Rockefeller Center: How a Failed Opera House Became a City Within the City

By Solomon Rokowsky

30 Rockefeller Plaza from Fifth Avenue. Photograph by D. Benjamin Miller, via Wikimedia Commons. CC0.

Rockefeller Center began as a plan for a new Metropolitan Opera and became the largest private building project of its time. The Landmarks Preservation Commission says the Opera withdrew in 1929, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. went ahead as a commercial developer. Construction began in 1931, and the fourteenth building was finished in 1939. The commission designated the center a landmark on April 23, 1985.

How did Rockefeller Center begin?

Rockefeller agreed on October 1, 1928 to lease three blocks between 48th and 51st Streets from Columbia University, the commission says. The contract was signed on December 31, 1928, at about $3.5 million a year from 1928 to 1952, with options for three 21-year renewals. The plan was to build around a new home for the Metropolitan Opera. In 1929 the developers held an architectural symposium judged by John Russell Pope, Cass Gilbert and Milton B. Medary, but no scheme won. The Opera decided on December 5, 1929 not to move, and the stock market had crashed in October. The next day John R. Todd announced that planning would be for a commercial center instead.

Who designed Rockefeller Center?

Todd, Robertson & Todd became the managers on October 1, 1929, and their staff architects, Reinhard & Hofmeister, were named architects. Todd also recommended Harvey Corbett as a consulting architect and suggested Raymond Hood. In February 1930 the architects united as the Associated Architects: Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray; Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux; and Reinhard & Hofmeister. The commission describes the result as architecture by committee. The project was called Metropolitan Square until late December 1931, when it was renamed Rockefeller Center.

Rockefeller Center and the RCA Building, December 1933. Samuel H. Gottscho, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

What is 30 Rockefeller Plaza?

The RCA Building, now 30 Rockefeller Plaza, is the center's 70-story tower. About 300 men began excavating it in July 1931, and steelwork began early the next year. The commission says the tower rises sheer for 33 stories before gentle setbacks, which makes it an early example of the slab form among New York skyscrapers. Buff Indiana limestone clads the buildings. Three axes organize the complex: Fifth Avenue, the Channel Gardens and Rockefeller Plaza. The sunken plaza is the center of the center.

Prometheus above the sunken plaza and rink. Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

What is the art at Rockefeller Center?

The commission says the professor Hartley Burr Alexander designed the sculptural program's themes. A panel of five art experts replaced him in March 1932. The report names Paul Manship's gilded Prometheus as the focus of the plaza and Lee Lawrie's Atlas as the focus of the International Building courtyard. Lawrie made fourteen works at the complex, including the sculpture over the entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Gaston Lachaise made sculptural panels for the RCA Building West, the report says. The rink on the sunken plaza opened to the public on Christmas Day 1936, according to the official Rockefeller Center website.

The Channel Gardens. Photograph by Larry D. Moore, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

How did Rockefeller Center change?

The commission says the Esso Building was added in 1946 to 1947 and that the center bought the Sinclair Oil Building in 1963. The American Institute of Architects gave the center its first Twenty-Five Year Award in 1969, and architects ranked it second only to Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia in a 1976 survey.

Who owns Rockefeller Center today?

Tishman Speyer and the Crown family of Chicago bought the center in 2001. A press announcement valued the property at $1.85 billion. Before that, Mitsubishi Estate had bought a 51 percent interest in the Rockefeller Group in 1989 for $846 million, the New York Times reported. In 2024 Tishman Speyer and Henry Crown & Co. refinanced the 7.3 million square foot campus with a $3.5 billion loan, according to the Tishman Speyer press release.

Sources

• NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Rockefeller Center designation report, 1985
• Rockefeller Center, The Best Ice Skating in New York City
• Tishman Speyer and Crown Family acquisition announcement, 2000
• The New York Times, Japanese Buy New York Cachet With Deal for Rockefeller Center, 1989
• Tishman Speyer, $3.5 billion refinancing for Rockefeller Center