Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 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.

In 1928, Columbia University, the owner of the site until 1985, leased the land to John D. Rockefeller Jr., the complex's developer. Originally envisioned as the site for a new Metropolitan Opera building, the current Rockefeller Center came about after the Met could not afford to move to the proposed new building. Various plans were discussed before the current one was approved in 1932. Construction of Rockefeller Center started in 1931, and the first buildings opened in 1933. The core of the complex was completed by 1939. Described as one of the greatest projects of the Great Depression era, Rockefeller Center became a New York City designated landmark in 1985 and a National Historic Landmark in 1987. The complex and associated land has been controlled since 2000 by Tishman Speyer, which bought the property for $1.85 billion.

The original center has several sections. Radio City, along Sixth Avenue and centered on 30 Rockefeller Plaza, includes Radio City Music Hall and was built for RCA's radio-related enterprises such as NBC. The International Complex along Fifth Avenue was built to house foreign-based tenants. The remainder of the original complex originally hosted printed media as well as Eastern Air Lines. While 600 Fifth Avenue is at the southeast corner of the complex, it was built by private interests in the 1950s and was only acquired by the center in 1963. The complex is noted for the large quantities of art present in almost all of its buildings, its expansive underground concourse, its ice-skating rink, and its annual lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.

History

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.

thumb|alt=The old Metropolitan Opera House|Rockefeller Center originated as a plan to replace the [[Metropolitan Opera House (39th Street)|old Metropolitan Opera House (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.

thumb|Construction progress in December 1933

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.

thumb|The iconic photograph [[Lunch atop a Skyscraper 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,