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Rockefeller Center: A Complex Full of Variety


Rockefeller Center is located exactly in the center of Midtown Manhattan between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It is a complex that has 19 commercial buildings. The newer Rockefeller Center buildings are the headquarters of the News Corporation/Fox News Channel and The Time & Life Building. In 1928, John Rockefeller Jr. leased the space where the building is located from Columbia University. Rockefeller Center is named after him. The original idea of Rockefeller was to build an opera house for the Metropolitan Opera Company; however, the crash of the stock market in 1929 made him change his mind. The main architect of the building was Raymond Hood.

Radio City Music Hall is located in this complex. Radio Corporation of America was one of the first tenants of Rockefeller Center; therefore the origin of the names Radio City and Radio City Music Hall. The main building of Rockefeller Center is called the GE Building (old RCA Building). It has 71 floors and it is located behind the sunken plaza in the center of it. In the 80’s, the building was renamed when General Electric (GE) acquired RCA again (RCA helped to found General Electric in 1919). This skyscraper houses the headquarters of the New York studios of NBC (which is owned by GE). It houses the largest studio, the famous Studio 8H (home of Saturday Night Live). The GE building has a flat roof; there, the observation deck called Top of the Rock is located. A restaurant called the Rainbow Room is located on the 65th floor of the complex. If you are not scared of heights, visit every single floor of Rockefeller Center.



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