Associated Press Building
50 Rockefeller Plaza | also 40 West 51st Street, 40 Rockefeller Plaza, 41 West 50th Street | Midtown | built 1932
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1938
A contest for the Associated Press entrance panel draws 188 entries, and Isamu Noguchi wins with his three-day design
A competition for a sculpture over the Associated Press Building's entrance was announced in January 1938. It was open only to American sculptors and was one of just two contests held at Rockefeller Center. Of 188 proposals, Isamu Noguchi sent in two. He spent two months on one and three days on the other, and the quick one won.
“Of the 188 proposals submitted, two were entered by Noguchi. He worked on one for two months, the other for three days.”
- 1938
NBC marks the Associated Press's 90th anniversary and its new building with an hour-long Christmas broadcast
On Christmas Day 1938 NBC aired an hour-long program honoring the Associated Press's ninetieth anniversary and the opening of its new Rockefeller Center home. The landmark report notes that press and radio, early rivals, had by then moved toward cooperation. Time magazine was already airing The March of Time, and the AP building included its own newsreel theater.
- 1938
The AP builds a 15-story block around a 5-by-12-foot switchboard and four million feet of wire
The Associated Press wanted large open floors rather than naturally lit offices, so its building broke the complex's usual window-to-corridor depth, the first office tower there to do so. Floors held photoengraving, laboratories and radio reception, and the nerve center was a switchboard measuring 5 by 12 feet. It linked the AP to 1,400 offices through 4,000,000 feet of wire in covered channels on the fourth floor, and air conditioning made up for the missing windows.
“…its 5 foot x 12 foot switchboard --- the nerve center which connected A.P. to 1,400 offices nationwide with 4,000,000 feet of wire…”
- 1938
The Associated Press Building ends hopes for continuous rooftop gardens across Rockefeller Center
Early plans for this lot included a hotel, a department store or an extension of the International Building, each kept low to match the roofline of Radio City Music Hall next door. Money problems instead pushed the developers toward a 15-story office building. The landmark report says the AP Building, with Eastern Airlines' building the following year, killed the idea of a connected network of gardens on rooftops across the whole complex.
- 1938
Steelwork for the Associated Press Building goes up in 29 working days
In January 1938 the Associated Press agrees to rent floors four through seven of a new building on Rockefeller Center's northern lot, which is to carry the company's name. Steelwork for the 15-story structure begins in April and is topped out by June, after 29 working days. The news agency moves in that December.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1938
The Associated Press opens the Guild newsreel theater below its building
In 1938 the Associated Press opens the Guild, a newsreel theater built beside the bend of the truck ramp under its new headquarters. The Guild Theater has 450 seats and remains in the building until 1999.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1940
Nelson Rockefeller unveils Noguchi's stainless-steel News relief over the Associated Press entrance
Isamu Noguchi's panel over the entrance was unveiled on April 29, 1940, at a ceremony Nelson Rockefeller attended. Speaking as president of Rockefeller Center, he hoped it would be seen as a celebration of America's intellectual freedom and a rebuke to totalitarian ideologies. Noguchi, then 34, insisted on stainless steel and supervised new casting methods, grinding the sections so finely that the seams nearly vanished.
“The sculpture was unveiled on April 29, 1940 in a ceremony attended by Nelson Rockefeller.”
- 1999
The Guild Theater, the 450-seat newsreel house beneath the Associated Press building, ends its run
The Guild Theater, a 450-seat newsreel house, operated beneath the Associated Press building from 1938 until 1999. The Associated Press opened it in 1938, and it lay beside the bend of the ramp that carries trucks under the building.
“The building also contained the Guild Theater, a 450-seat newsreel theater, from 1938 to 1999.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
The Associated Press announces it will leave the building that bore its name
In 2003 the Associated Press announces plans to relocate because it does not want to renew its lease, which is about to expire. The agency later moves to Manhattan West on 33rd Street. The building, called the Associated Press Building since 1938, drops that name in 2004.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 50 Rockefeller PlazaWikipedia
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