Context The first private owner of the site was physician
David Hosack, who purchased twenty acres of rural land from New York City in 1801 and opened the country's first public
botanical garden, the
Elgin Botanic Garden, on the site. The gardens operated until 1811, and by 1823 the property was under the ownership of
Columbia University. Columbia held the property as an investment, and by 1896 consolidated its main campus 60 blocks north in
Morningside Heights, in
Upper Manhattan. (pictured). In 1926, the
Metropolitan Opera started looking for a location for a new
opera house to replace its
building at
39th Street and
Broadway. By 1928,
Benjamin Wistar Morris and designer
Joseph Urban were hired to come up with blueprints. The planned building was too expensive for the Met to fund by itself, and
John D. Rockefeller Jr. was eventually persuaded to support the project (his father,
John D. Rockefeller Sr., was not involved). To determine its viability, Rockefeller hired Todd, Robertson and Todd as design consultants. John R. Todd put forth a plan for the Met. Columbia leased the plot to Rockefeller for 87 years at a cost of $3 million per year, The initial cost of acquiring the space, razing some of the existing buildings, and constructing new buildings was estimated at $250 million. To design the buildings, Rockefeller hired three firms:
Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray;
Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux; and
Reinhard & Hofmeister. They worked under the umbrella of "Associated Architects" so none of the buildings could be attributed to any specific firm. The principal architect and leader of the Associated Architects was
Raymond Hood, a student of the
Art Deco architectural movement. The principal builder and "managing agent" was Todd, who hired L. Andrew Reinhard and Henry Hofmeister as the "rental architects": designers of the complex's floor plans. The
Metropolitan Square Corporation—the precursor to Rockefeller Center Inc.—was formed in December 1928 to oversee construction. After the stock market
crash of 1929, the Metropolitan Opera could no longer afford to move, and its plans were canceled on December 6, 1929. and a recessed central plaza. Ivy Lee, the
Rockefeller family's publicity adviser, suggested changing the name to "Rockefeller Center". John 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. The name was formally changed in December 1931.
Construction For the project, 228 buildings on the site were razed and some 4,000 tenants displaced. Demolition of the properties began in 1930. All of the buildings' leases had been bought by August 1931, though there were some tenants on the western and southeastern edges of the plot who refused to leave their property, and Rockefeller Center was built around
these buildings. Excavation of the Sixth Avenue side of the complex began in July 1931, and construction on the first buildings, Radio City Music Hall and the
Center Theatre, began later that year. of
Indiana limestone were ordered for the project in December 1931, the largest such order at the time. The RKO Building was the first structure to be completed, in September 1932, followed by the Music Hall in December 1932 and the
British Empire Building in April 1933. The RCA Building's opening was delayed from May 1 to mid-May because of a controversy over
Man at the Crossroads, a painting in the building's lobby, which was later covered up and removed. A new street through the complex, Rockefeller Plaza, was constructed in stages between 1933 and 1937.
The complex's famed Christmas tree in the center of the plaza was erected for the first time in December 1933, and the complex's
Prometheus statue was constructed in May 1934. By July 1934, the complex had leased 80% of the available space in the six buildings that were already opened. '' depicts workers resting for a meal during the construction of
30 Rockefeller Plaza. Work on two more internationally themed retail buildings and a larger, 38-story, "International Building", started in September 1934. One of the two small buildings was already rented to Italian interests. The final small building would have been rented by Germany, but Rockefeller ruled this out in 1934 after noticing
National Socialist extremism from the country's government. The empty office site was downsized and became the "International Building North", rented by various international tenants. In April 1935, developers opened the International Building and its wings. The underground pedestrian mall and ramp system between 48th and 51st streets was finished in early May. In 1936, an ice skating rink replaced the unprofitable retail space on the lower plaza, below ground level. The 36-story Time & Life Building, named for anchor tenant
Time Inc., replacing an empty plot on the southern block that had been used for vehicle parking. Eleven buildings had been completed by 1937 at a total cost of over $100 million. A building for
Associated Press on the northern block's empty lot, was topped out by June 1938 and occupied by December of that year. The presence of Associated Press and Time Inc. expanded Rockefeller Center's scope from strictly a radio-communications complex to a hub of both radio and print media. The Guild, a
newsreel theater, opened in 1938 along the curve of the truck ramp below the Associated Press Building. After Nelson Rockefeller became president of Rockefeller Center in 1938, he fired John Todd as the complex's manager and appointed Hugh Robertson in his place. The Rockefeller family started occupying the 56th floor of the RCA Building, Excavation started in October 1938, and the building was topped out by April 1939. At the same time, Rockefeller Center Inc. wanted to develop the western half of the southern plot, which was partially occupied by the Center Theatre. The
United States Rubber Company agreed to occupy the plot, and excavation of the U.S. Rubber Company Building site commenced in May 1939. John Rockefeller installed the building's ceremonial final rivet on November 1, 1939, marking the completion of the original complex. However, although the final rivet had been driven, the Eastern Air Lines Building was not completed until October 1940. The construction of the project employed between 40,000 and 60,000 people. The complex was the largest private building project ever undertaken in contemporary times. Architectural historian
Carol Herselle Krinsky describes the center as "the only large private permanent construction project planned and executed between the start of the Depression and the end of the Second World War". According to writer
Daniel Okrent, Rockefeller Center was so extensive that it was said that "you could do anything you wanted except sleep (no hotels), pray (no churches), or not pay rent to [John Rockefeller Jr.]". By fall 1939, the complex had 26,000 tenants and 125,000 daily visitors. That year, 1.3 million people went on a guided tour of Rockefeller Center or visited the RCA Building's observation deck, while 6 million people visited the underground shopping mall, and 7 million saw a performance at Rockefeller Center.
World War II era Even before the U.S. officially entered
World War II in 1941, Rockefeller Center was affected by the war. The Dutch government had been slated to take up one-fifth of the space at 10 Rockefeller Plaza, but could not do so because of World War II. Seven of the complex's eight travel agencies had to move elsewhere because of the war, and
William Rhodes Davis, a tenant who shipped oil to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, was denied a lease renewal in 1941. After the
attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Rockefeller Center Inc. terminated all lease agreements with German, Italian, and Japanese tenants because their respective countries comprised the
Axis powers, whom the United States were fighting against. Art on
Palazzo d'Italia was taken down because they were seen as being fascist, and the
Rainbow Room was closed to the public from 1943 to 1950. Instructions for blackouts and sandbags for extinguishing fires were placed throughout the complex. 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 would later head the
Central Intelligence Agency. Rockefeller Center only became profitable after the last building in the original complex was completed. The complex had incurred $26 million in debt by 1935, which had increased to $39 million by 1940. However, the complex was already 87% rented by 1940, and by the next year, Rockefeller Center was nearly fully rented, making a profit for the first time in its history. By 1944, the complex's existing rentable area totaled , with 99.7% of the space being leased. Because the complex was almost completely rented, Rockefeller Center's managers kept waiting lists of potential tenants, and as a result of the waiting lists, the complex's office space became more desirable to these tenants. Two years later, there were 400 companies who wanted to rent space in Rockefeller Center, and the complex's managers determined that they would need to add of space in order to house all the prospective tenants. Rockefeller Center was also popular among visitors: for instance, the lines to enter one of the Music Hall's five daily shows stretched from Sixth Avenue and 50th Street to Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, a distance of four blocks. In light of the abundance of possible renters, John Rockefeller Jr. transferred his ownership of the complex to his sons. The father collected the $57.5 million loan that Rockefeller Center Inc. owed him, then distributed it to his sons in the form of a tax break. Rockefeller Center eventually became the family's "single largest repository" of wealth. In 1950, Rockefeller Center Inc. paid the last installment of the $65 million mortgage owed to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Three years later, the complex was making $5 million per year in profit, excluding the tax breaks.
Post-World War II expansion , built in 1947 Rockefeller Center Inc. had started working on plans to expand the complex during World War II, even though the outbreak of the war had stopped almost all civilian construction projects. In 1943, the complex's managers bought land and buildings on three street corners near the complex. Rockefeller Center unveiled plans for expansion to the southwest and north in 1944. The building was topped out the next month. Hugh Robertson stepped down as manager the next year, and he was replaced by Gustav Eyssell. Some tenants, such as the
Sinclair Oil Corporation, indicated that they wanted to leave the complex after their leases expired in 1962–1963 because the original complex's buildings did not have
air conditioning, while newer office buildings did. As Columbia University still owned the land underneath the complex, they were tasked with installing air conditioning in the buildings. The new building would add emphasis to any north–south views of the center, since the existing complex's building only formed west–east axes. Another problem befell Rockefeller Center's key tenants, NBC and RCA, who were approached by other developers with the promise of more leasable space, a commodity that was scarce in the fully leased complex. These problems were pushed aside temporarily by the onset of the
Korean War in 1950. By 1951, Columbia had acquiesced to reimbursing Rockefeller Center, Inc., for AC installation, while NBC and RCA were given permission to use the Center Theatre for extra broadcasting space. In 1949, in the face of a shrinking congregation, the St. Nicholas Church leased the church building to the
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, who then leased three contiguous plots from Rockefeller Center for a proposed 28-story building. The congregation was dispersed to other churches, and the old church building at Fifth Avenue and 48th Street was subsequently demolished. Construction commenced on 600 Fifth Avenue in 1950, and the tower was completed by 1952. The building was named after the Sinclair Oil Company, who leased eight floors. As a result of Sinclair's relocation to 600 Fifth Avenue, as well as Esso's relocation to 75 Rockefeller Plaza, NBC and RCA could expand into the space that Sinclair and Esso formerly occupied in the original complex, and they moved out of the Center Theatre shortly after the Sinclair Oil Company moved into its own tower. In mid-1953, Columbia bought all of the land along Sixth Avenue that had been owned by the Underel Corporation at a cost of $5.5 million. Rockefeller Center leased the land back from Columbia until 1973 for $200,000 a year. This allowed Columbia to install air conditioning, passing the costs on to the remaining tenants in return for lease extensions. The small Center Theatre was deemed redundant to the Radio City Music Hall, and in its final years, had been used as an NBC and RCA broadcasting space. After NBC and RCA expanded into the floor area formerly occupied by Sinclair, the U.S. Rubber Company indicated that it wanted to expand its office building into the space that was taken up by the underused theater. In October 1953, it was announced that the theater would be demolished. It was demolished in 1954. In 1956, two years after the demolition of the Center Theatre, officials announced the construction of a new tower, the Time-Life Building, on that plot. The , $7 million building would include connections to the existing passageway system and to Roxy's Theater directly to its west. Time Inc. and Rockefeller Center formed a
joint venture, Rock-Time Inc., which would share the tower's rent income between Time Inc. and Rockefeller Center. Construction on the Time-Life Building's steelwork started in April 1958, and the structure topped out in November of that year. Around 1960, Rockefeller Center,
Uris Buildings Corporation, and
Webb and Knapp formed another joint venture, Rock-Uris Corp. Originally, the venture wanted to construct a hotel to the west of 75 Rockefeller Center, but ultimately, a glass-and-concrete 43-story office building was built on the site. In 1961, the building was named after
Sperry Corporation, who leased eight floors in the future building. The hotel,
New York Hilton at Rockefeller Center, was built two blocks north in 1963. (1965).
1221 (1966) and
1211 (1968) are visible to the left and far left, respectively. 600 Fifth Avenue was sold to Rockefeller Center's managers in 1963, thus officially becoming part of Rockefeller Center. The same year, officials from Esso (later renamed
Exxon) proposed a new building for the complex because the company had outgrown the space in the buildings it already occupied. Rockefeller Center's managers hired the architectural firm
Harrison & Abramovitz to design three new towers on the west side of Sixth Avenue, with one tower on each block between 47th and 50th streets. The Exxon Building, at
1251 Avenue of the Americas between 49th and 50th streets, was formally announced in August 1967. Three months later, officials also announced plans for a tower housing
McGraw-Hill, located one block south at
1221 Avenue of the Americas. Plans for a tower anchored by
Celanese, to be located at
1211 Avenue of the Americas between 47th and 48th streets, would not be revealed until 1970. The Exxon Building opened in 1971, followed by the McGraw-Hill Building in 1973 and the Celanese Building in 1974. By the time all three of the new buildings were opened, Rockefeller Center contained 7% of
Manhattan's of leasable office space. Rockefeller Center Inc. renewed their lease on the complex in 1973. Through the 1960s, the Music Hall was successful regardless of the status of the city's economic, business, or entertainment sectors as a whole. However, by the early 1970s, the proliferation of closed-captioned foreign movies had reduced attendance at the Music Hall. The first round of staff and performer firings began in 1972. By January 1978, the Music Hall was in debt, and the hall's annual attendance had declined to 1.5 million visitors, down from 5 million in 1968. Officials stated that it could not remain open after April. After several weeks of lobbying, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the theater as an interior city landmark in March, followed by a
National Register of Historic Places listing in May. The hall was set to close on April 12, but five days before the planned closing date, the
Empire State Development Corporation voted to create a nonprofit subsidiary to lease the Music Hall. A
New York Times report in 1982 stated that Rockefeller Center had been popular among tenants from its inception, being almost fully rented for much of the first half-century of its existence. The LPC held hearings in 1983 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 a small section (including the RCA Building, Lower Plaza, and Channel Gardens) should be protected. 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. The
United States Department of the Interior wrote in its report that the center was "one of the most successful urban planning projects in the history of American architecture". Columbia University was not making enough money from Rockefeller Center leases by the 1970s, since a series of negotiations with Rockefeller Center Inc. (now Rockefeller Group) had effectively reduced the annual lease payment to $11 million. The university's funds had dwindled so much that by 1972, their expenses were paid for by their endowment fund. In 1983, Columbia University started looking to sell the land beneath Rockefeller Center. The Rockefeller Group immediately set out to modernize many aspects of the complex. The Rainbow Room was closed for a $20 million restoration and expansion that brought the restaurant's floor area to , and it reopened in December 1987. The RCA Building's observation deck was subsequently closed because the Rainbow Room's expansion eliminated the only passageway to the observatory's elevator bank. In mid-1988, the RCA Building was renamed the GE Building.
Mitsubishi Estate, a real estate company of the
Mitsubishi Group, purchased the Rockefeller Group in 1989.
1990s to present 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 consortium, which also included
Gianni Agnelli and
Stavros Niarchos, finalized its acquisition in July 1996. A preservation dispute arose in May 1998, when the owners announced plans to enlarge shop windows on the center's Fifth Avenue buildings to two stories. These windows were reduced in size upon the LPC's request, and the modifications were approved in September 1998. Due to the decline of the newsreel theater industry, the Guild was shuttered in late 1999 after Tishman Speyer decided not to renew its lease.
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 2000 for $1.85 billion. With the sale, the Rockefeller family gave up its remaining interest in Rockefeller Center's operation. in preparation for an extensive renovation that started in 2011. The restaurant reopened in October 2014. The Rockefeller family moved out of their offices in the GE Building in 2014 due to rising rents. They re-settled in less expensive offices on 49th Street, near their old headquarters. The next year, in July 2015, the GE Building was renamed after
Comcast, the parent company of
NBCUniversal.
Future Green installed temporary artwork in the Channel Gardens in 2019 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of David Hosack's birth. In January 2020, Tishman Speyer hired Gabellini Sheppard Associates to design a renovation for Channel Gardens, Rockefeller Plaza, and the Lower Plaza. These plans included modifications to lighting, planting, pathways, and facades. The plans were approved that April. Gabellini Sheppard also proposed renovating the International Building's lobby. A rooftop garden above Radio City Music Hall opened in September 2021. Starting in 2022, a roller rink called
Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace was set up in the Lower Plaza from April to October. In addition, 19 eateries opened within Rockefeller Center during the early 2020s, including 12
sit-down restaurants. In April 2023, Tishman Speyer proposed renovating ten of 10 Rockefeller Plaza's upper stories into a 130-room hotel. At the time, 93 percent of the complex's office space was leased, but the offices were largely empty during workdays. The Rockefeller Group also renovated the complex in the mid-2020s, adding restaurants and stores, and Tishman Speyer refinanced Rockefeller Center in October 2024 with a $3.5 billion loan. ==Buildings==