground story, which had been difficult to rent, opened as the Municipal Art Exhibition in February 1934. The space, referred to as the Forum, had contained a large stairway leading up to a second-story balcony with exhibition rooms. Despite the large number of tenants, Rockefeller Center was only 59 percent rented by the end of 1933. On the 65th floor, there was also a two-story space for a dining room with a high ceiling.
Frank W. Darling quit his job as head of
Rye's Playland to direct the programming for the proposed amusement space. The 40-cents-per-head observation deck saw 1,300 daily visitors by late 1935. Meanwhile, the floors below the observation deck were planned as a restaurant, solarium, game room, and ballroom, which would later become the
Rainbow Room. That September, the ground-floor retail space was fully leased. The
New York Museum of Science and Industry leased the Municipal Art Exhibition space shortly afterward after Nelson Rockefeller became a trustee of the museum. Subsequently,
Edward Durell Stone removed the partitions on the second floor of the exhibition space, and the museum opened there in February 1936. The central wall of the main lobby remained empty until 1937, when Jose Maria Sert's
American Progress was installed. By 1938, the NBC studios at the RCA Building received 700,000 annual visitors, while the observation deck had 430,000 annual visitors.
1940s to 1970s Two 24-
ton cooling machines were installed in the basement of the RCA Building in 1940. The air-conditioning units supplemented the RCA Building's existing units and also served 1230 Sixth Avenue, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, and 1 Rockefeller Plaza. The lobby was then renovated in 1941. As part of the project, an overpass at mezzanine level was removed, the lighting was brightened, and another mural by Jose Maria Sert was installed. The Rainbow Room and Grill atop the RCA Building was closed at the end of that December because of staffing shortages. In 1943, Rockefeller Center's managers purchased the lots at 1242–1248 Sixth Avenue and 73 West 49th Street, part of RCA Building West; these lots had previously been held under a long-term lease. By the next year, the RCA Building was almost fully rented. During the war, the RCA Building's Room 3603 became the primary location of the U.S. operations of
British Intelligence's
British Security Co-ordination, organized by
William Stephenson. It also served as the office of
Allen Dulles, who later headed the
Central Intelligence Agency. The revolving beacon, which had been darkened during the war, was reactivated in 1945 after the air-raid siren was dismantled, but the Rainbow Room restaurant remained closed until 1950. The Museum of Science and Industry moved out of the RCA Building's lower floors in 1950. Rockefeller Center's managers hired
Carson and Lundin to design two new levels of retail space with about of new floor area. The retail space was twice as profitable as the museum; the remaining street-level space was transformed into a studio for the
Today Show. In mid-1953, Columbia bought all of Rockefeller Center's land along Sixth Avenue, including the western part of RCA Building West, for $5.5 million. Rockefeller Center then leased the land back from Columbia. The building's largest tenants, RCA and NBC, renewed their leases in 1958 for 24 years. The National Weather Service's radar was placed on the roof in June 1960, adjacent to RCA's and NBC's antennas, and the NWS offices relocated to the building that December. The
Singer Manufacturing Company became another major tenant, leasing six floors in 1961; this required the installation of a dedicated air-conditioning system on the 58th floor for that company. In addition, the Rainbow Room atop the building was refurbished in 1965. An
anti-Vietnam War bombing occurred on the 19th floor in 1969, causing substantial damage, though no one was hurt. Also in 1969, the RCA sign atop the building was updated with RCA's new logo in neon lights. The RCA Building maintained high occupancy through this time. Even at its lowest point during the
1973–1975 recession, the building was 88 percent occupied and Rockefeller Center's managers were able to lease space at the building above market rate. RCA's chief executive
Robert Sarnoff also announced that the company would construct a "management and conference center" atop the central section of the building. The conference center would have been designed by Ford & Earl Design Associates and Justin Lamb and would have been powered by
solar heat. RCA applied for permission to build the conference center in September 1975, but the project was canceled after Sarnoff resigned that December. The RCA Building's central location and consistent upkeep meant that it was 93 percent occupied by 1975, despite a relatively high vacancy rate in New York City office buildings. Several law firms had moved into the building during this time. Singer moved out of the RCA Building in 1978, freeing up a large block of office space, but RCA and NBC renewed their leases on a combined two years later.
1980s and 1990s Columbia University was not making enough money from Rockefeller Center leases by the 1970s, and the university started looking to sell the land beneath Rockefeller Center, including the RCA Building, in 1983. That year, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held hearings to determine how much of Rockefeller Center should be protected as a landmark. The Rockefeller family and Columbia University acknowledged that the buildings were already symbolically landmarks, but their spokesman
John E. Zuccotti recommended that only the block between 49th and 50th Streets be protected, including the RCA Building and RCA Building West. By contrast, almost everyone else who supported Rockefeller Center's landmark status recommended that the entire complex be landmarked. The LPC granted landmark status to the exteriors of all of the original complex's buildings, as well as the interiors of the International Building's and 30 Rockefeller Plaza's lobbies, on April 23, 1985. Rockefeller Center's original buildings also became a
National Historic Landmark in 1987. Columbia had agreed to sell the land to the Rockefeller Group, an investment company owned by the Rockefeller family, The Rockefeller Group formed Rockefeller Center Inc. that July to manage the RCA Building and other properties. By late 1985, NBC began planning to relocate, leaving half the RCA Building's space vacant. The network needed of space and the RCA Building's facilities required hundreds of millions of dollars in renovations. The developers of
Harmon Meadow and
Television City had both made offers to NBC, but demand for office space in New York City was starting to decrease, which led the building's owners to focus on keeping NBC at the RCA Building. NBC agreed to stay at 30 Rockefeller Plaza at the end of 1987 after city and state officials offered $72 million in tax exemptions, $800 million in industrial bonds, and sales-tax deferments on $1.1 billion worth of purchases. These incentives would not need to be repaid as long as NBC stayed at the building until 2002, or for 15 years. The RCA Building was renamed the GE Building in July 1988, and the signage atop the building was changed accordingly, despite concerns that it could be confused with the General Electric Building on
570 Lexington Avenue.
Mitsubishi Estate, a real estate subsidiary of the
Mitsubishi Group, purchased a majority stake in the Rockefeller Group in 1988, including the GE Building and Rockefeller Center's other structures. Despite the renaming, 30 Rockefeller Plaza continued to be popularly known as the RCA Building. In exchange, the Rockefeller Group had to preserve the original buildings between 49th and 50th Streets under a more stringent set of regulations than the rest of the complex. While the GE Building's air rights were unaffected, the structure fell under the new regulations. The Rockefeller Group filed for bankruptcy protection in May 1995 after missing several mortgage payments. That November, John Rockefeller Jr.'s son
David and a consortium led by
Goldman Sachs agreed to buy Rockefeller Center's buildings for $1.1 billion, beating out
Sam Zell and other bidders. The transaction included $306 million for the mortgage and $845 million for other expenses. As that sale progressed, GE and Goldman Sachs discussed selling part of the GE Building to its namesake, allowing GE to lower its occupancy costs on the that it occupied. In May 1996, GE bought the space for $440 million, as well as an option to renew the lease on the
Today Show studios at 10 Rockefeller Plaza. Before either transaction was finalized, GE subleased of that space. Goldman Sachs made numerous upgrades to the building and allowed brokers to finalize leases more quickly.
Cipriani S.A. took over the Rainbow Room in 1998.
2000s to present Tishman Speyer, led by David Rockefeller's close friend
Jerry Speyer and the
Lester Crown family of Chicago, bought the original 14 buildings and land in December 2000 for $1.85 billion, including the GE Building. The observation deck plans were announced publicly in November 2003. Two existing elevator shafts were lengthened so that the observation deck could be accessed without going through the Rainbow Room to get to the "shuttle" elevators. In addition, a ground-floor entrance was created on 50th Street and a three-level storefront was converted into an observation deck entrance. after NBC had announced earlier the same year that it would start a 24-hour news channel. In addition, Tishman Speyer hired
EverGreene Architectural Arts to restore the lobby, and a two-year restoration commenced in 2009; The Rainbow Room closed that year after Rockefeller Center Inc. ended Cipriani's lease, and the LPC designated the Rainbow Room as an interior landmark in 2012.
Comcast, which had bought a 51 percent ownership stake in
NBCUniversal in 2009, bought the remaining 49 percent from GE in 2013. The sale included NBC's portion of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and the building's naming rights; The Rainbow Room reopened in October 2014 under new management, and the rotunda above the lobby was restored starting in 2014. Comcast planned to rename the building and replace the signage on the roof. The GE signage was dismantled starting in September 2014, Toy store
FAO Schwarz opened a store at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in November 2018. In April 2022, the LPC approved Tishman Speyer's proposal to install additional visitor attractions at Top of the Rock. == Impact ==