50 Rockefeller Plaza (formerly the Associated Press Building) is a 15-story building located at Rockefeller Plaza between 50th and 51st Streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1938, the building is part of Rockefeller Center and, like the rest of the complex, was built in the Art Deco style.
Rockefeller Center occupies three blocks in Midtown Manhattan bounded by Fifth and Sixth Avenues to the east and west, between 48th Street to the south and 51st Street to the north. [1] By 1936, most of the complex had been completed. Rockefeller Center Inc. only needed to develop three empty plots in the middle of the complex's northern and southern blocks. [2]
Rockefeller Center's executives went into talks with the Associated Press for a building on the northern empty lot, [3] which was occupied by the complex's truck delivery ramp. [4] The lot had been reserved for the Metropolitan Opera house, but the managers could not wait to develop the lot anymore, so in 1937, the opera plans were formally scrapped. [5] [6] The lot had also been planned as a hotel site, but this was also deemed economically infeasible. [7] In January 1938, Associated Press agreed to rent the fourth through seventh floors of the structure, with the building to be named for the company. [8]
Construction of the steelwork started in April 1938, and after 29 working days, it was topped out by June. [9] The Associated Press moved into the structure in December. [10] The building, located at 50 Rockefeller Plaza, was built to the outer limits of its lot without any setbacks or rooftop gardens; it rose only 15 floors because of the 1916 zoning law and the paucity of other tenants. [3] [7] 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. [11] In 1938, the Associated Press opened the Guild, a newsreel theater, [11] along the curve of the truck ramp below the building. [12]
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Studio Mellone renovated the lobby of 50 Rockefeller Plaza. The lobby received black-terrazzo floors with brass detail; several pieces of artwork; curved limestone walls; and bronzed-steel urns. [13]
50 Rockefeller Plaza is located on the west side of Rockefeller Plaza between 50th and 51st Streets. [14] The only building in the Center built to the outer limits of its lot line, the 15-story building took its shape from Associated Press's need for a single, undivided, loft-like newsroom as large as the lot could accommodate—namely, a 200-by-187-foot (61 by 57 m) blocky structure with no setbacks. [3] At one point, 4,000,000 feet (1,200,000 m) of transmission wire were embedded in conduits on the building's fourth floor. [15] The complex's truck ramp descends under the building from 50th Street, while the rear of the building is located next to the Radio City Music Hall. [15] [16] [17] The building also contained the Guild Theater, a 450-seat newsreel theater, from 1938 [12] to 1999. [18]
Isamu Noguchi's 10-short-ton (8.9-long-ton) stainless steel panel, News, is located above the building's entrance. His work, which depicts the various forms of communications used by journalists in the 1930s, honors the different occupations in the news industry. [19] [20] It is one of Noguchi's last abstract works as well as the only stainless steel work he ever commissioned. [20]
Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres (89,000 m2) between 48th Street and 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of 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 on the west side of Sixth Avenue.
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and theater at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplace of the Nation", it is the headquarters for the Rockettes. Radio City Music Hall was designed by Edward Durell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a 16.3-acre (6.6-hectare) complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 million visitors annually. It houses internationally renowned performing arts organizations including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Juilliard School.
30 Rockefeller Plaza is a skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. Completed in 1933, the 66-story, 850 ft (260 m) building was designed in the Art Deco style by Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect. 30 Rockefeller Plaza was known for its main tenant, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), from its opening in 1933 until 1988 and then for General Electric until 2015, when it was renamed for its current owner, Comcast. The building also houses the headquarters and New York studios of television network NBC; the headquarters is sometimes called 30 Rock, a nickname that inspired the NBC sitcom of the same name. The tallest structure in Rockefeller Center, the building is the 28th tallest in New York City and the 65th tallest in the United States, and was the third tallest building in the world when it opened.
28 Liberty Street, formerly known as One Chase Manhattan Plaza, is a 60-story International style skyscraper between Nassau, Liberty, William, and Pine Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), opened in 1961. It is 813 feet (248 m) tall.
The General Electric Building, also known as 570 Lexington Avenue, is a skyscraper at the southwestern corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building, designed by Cross & Cross and completed in 1931, was known as the RCA Victor Building during its construction. The General Electric Building is sometimes known by its address to avoid confusion with 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which was once known as the GE Building.
Man at the Crossroads (1933) was a fresco by Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Originally slated to be installed in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the fresco showed aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture. As originally installed, it was a three-paneled artwork. A central panel, depicting a worker controlling machinery, flanked by two other panels, The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development, which respectively represented socialism and capitalism.
The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza is a complex of several state government buildings in downtown Albany, New York.
The Rainbow Room is a private event space on the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Run by Tishman Speyer, it is among the highest venues in New York City.
1271 Avenue of the Americas (formerly known as the Time & Life Building) is a 48-story skyscraper on Sixth Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by architect Wallace Harrison of Harrison, Abramovitz, and Harris, the building was developed between 1956 and 1960 as part of Rockefeller Center.
The Center Theatre was a theater located at 1230 Sixth Avenue, the southeast corner of West 49th Street in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Seating 3,500, it was originally designed as a movie palace in 1932 and later achieved fame as a showcase for live musical ice-skating spectacles. It was demolished in 1954, the only building in the original Rockefeller Center complex to have been torn down.
1251 Avenue of the Americas is a skyscraper on Sixth Avenue, between 49th and 50th Streets, in Manhattan, New York City. It is owned by Mitsui Fudosan. The structure is built in the international style and looks like a simple cuboid devoid of any ornamentation. The vertical façade consists of alternating narrow glass and limestone stripes. The glass stripes are created by windows and opaque spandrels, forming continuous areas that are washed by machines sliding down the façade. A seven-floor base wraps around the western portion of the building, and there is a sunken plaza with a large two-tier pool and fountains facing Sixth Avenue. In the plaza stands the bronze statue named Out to Lunch by John Seward Johnson II—of the same series as the one standing outside 270 Park Avenue.
1221 Avenue of the Americas is an international-style skyscraper at 1221 Sixth Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 51-floor structure has a seven-story base and a simple, cuboid massing. The facade has no decoration and consists of red granite piers alternating with glass stripes to underline the tower's verticality.
The British Empire Building, also known by its address 620 Fifth Avenue, is a commercial building at Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1933, the six-story structure was designed in the Art Deco style by Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect. The British Empire Building, along with the nearly identical La Maison Francaise to the south and the high-rise International Building to the north, comprise a group of retail-and-office structures known as the International Complex. La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building are separated by Channel Gardens, a planted pedestrian esplanade running west to the complex's Lower Plaza.
La Maison Francaise, also known by its address 610 Fifth Avenue, is a commercial building at Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1933, the six-story structure was designed in the Art Deco style by Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect. La Maison Francaise, along with the nearly identical British Empire Building and the high-rise International Building to the north, comprise a group of retail-and-office structures known as the International Complex. La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building are separated by Channel Gardens, a planted pedestrian esplanade running west to the complex's Lower Plaza.
The construction of the Rockefeller Center complex in New York City was conceived as an urban renewal project in the late 1920s, spearheaded by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to help revitalize Midtown Manhattan. Rockefeller Center is on one of Columbia University's former campuses and is bounded by Fifth Avenue to the east, Sixth Avenue to the west, 48th Street to the south, and 51st Street to the north. The center occupies 22 acres (8.9 ha) in total, with some 17 million square feet of office space.
1 Rockefeller Plaza is a 36-story building located on the east side of Rockefeller Plaza between 48th and 49th Streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1937, the tower is part of Rockefeller Center and, like the rest of the complex, was built in the Art Deco style.
10 Rockefeller Plaza is a 16-story building located on Rockefeller Plaza between 48th and 49th Streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Completed in 1940, the building is part of Rockefeller Center and, like the rest of the complex, was built in the Art Deco style.
The International Building, also known by its addresses 630 Fifth Avenue and 45 Rockefeller Plaza, is a skyscraper at Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1935, the 41-story, 512 ft (156 m) building was designed in the Art Deco style by Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect. The main tower is set back from Fifth Avenue and includes two 6-story wings to the east, known as Palazzo d'Italia and International Building North. The wings flank an entrance plaza that contains Lee Lawrie's Atlas statue.
The Rockefeller Apartments is a residential building at 17 West 54th Street and 24 West 55th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Wallace Harrison and J. André Fouilhoux in the International Style, the Rockefeller Apartments was constructed between 1935 and 1936. The complex was originally designed with 138 apartments.
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