Comcast Building
1250 Avenue of the Americas | also 30B Rockefeller Plaza, 49 West 49th Street, 1250C Avenue of the Americas | Midtown | built 1937
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1931
A Prohibition-era saloon holds out as Rockefeller Center rises around it
At 1240 Sixth Avenue, at the northeast corner of 49th Street, a four-story Victorian building held the saloon Hurley Brothers and Daly, leased in 1892 by Patrick Daly and brothers Daniel and Connie Hurley. During Prohibition the bar moved to the back with an unmarked entrance on 49th Street, while florists and other shops used the front. When Rockefeller Center was built, the tenants, who leased but did not own the building, asked a huge sum to leave. The tower rose around the building, and a bar kept the Hurley's name until closing on September 2, 1999.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1932
Todd and Hood sail for Europe to find artists for the RCA Building's interior
On September 2, 1932, John Todd and Raymond Hood sailed to Europe to find artists for the interior of the RCA Building. Henri Matisse turned them down, and they never even made contact with Pablo Picasso. They did land Jose Maria Sert, Diego Rivera and Frank Brangwyn. Hood then wrote to Rockefeller that Rivera's work would face the main entrance, Sert's the north wall and Brangwyn's the south.
“After being turned down by Henri Matisse and not even making contact with Pablo Picasso, Hood and Todd met success…”
- 1932
Eleven ironworkers pose for Lunch atop a Skyscraper on the 69th floor
On September 20, 1932, eleven ironworkers sat on a steel beam on the 69th floor of the unfinished RCA Building, about 850 feet up, for a staged photograph. It was arranged as part of a publicity campaign for the skyscraper, and other frames showed the men tossing a football and feigning sleep on the girder. The photographer's identity is still uncertain, though Charles C. Ebbets has been suggested.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1933
Rockefeller Center orders Diego Rivera to stop painting his lobby mural
Rivera began work in March 1933, after Nelson Rockefeller let him paint in color on the plaster itself. As the composition took shape, a head of Lenin and workers carrying red flags stood out, and Nelson asked for another face. Rivera offered to balance Lenin with an American historical leader but said he would rather see the whole mural destroyed than mutilated. On May 9 the Center ordered him off the job, paid him in full and hid the fresco behind canvas.
“On May 9, the Center ordered Rivera to stop work and covered the fresco with canvas.”
- 1933
Brangwyn's lobby panels arrive, with Christ painted facing away from the viewer
Frank Brangwyn's four panels for the south corridor reached the RCA Building in December 1933, each 25 feet wide and 17 high. His last panel showed the Sermon on the Mount. Rockefeller Center officials, perhaps still wary after the Lenin dispute, suggested replacing the figure of Christ with a shaft of light from heaven. Brangwyn objected, and the compromise was a hooded Christ with his back to the viewer.
“…his back turned to the spectator, standing against a background of lighted clouds…”
- 1933
Express elevators reach the 65th floor in about 37 seconds
Westinghouse installed eight high-speed elevators in the RCA Building. Seven rose at 1,200 feet per minute, while one reached 1,400 and was billed as the fastest passenger ride on record, delivering guests to the 65th floor in just over 37 seconds. The lifts took 13 percent of the construction budget, and the Rockefellers successfully lobbied the city to raise the allowed speed from 700 feet per minute.
- 1933
Raymond Hood's RCA Building receives its first tenant at Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center's Associated Architects, led by Raymond Hood, designed this 66-story Art Deco tower, and its first tenant moved in on April 22, 1933. It was the RCA Building until 1988 and then the GE Building, and NBC has had its studios and headquarters here. Westinghouse installed eight express elevators that ran at about 1,200 feet per minute and made up 13 percent of the construction cost.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1934
Workmen with axes destroy Rivera's mural in the RCA Building lobby
In February 1934 Rockefeller Center workmen demolished Rivera's Man at the Crossroads, reportedly near midnight and with axes. The destruction came even though there had been talks about shipping the work to the Museum of Modern Art, and the painter's supporters had demonstrated. Rivera later repainted the frescoes at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, adding John D. Rockefeller Jr. in a nightclub scene, and he never worked in the United States again.
Source: pbs.org
- 1934
The planned Stratosphere Room is renamed the Rainbow Room after RCA's color organ
The 65th-floor restaurant was first slated to be the Stratosphere Room, a name meant to stress its height. In late August 1934 it became the Rainbow Room instead. The new name came from an RCA color organ that turned music into shifting colored light across the dome and dance floor. A companion Wurlitzer organ was criticized as funereal and was seldom played after 1935.
- 1934
The Rainbow Room opens on the 65th floor
The Rainbow Room opened on the tower's 65th floor in 1934 and was the highest restaurant in the United States for decades. The rooftop observation deck, now called Top of the Rock, had opened the year before, 850 feet above the street.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1937
Sert's American Progress fills the lobby wall left empty by Rivera's destroyed mural
After talks with Picasso to fill the space collapsed, Jose Maria Sert painted American Progress on the entrance lobby's west wall in 1937, replacing Rivera's disgraced mural. Sert had already decorated the north corridor in 1933, and he treated mural painting as an extension of a building's function rather than a political platform. In March 1941 he added Time on the ceiling above the Rockefeller Plaza entrance.
- 1937
Studio 8-H hosts the NBC Symphony's first broadcast concert, led by Monteux
NBC built Studio 8-H in its Radio City studios for a new orchestra assembled for Arturo Toscanini. The NBC Symphony's first broadcast concert, on November 13, 1937, was conducted by Pierre Monteux, and Toscanini made his NBC debut on December 25. In 1950 NBC converted the studio for television, and it has been the home of Saturday Night Live since 1975.
“The orchestra's first concert was broadcast on November 13, 1937, under the direction of Monteux.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1969
An anti-Vietnam War bomb damages the 19th floor
In 1969 a bomb set off in protest against the Vietnam War exploded on the 19th floor of the RCA Building. It caused substantial damage, but no one was hurt. The building stayed highly occupied through those years, and even in the 1973-75 recession it never fell below 88 percent occupancy.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1985
The Landmarks Commission designates the RCA Building's lobby interior
On April 23, 1985, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the ground-floor and mezzanine interior of the RCA Building, covering the Rockefeller Plaza entrance lobby, the corridors and elevator halls, and the stairways to the mezzanine and concourse. Protection reached the murals, marble piers, information desk, revolving doors and elevator doors along with the walls, floors and ceilings.
“RCA BUILDING, ground floor interior consisting of the Rockefeller Plaza entrance lobby…”
- 1987
Hugh Hardy's restoration reopens the Rainbow Room with its compass-rose dance floor
After closing in January 1986, the Rainbow Room reopened in December 1987 following a restoration led by architect Hugh Hardy. The project re-created the floor's 10-point compass rose, brought back the glass globes along the railings and replaced most surface materials. New touches included an entrance at the southwest corner and Orbit, a wall of light about 15 feet wide by glass artist Dan Dailey, set behind the entertainers' balcony.
“The Rainbow Room (and the adjoining spaces on the 65th floor) reopened with great fanfare in December 1987.”
- 1987
NBC agrees to stay at 30 Rockefeller Plaza after city and state offer huge incentives
With NBC weighing a move out of Rockefeller Center, city and state officials offered it a package at the end of 1987: tax exemptions worth $72 million, $800 million in industrial bonds and deferred sales taxes on $1.1 billion of purchases. NBC did not have to repay the incentives if it stayed until 2002. It extended its lease by 35 years, into 2022, and gained an option to buy the western and central sections.
“NBC agreed to stay at 30 Rockefeller Plaza at the end of 1987 after city and state officials offered $72 million in tax exemptions…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
Hurley's, the saloon wrapped by the RCA Building, serves its last beer
On September 2, 1999, owner Adrien Barbey poured the last beer at Hurley's, the bar at Sixth Avenue and 49th Street that had stood there for 102 years. Over the decades it became a hangout for NBC technicians, who called it Studio 1-H, and a running gag in Johnny Carson's Ed McMahon drinking jokes. Customers filled the windowsills with flowers and carried off menus and matchbooks as souvenirs.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2005
Top of the Rock reopens after nearly two decades closed
The observation deck had been shut since 1986, when a Rainbow Room renovation cut off its only access. Two existing elevator shafts were lengthened and the owners built a ground-floor entrance on 50th Street so visitors no longer passed through the restaurant. Following a renovation by Gabellini Sheppard Associates, it reopened in November 2005 under the name Top of the Rock.
“The deck reopened in November 2005 after a renovation by Gabellini Sheppard Associates.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 30 Rockefeller PlazaWikipedia
- Rockefeller Center's David vs. Goliath -- 1240 Sixth AvenueDaytonian in Manhattan
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