Rockefeller Center description and photos - USA: New York (Topic)

Rockefeller Center description and photos - USA: New York. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Rockefeller Center.

Photo and description

Rockefeller Center is one of the largest attractions in New York. The attractive power of this place, which is, in fact, just a large office center, is striking.

It was conceived in the late twenties of the XX century by John Rockefeller Jr. The original project included a new theater for the Metropolitan Opera surrounded by business buildings. However, the stock market crash of 1929 made adjustments: the theater had to be abandoned, investors fled. Then Rockefeller decided to finance the construction on his own.

Architect Raymond Goode developed projects for fourteen Art Deco buildings. Construction began in 1930. The project had a huge impact on New York: during the Great Depression, it created more than forty thousand jobs. The truth is that people at that time agreed to work on any terms. In 1932, photographer Charles Clyde Ebbets took the famous Lunch at the Top of a Skyscraper. It shows eleven workers sitting on a steel beam without any insurance (height - 256 meters) having lunch.

Finding tenants in those days was not easy. The managers of the Center tried to lease one building to German companies and call it "German House". Rockefeller, a staunch opponent of Hitler, refused. During the war, a British secret organization settled here, whose task was to fight against German espionage. Nearby was the office of Allen Dulles, the future head of the CIA.

Fourteen international-style towers and the Lehman Brothers Building were added to the fourteen original buildings after the war. The most famous buildings of the huge complex are the Radio City Music Hall with a theater hall for 6,000 spectators, the GE building (the headquarters of the NBC television network), the Art Center.

The Art Center is notable for the use of monumental painting and sculpture. In the square in front of the building there is a gilded statue of Prometheus by Paul Menship, nearby is a bronze statue of Atlanta sculpted by Lee Laurie.

In the lobby of the GE Building, there is a fresco by Spanish artist Jose Maria Serta "American Progress". In the thirties, Matisse and Picasso were invited to paint the lobby, but the project did not materialize. Rockefeller's wife Abby Aldrich proposed the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, whom she patronized. Rivera painted a striking 99-square-meter mural titled "Man at a Crossroads." One of the fragments depicted the May Day parade in Moscow and Lenin. Rockefeller categorically refused to accept the fresco, paid for the work of Rivere, but did not show the result to the public. They tried to transfer the fresco to the Museum of Modern Art - it did not work, and it was destroyed. Instead, "American Progress" appeared.

The headquarters of large companies are located in Rockefeller Center. In underground spaces - shops, restaurants. In the center of the complex is an ice rink that opens on Columbus Day (October 14) and runs until early April. At the end of November, a huge Christmas tree 25-27 meters high is brought here. It is always someone's gift: it is an honor to donate the fir to Rockefeller Center.

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Topic: Rockefeller Center description and photos - USA: New York.