Three female figures are Nereids and three male figures are Tritons.&nbsp; The Nereids were sea nymphs in Greek mythology, fifty in total, daughters of Nereus and Doris.&nbsp; Their name simply means, Children of Nereu. They helped sailors on their voyages when they faced fierce storms.&nbsp;&nbsp; The oldest mention of the Nereids comes from&nbsp; Plato,&nbsp; a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens.&nbsp; When Plato was describing the Temple of Poseidon on the central island of Atlantis, he said that there was a golden statue of Poseidon with one hundred sculptured Nereids riding dolphins around the base of the statue.

Channel Gardens 

Tritons, Nereids and Dolphins

Lunch atop a Skyscraper is a famous photograph, depicting 11 ironworkers eating lunch on a steel beam 850 feet above the ground during the construction of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York City. Often misattributed to Lewis Hine, the true photographer's identity remains uncertain, though evidence suggests it may have been Charles C. Ebbets. The photograph, a symbol of the Great Depression, has become an iconic image of New York and has inspired various artworks and tributes.

Original caption: "While New York's thousands rush to crowded restaurants and congested lunch counters for their noon day lunch, these intrepid steel workers atop the 70 story RCA building in Rockefeller Center get all the air and freedom they want by lunching on a steel beam with a sheer drop of over 800 feet to the street level. The RCA building is the largest office building in terms of office space in the world."

Lunch atop a Skyscraper photographed

Hurley's Bar opened around 1870. During Prohibition, the owners opened a flower shop as a front. When Rockefeller Center was planned, Mr. Hurley demanded his property be allowed to remain. In 1999, the bar finally closed, but the building remains, with a twin dwarf structure on the northern end of the block. 


Hurley's Bar

Historian James Kaplan explains the presence of this dwarfed building next to Rockefeller Center: the former home of Hurley's Bar. 

This relief depicts Columbia, the personification of America. She holds a torch in one hand and an olive branch in the other. Pegasus, the horse, represents inspiration, and the eagle depicts power. All the symbols represent America both in the 1930s and what it stands for today.

Progress

C. Paul Jennewein's relief depicts industries (and colonies) of the British Empire. Nine allegorical figures are shown, each one representing a country and a trade good. The British Isles are represented by three men--a seaman, a fisherman, and a miner--each holding objects that show their individual trades. India is represented by three figures. Each hold a specific good: Sugar, tobacco, and salt. Africa is represented by cotton, wool depicts the nation of Australia. Finally, Canada is shown--a figure holds a stalk of wheat. The sun shown at the bottom refers to the saying, "The sun never sets on British soil."

Industries of the British Empire

Workers at Rockefeller Center pooled their money together to buy a Christmas tree. The men decorated the 20-foot high balsam fir with handmade garlands made by their families. This photo, taken on Christmas Eve, shows the men lined up to receive their wages.

Rockefeller Center decided to make the Christmas Tree an annual tradition, and held the very first tree lighting ceremony. Two trees were erected at Rockefeller Center in December 1936, and a skating pageant was held at the newly opened ice skating rink on the Plaza.

Construction workers purchased and decorated a 20-ft. tree in the Rockefeller Center construction site on Christmas Eve 1931, as the Great Depression wore on. They added just a few decorations: cranberries, paper garland and tin cans.

The years that followed brought slightly bigger and much brighter trees.

Rockefeller Center

Christmas Tree Lighting at Rockefeller Center

The carpeting, wall coverings and upholstery fabrics were restored to their early bold patterns and textures, and the murals to their full brilliance. Original Donald Deskey furniture and light fixtures were refurbished and restored. Many exterior design elements were also brought back, heightening the building's nighttime drama. Marquee lighting was restored to red-and-blue neon piping and gold lettering, not seen since the 1930s. Back-of-house areas and theater technologies were also improved, as some of the original stage machinery and technical systems remain in use.

One of the nation's most famous theaters, Radio City Music Hall houses New York's most awe-inspiring spaces. No other hall combines such history and grandeur. When the hall opened in 1932, it was the world's largest theater with 6,200 seats.&nbsp;

Radio City Music Hall

Hugh Hardy of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture discusses the history of Radio City Music Hall and its significance in the architecture of New York City.

Two sculptures were commissioned to flank the Titan Prometheus. 

At the top of the staircase leading to the skating rink in Rockefeller Plaza

Mankind Figures (Maiden and Youth)

That evening the Rockettes gave their first performance in radio city music hall. &nbsp;It was said that 100,000 people tried to get one of the 6000 seats available in the worlds largest theater. &nbsp;It goes without saying that even though the idea of a precision dance troop originated elsewhere (here England via St Louis), New York embraced and developed the concept until it became an iconic symbol of the city.What would develop into the signiature Christmas show was at least a year away.&nbsp; Over the next century, some 6000 tall long-legged women proudly kicked into the sorority. &nbsp;

Photo by Richard Drew&nbsp;

The Rockettes Opened Radio City Music Hall

 The congregation was founded. It is one of the oldest continuous Protestant congregations in North America.  

 Built its first church in 1731 on Nassau Street.  

 During the American Revolutionary War, when the British occupied New York, the Nassau Street building was used as a prison, a hospital, and a riding school. After the war it was converted back to a church, but became the city's main post office in 1844, a role it played for over 30 years. 

 Meanwhile, the congregation built another sanctuary on Lafayette Place from 1836 to 1839. Called the Second Middle Collegiate Church, or the Lafayette Place Middle Dutch Church, it was an Isaiah Rogers-designed Greek Revival building with a spire, an unusual combination which provoked the remark that the spire was there to Christianize the pagan building below it.  

 The congregation abandoned the building in 1887, and it was razed, but not before the bell was moved to the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas. It returned to the Middle Collegiate Church &ndash; by now at Second Avenue &ndash; when St. Nicholas was demolished in December 1949. 

The Gothic Revival church was built from 1891 to 1892 as the congregation's fourth location, and was designed by Samuel B. Reed. It featured stained-glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany. It is located within the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District. It is part of the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church.

 A fire spread to the church from a neighboring building, engulfing the structure and left intact only the exterior stone walls. The fire took nearly eight hours to extinguish. The roof collapsed, the Tiffany windows were blown out and the sanctuary was destroyed. The "Liberty Bell" also survived. The tower in which it hung was also not destroyed. 

The remaining facade was demolished in November 2023. The congregation plans to build afresh, with elements salvaged from the old church building

Middle Collegiate Church

Second Middle Collegiate Church

Northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 48th Street near Rockefeller Center

St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church

Top of the Rock opens a progressive new chapter in the life of an iconic New York building. A designated Landmark since 1985, 30 Rockefeller Plaza is home to GE offices, NBC broadcasting studios, and the legendary Rainbow Room restaurant as well as an underground retail Concourse and ground-floor public lobby. Following two decades of disuse, the historic observation decks atop the building have been reopened to the public and integrated with new interior spaces to create an enhanced visitor experience from the ground up. The expanded program and restored facilities renew Rockefeller Center's legacy as a pioneer in urban planning and placemaking.

The project comprises 55,000 square feet on six levels of the building, and was accomplished without impeding daily activities within the skyscraper. Continuous collaboration with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission distinguished the design process from the outset. New public visitor space and atrium were carved from non-historic offices on the lower three levels of the building, while the original observation decks on the upper three levels were burnished and connected via newly created interior spaces. Blending contemporary forms with the Art Deco tradition of the 1933 building, the project celebrates Rockefeller Center's ever-evolving narrative from old to new, from ground to sky, and from site to city.

Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center

Its massing includes a main tower, a central windowless section, and a western annex. The limestone facade features about 6,000 windows and includes the Rainbow Room restaurant and Top of the Rock observation deck. It formerly housed Diego Rivera's mural "Man at the Crossroads." Controversy over the Rivera mural delayed its official opening, but the Rainbow Room and observation deck opened soon after.

The underwent extensive renovations and was renamed for Comcast in 2015.

A prominent Art Deco skyscraper located in Rockefeller Center. Standing at 850 feet with 66 stories. Originally home to RCA and later General Electric, it was renamed for GE in 1988. it now bears the name of its current owner, Comcast. The building houses the headquarters and New York studios of NBC, earning it the nickname "30 Rock."

30 Rockefeller Plaza

One of the most famous sculptures in the world, this fountain celebrates Prometheus, who fashioned man out of clay then gave him fire.

Located in the Lower Plaza next to the skating rink/ fountain

Prometheus

Noguchi won this commission in 1932 to create a large sculpture for the building's former tenant, the Associated Press. The sculpture, the first large sculpture to be cast in stainless steel, represents the workers at the Associated Press. Five modernist figures are depicted in actions such as typing on a typewriter, writing down the story, talking on the phone, and taking a photograph. 

Located on the entrance to the Associated Press Building, 50 Rockefeller Plaza.

Associated Press Building

News

This large relief contains an abundance of symbolism. Both the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross, are pictured, symbolizing the north and south hemispheres. The new order is represented by the eagle and smokestack; the old order is symbolized by the Norman Tower and the Lion.
The East is represented by a Mosque; an Aztec Temple represents the West. Four figures shown right over the door represent the four races of man.

Located on the north side of the International Building in Rockefeller Plaza.

Pierced Stone Grille

In this classic romantic comedy, starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan and Bill Pullman .The Plaza is featured when Pullman (Walter) stays at the hotel after arriving in New York. In a famous scene, he reunites with his fiance Meg Ryan (Annie), and she enters in front of the Fifth Avenue entrance.The Empire State Building is featured when Meg Ryan writes to Tom hanks proposing they meet atop the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day, and they finally meet at the end of the movie.

The Empire State Building

The Plaza Hotel

Tiffany & Co.

Sleepless in Seattle (movie)

Hildreth Meière’s roundels of Dance, Drama, and Song on the 50th Street facade of Radio City Music Hall are her most visible work. Often cited as iconic examples of Art Deco design, the roundels were fabricated in mixed metal and enamel. A recently developed process that kept dissimilar metals from affecting each other when used together out of doors made it possible for Meière to select metals for their color potential and combine them on a scale never before attempted. Each roundel is eighteen feet in diameter.&nbsp;Too big to be cast, the sculptures were fabricated by the master metalsmith Oscar B. Bach, who “beat them into shape in the manner of a silversmith.” He then added vitreous enamel colors to the figures by grinding fragments of colored glass into powder, mixing the powder with water, and applying the mixture evenly to the metal surface. During the firing that followed, the particles of glass powder fused to form a thin, colored glaze of glass enamel that adhered to the metal surface.While Meière was working on her design for Dance, a reporter visited her in her studio and described what she saw:Over at the easel Mr. Lynn Fausett, Miss Meière’s assistant, was painting in detail in silvery tones the medallions with a figure representing the dance. Even that small section of the design, hardly more than four or five feet square, gave an impressive idea of the brilliantly decorative qualities that will distinguish the completed work. Strewn around on a table were numerous small pencil sketches of the designs on transparent paper. Each sketch must be drawn many times before it is ready to be enlarged, Miss Meière said. Each of these sketches must be a piece of creative work, never mind how many times the artist has drawn and redrawn it. If two or three sketches were merely tracings of the first, the quality of the final design would be less vital.<a href="https://culturenow.org/people/hildreth-meiere?name=Hildreth_Meiere">[1]</a>Meière’s designs for Dance, Drama and Song evolved gradually, as evidenced by her numerous sketches and studies. She sent sketches to her mentor from Nebraska, Hartley Burr Alexander, who had been hired to provide a unified iconography for Rockefeller Center, but had been dismissed from the project:I know you felt they ought to be very modern, and I could have wept that you weren’t here to tell me what you meant and help me do it. The more I studied the material with Oscar Bach the more simple and classical I became, and I am afraid you will think that they are too derivative from the Greek vase sort of thing. I will have my sketches photostatted and send them out for you to see. I’m afraid it is rather too late to do more than regret their mistakes, as the designs have now been officially approved. However, I have to put some clothes on my nude figure of Song! I believe that was a Rockefeller touch.<a href="https://culturenow.org/people/hildreth-meiere?name=Hildreth_Meiere">[2]</a>

50th street facade of Radio City Music Hall

Dance, Drama, Song

All that remains of the original commission are Meière’s sketches and a photograph showing her design on the theater’s facade.

For the 49th Street facade of the RKO Center Theatre (razed in 1954), Hildreth Meière depicted Radio and Television Encompassing the Earth, a sculpture measuring 18 x 35 feet. As he had done with Meière’s Dance, Drama and Song on the facade of Radio City Music Hall, Oscar B. Bach fabricated her design in mixed metal and enamel. Bach “beat them into shape in the manner of a silversmith.”1 He then added vitreous enamel colors to the figures by grinding fragments of colored glass into powder, mixing the powder with water, and applying the mixture evenly to the metal surface. During the firing that followed, the particles of glass powder fused to form a thin, colored glaze of glass enamel that adhered to the metal surface.In 1988, sculptor Gary Sussman, using a different technique from Bach, created a sculpture based on one of Meière’s watercolor studies for Radio and Television Encompassing the Earth. His cast bas relief can be seen in the west concourse of Rockefeller Center at the subway access level:

RKO Center Theatre

Radio and Television Encompassing the Earth

Historian James Kaplan discusses both Rockefeller Center as well as the founding of Tammany Hall. 

Rockefeller Center

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