I arrive early on a crisp autumn morning, stepping out of the subway into Rockefeller Center’s underground concourse. Even at 8 AM, the complex hums with life. Businesspeople weave through corridors of Art Deco mosaics, and the aroma of coffee wafts from the cafés lining the polished halls.
Ascending into daylight, I find myself face-to-face with 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s limestone façade. A soaring yet elegant 70-story tower crowned by a gleaming relief of Wisdom by sculptor Lee Lawrie.
As a traveler and journalist, I feel a sense of familiarity mixed with awe: this is the legendary “30 Rock,” longtime home of NBC studios and the backdrop for countless films and TV shows.
In the plaza behind me, a gold statue of Prometheus reclines above a fountain, and seasonal flags flutter around the famous sunken skating rink. It’s immediately clear why Rockefeller Center is acclaimed as “one of the grandest architectural projects ever undertaken in the United States”, as New York’s Landmarks Commission put it.
I’ve come to explore how this place, part architectural marvel, part cultural stage, became a landmark of New York modernism.
Architectural Vision of a “City Within a City”
Rockefeller Center is often described as a “city within a city,” and walking its campus, I understand why. The complex spans 22 acres and originally comprised 14 coordinated buildings in sleek Art Deco style.
Unlike the older masonry skyscrapers with ornate crowns downtown, these structures embrace modernist principles: simplicity of form, setbacks that dance upward, and an integration of art, light, and space that feels forward-looking.
Conceived in the late 1920s and 1930s, Rockefeller Center’s design team – a consortium called “Associated Architects” led by Raymond Hood – rejected the clutter of past styles in favor of streamlined verticality and functionality. Hood, a renowned skyscraper architect, envisioned large towers grouped around open plazas, believing a “city of towers” could harmonize density with openness.
His team’s master plan broke away from Manhattan’s typical block-by-block hodgepodge and instead treated three Midtown blocks as a single, planned composition.
The result of Hood’s vision is an architectural symphony in limestone, steel, and public art. Each building’s form was shaped by the 1916 zoning law requiring setbacks – producing the wedding-cake silhouettes of 1930s skyscrapers – yet here the setbacks are artfully coordinated across the complex.
The tallest tower, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, rises at the center to 70 stories, while lower structures step down toward Fifth Avenue, respecting the scale of St. Patrick’s Cathedral across the street.
As I wander along the Channel Gardens (a landscaped promenade leading from Fifth Avenue into the complex), I appreciate this “transition from the intimate to the monumental” that critic Lewis Mumford praised in Rockefeller Center’s design.
Human-scaled shopfronts and sculptures at street level gradually give way to soaring corporate towers – a gentle urban choreography that makes the complex feel welcoming, not overpowering.
Everywhere I look, art and architecture intermingle. Carved friezes, murals, and sculptures carry themes of progress, commerce, and hope – fulfilling John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s intent to “surround [people] with art and motifs that celebrated the best of the human spirit.”
Above 30 Rock’s entrance, Lawrie’s Wisdom gazes sternly over pedestrians, while inside the lobby I crane my neck to admire the epic mural American Progress by Josep Maria Sert, illustrating “the development of America through the unity of brain and brawn”.
In the Lower Plaza, the gilded figure of Prometheus by Paul Manship hovers above the fountain, a symbol of mankind stealing fire, glowing brilliantly by day and night.
And at the Fifth Avenue entrance stands the Atlas statue (1937) – the mighty Titan holding up the heavens – positioned dramatically across from the Gothic cathedral’s spires. It’s hard to think of another urban project before or since that so seamlessly weaves fine art into its fabric.
This integration was groundbreaking in its time and helped set Rockefeller Center apart as a new kind of modern environment: one that nourished the soul as well as the eye.
Architecturally, Rockefeller Center has come to be appreciated as both aesthetically and technically innovative. It was one of the first complexes to employ high-speed elevators and central heating/ventilation at a massive scale (later retrofitting air conditioning in older buildings to keep up with modern comfort).
The use of Indiana limestone for cladding – 14 million cubic feet of it – gave the buildings a dignified, uniform appearance and even reflected light softly, unlike the dark masonry of earlier towers.
Importantly, the planners designed an extensive underground concourse connecting buildings to subways, with service tunnels for trucks – an innovation to reduce street traffic and keep pedestrians safe below ground in bad weather.
Walking those very concourses today (still lined with shops and eateries), I sense how forward-thinking this was in the 1930s. No wonder architecture critics eventually hailed Rockefeller Center as “one of the most successful urban planning projects in the history of American architecture.” Le Corbusier, the famous modernist planner, even wrote in the 1930s that Rockefeller Center was “rational, logically conceived… [and] harmonious,” a welcome contrast to the disorganized growth of the city around it.
Yet, it’s fascinating that early reactions were mixed. Some traditionalists in the 1930s derided the project’s scale and style – one critic sneered that it was a “megalomaniac” exhibition of wealth – but over time minds changed. By the 1940s, Rockefeller Center was being lauded as a model for blending private development with public space.
In 1976, New York Times critic Paul Goldberger encapsulated its genius: “a formal Beaux-Arts–influenced complex of dignified towers and a lively, utterly contemporary amalgam of shops, plazas and street life. It is as natural a home for a 1970’s street festival as for a 1930’s movie about cafe society.”
In other words, Rockefeller Center’s design was flexible and timeless – it could evolve with the city’s culture. As I stroll through its plazas today, amid outdoor art installations and pop-up markets, I feel that truth vividly. The modernist landmark has aged gracefully into a beloved civic space, balancing order and energy.
From Great Depression Dream to Icon
It’s hard to imagine now, amid Midtown’s prosperity, but Rockefeller Center was born in the depths of the Great Depression. Its journey from bold concept to finished complex is a dramatic tale of resilience – and seeing the vibrant scene around me, I’m grateful the idea survived those lean years.
To understand how Rockefeller Center became what it is, it helps to trace its major milestones:
- 1928 – A Grand Vision: Industrialist John D. Rockefeller Jr. leases a nearly three-block site in Midtown from Columbia University, envisioning a new home for the Metropolitan Opera on the site. The area, at the time, was a modest neighborhood of townhouses and a former botanical garden, stretching from 48th to 51st Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
- 1929 – Plans Upended: The stock market crash throws the project into uncertainty. The Metropolitan Opera backs out, unable to fund a new opera house. Rather than abandon the lease, Rockefeller pivots to a new idea: a commercial “Radio City” complex anchored by Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its new NBC radio network. The concept shifts to a modern entertainment and office center – risky, but attuned to the growing radio industry.
- 1930–1931 – Design and Groundbreaking: Rockefeller assembles a team of architects (Hood, Corbett, Harrison, and others) under the banner “Associated Architects.” In 1931, after numerous drafts, the final plan for Rockefeller Center is approved. Demolition of 228 old buildings on the site begins that year, displacing thousands of tenants. By July 1931, excavation is underway, and despite America’s economic freefall, construction commences – a beacon of optimism amid the Depression.
- Dec 1931 – A Tree of Hope: As steel rises, construction workers erect the first Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree – a modest 20-foot fir decorated with tin cans and garlands, an impromptu symbol of hope during hard times. (This humble gesture will evolve into one of NYC’s most cherished annual traditions by 1933, when the first official tree lighting is held.)
- 1932 – First Completions: Buildings start to open. The first structure finished is the RCA “RKO” Building in September 1932. On December 27, 1932, the Radio City Music Hall – the world’s largest indoor theater at the time – opens its doors, dazzling the public with its radiant Art Deco interior and high-kicking Rockettes.
- 1933 – The Centerpiece and the Plaza: In spring 1933, the RCA Building (30 Rockefeller Plaza) is completed and opens as the complex’s centerpiece, though a controversy briefly grabs headlines – a mural by artist Diego Rivera in the lobby, Man at the Crossroads, is deemed too politically charged and gets removed before opening. Outside, the new Rockefeller Plaza – a private pedestrian street bisecting the complex – begins to take shape, and in December 1933 a Christmas tree is ceremonially raised in the plaza for the first time, inaugurating the annual tree-lighting tradition.
- 1934 – Art and Dining in the Sky: By 1934, Rockefeller Center is in full swing. In May, Paul Manship’s golden statue Prometheus is installed, gleaming over the Lower Plaza fountain. That same year, on the 65th floor of the RCA tower, the elegant Rainbow Room restaurant opens (October 3, 1934) – then the highest-elevation restaurant in America. With its revolving dance floor and breathtaking views, the Rainbow Room becomes a Jazz Age symbol of glamor atop the city.
- 1935–1936 – Finishing Touches: The complex expands to include international-themed buildings along Fifth Avenue. The 512-foot International Building and its two six-story side wings open in 1935, housing foreign consulates and businesses (Britain, France, etc.). To improve foot traffic flow, an extensive underground concourse linking 30 Rock, Radio City, and subway stations is completed in 1935. In 1936, an innovative use is found for the sunken plaza: a skating rink opens to the public on Christmas Day, turning an underused open space into a winter wonderland and instant hit with New Yorkers.
- Nov 1, 1939 – Original Complex Complete: John D. Rockefeller Jr. drives the ceremonial final rivet into the steel frame of the last building, officially marking the completion of the original Rockefeller Center after nearly a decade of construction. In total, 14 buildings have been erected at a cost of around $100 million (over $1.7 billion in today’s dollars). Remarkably, this massive project provided up to 60,000 jobs during the Depression years , standing out as the era’s largest private development. By 1939, the complex is 87% leased and teeming with activity – home to broadcasting studios, publishers, airlines, and more.
- 1940s – War and Postwar Expansion: Rockefeller Center weathers World War II with dimmed lights and reduced tenants, but remains a patriotic emblem. After the war, the Center begins expanding beyond its original footprint. In 1947, a new office tower at 75 Rockefeller Plaza (the Esso Building, later Exxon) opens at the north end, the first addition to the complex. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, more towers rise along Sixth Avenue as part of a plan to create a modern corporate corridor. Notably, 600 Fifth Avenue (1952) is built on the site of a former church , and the sleek Time-Life Building (1959) on West 50th Street extends the complex westward. Rockefeller Center’s influence is literally reshaping Midtown’s skyline.
- 1960s–70s – Modern Landmarks: By the early 1970s, Rockefeller Center has grown to 19 buildings, including three International Style glass towers on Sixth Avenue (opened 1971–1974) that collectively add millions of square feet of office space. The complex now represents 7% of all Manhattan office space – a city within the city indeed. But economic downturns in the 1970s hit the Center; even the famed Radio City Music Hall nearly closes in 1978 due to financial struggle, until it’s saved by passionate New Yorkers and landmarked as a historic interior.
- 1985–1987 – Official Landmark Status: Acknowledging its historical and architectural significance, New York City designates Rockefeller Center a protected city landmark in 1985. The National Park Service follows by naming it a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Preservation reports celebrate the Center as “the true world of tomorrow” (in the words of Time Inc. founder Henry Luce) and praise its enduring urban design. This formal recognition ensures that Rockefeller Center’s unique character will be safeguarded for future generations.
- 1990s – Changing Ownership: The 1990s bring financial turbulence. In 1989, Japan’s Mitsubishi Estate company buys a majority stake in Rockefeller Center, but the early ‘90s recession leads to bankruptcy filings in 1995. A rescue comes in 1996 when a consortium led by David Rockefeller (John Jr.’s son) and Tishman Speyer properties acquires the complex, restoring local ownership. Immediately, plans are set to modernize the aging complex while respecting its Art Deco heritage.
- 2000s – Renewal and New Life: In 2000, Tishman Speyer and partners purchase the original 14 buildings and land outright for $1.85 billion , finally uniting land and buildings under one owner. The new stewards renovate retail spaces, refresh the underground concourse, and in 2005 reopen the Top of the Rock Observation Deck to the public after two decades of closure. Suddenly, visitors can once again ascend to 30 Rock’s 70th-floor decks, experiencing one of NYC’s most spectacular panoramas. The post-9/11 era also sees Rockefeller Center revitalize its public programming – outdoor art exhibits, summer festivals, and winter holiday events – reinforcing its role as a civic gathering place. By the time the complex turned 85 in 2018, it was welcoming millions of visitors each year and firmly ensconced as a New York icon.
This timeline highlights how Rockefeller Center evolved through the 20th century – enduring economic swings, expanding physically and culturally, and continually reinterpreting modernity.
What started as John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s ambitious development during the Great Depression has become an indelible part of New York’s story.
Today, walking these blocks, I see layers of history everywhere: an engraving on a cornerstone dated 1932, a plaque commemorating the first NBC broadcast here in 1933, or the Art Deco fixtures lovingly preserved in a lobby. The past is literally built into the walls.
Cultural Capital
From its earliest days, Rockefeller Center was conceived not just as an office complex, but as a cultural hub – a place where New Yorkers could find entertainment, news, art, and seasonal joy.
That legacy is richly evident as I explore its halls and plazas. In many ways, Rockefeller Center has been the stage on which 20th-century New York played out its story.
Take Radio City Music Hall, for example. I step through its 6th Avenue entrance into the golden foyer, and it feels like stepping back to 1932. The theater’s colossal auditorium – once the largest in the world – is a masterpiece of Art Deco design and engineering.
Its marquee has heralded everything from the premieres of classic films to decades of the Rockettes’ dazzling Christmas Spectacular shows. By the 1940s and 50s, Radio City was drawing millions of patrons a year, offering a glamorous escape during the Depression and wartime.
Even when times changed – nearly closing in the 1970s – the public outcry to save Radio City affirmed how deeply it was woven into the city’s cultural fabric.
Today it’s landmarked and as vibrant as ever, hosting concerts, award shows, and the beloved holiday pageants. Sitting in its velvet seats, gazing at the immense proscenium arch, I sense the ghosts of generations past whispering “New York endures.”
Rockefeller Center’s contribution to media and entertainment goes beyond the stage – it’s also the birthplace of modern broadcast media. In the 1930s and 40s, the complex earned the nickname “Radio City” for housing the new RCA headquarters and NBC studios.
Indeed, Studio 8H in 30 Rockefeller Plaza became home to the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini, and later to Saturday Night Live – bridging eras of entertainment. The very first TV broadcast of The Tonight Show was transmitted from Rockefeller Center in 1952.
As a TV junkie, I can’t resist taking the NBC Studio Tour: riding the elevator up to the floor where The Tonight Show is now taped, I peek into studios and see the iconic Stage 6B where Johnny Carson once monologued.
Downstairs, on the Plaza, the weekday crowds still gather outside the glass windows of the Today Show studio, waving signs for the cameras in a morning ritual that’s been happening here for decades. It strikes me that few places on earth have continuously generated as much media content as 30 Rock – from radio’s golden age to high-definition TV and streaming. The Center’s role in launching NBC and shaping American pop culture is monumental.
Of course, not all of Rockefeller Center’s cultural significance is about high art or mass media – some of it is about pure, simple joy. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this better than the scene that unfolds here every winter. In late November, a massive Norwegian spruce arrives on a flatbed truck.
Dozens of workers string 50,000 LED lights and crown it with a Swarovski crystal star. Then one brisk night, in front of thousands of bundled-up spectators and millions more on live TV, the Mayor flips a switch – and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree bursts into rainbow brilliance.
It’s a goosebumps moment that has happened every year since 1933, when Rockefeller Center made the construction workers’ informal tree into an annual spectacle. Standing in that crowd recently, I felt the same childlike wonder as those in 1930s newsreels must have felt.
Surrounding me were people from all over the world, eyes shining, faces illuminated by the tree’s glow with 30 Rock soaring behind – a perfect tableau of New York holiday magic.
Each winter, Rockefeller Center’s Plaza is home to New York’s most famous Christmas Tree, a tradition that began in 1933. The annual lighting ceremony draws thousands of spectators and is broadcast nationwide, symbolizing the city’s holiday spirit.
At the tree’s base, the Ice Skating Rink adds to the enchantment. I decide to join the fun – renting a pair of skates and wobbling onto the ice. As I glide (awkwardly) in circles, I recall that this very rink debuted in December 1936 as a novel use of the sunken plaza. What began as a temporary attraction proved so popular it became permanent.
For generations, a date to skate at Rockefeller Center – amidst twinkling lights and under Prometheus’ golden gaze – has been a quintessential New York experience. I can confirm: the delighted laughter of kids (and adults) slipping on the ice, the smell of roasting chestnuts from a street cart, and the backdrop of skyscrapers and holiday music create a scene straight from a postcard.
The fact that this happens year after year, essentially unchanged, is testament to Rockefeller Center’s cultural resonance. It creates traditions that outlive passing fads.
Walking the complex, I also stumble upon less-publicized cultural gems. The underground shopping concourse, for instance, hosts art exhibitions like the annual Art in Focus installations – contemporary works displayed in what used to be utilitarian passageways.
In the lobby of 10 Rockefeller Plaza, I admire a vivid mural by Josep Maria Sert (Time, 1941) that many office workers likely rush past daily. Outside 30 Rock, I find tourists clustered around the bronze plaque honoring “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” – the famous photo of construction workers eating lunch on a beam high above Manhattan (which was actually a publicity stunt for Rockefeller Center in 1932).
The image has become an icon of the city’s can-do spirit and is eternally linked to this place. From high culture to pop culture, from the Rockettes to the nightly news, Rockefeller Center has influenced what people see, hear, and celebrate in New York. In doing so, it has become part of the culture itself.
Urban Impact
As I sit by the Plaza, sipping a coffee and watching the mid-morning rush swirl by, I consider how Rockefeller Center changed not just Midtown Manhattan, but urban development as a whole. In many respects, this project wrote the playbook for large-scale urban complexes and set standards that later projects aspired to.
Firstly, Rockefeller Center anchored Midtown as a business district north of 42nd Street. When it was built, skeptics wondered if tenants would really fill such a huge cluster so far uptown (at the time, Grand Central area and downtown were the main business hubs).
But the gamble paid off – by fall 1939, Rockefeller Center had 125,000 people a day passing through and was nearly fully leased. It drew major companies (RCA, NBC, Time Inc., Associated Press) uptown, which in turn attracted restaurants, shops, and hotels in the vicinity.
This helped cement Midtown’s growth in the 1940s–50s. The complex also improved the infrastructure of the area: new subway entrances, widened sidewalks, and that sprawling underground concourse that I navigated, all eased congestion in an otherwise frenetic city.
Even the truck ramps and loading bays hidden from street view were innovations that cities later required in big projects to keep traffic flowing. The U.S. Department of the Interior, in its landmark designation report, called Rockefeller Center “one of the most successful urban planning projects in the history of American architecture.”
Standing here, I can see why – eight decades on, the place still functions beautifully at human scale, despite being surrounded by skyscrapers in one of the densest cities on Earth.
The presence of public space at Rockefeller Center was also revolutionary for a private development. The Sunken Plaza (today’s skating rink area) was an unprecedented inclusion – effectively a European-style piazza transplanted into New York’s grid. It gave New Yorkers a rare commodity: open air in Midtown. Over the years this plaza has hosted everything from summer outdoor cafés to television concerts and farmers’ markets.
The Channel Gardens, a floral oasis with artful fountains that connects Fifth Avenue to the Plaza, similarly turned mere real estate into beloved civic space. By treating open space as an asset, Rockefeller Center influenced later projects like Lincoln Center and the United Nations Headquarters, which likewise include plazas and courts to invite the public in.
A 1974 study famously noted that along with Central Park and Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center was unique in slowing down Manhattan’s otherwise relentless, haphazard development. In other words, it created a stable, human-centered zone amidst chaos – a legacy any city planner must admire.
Moreover, Rockefeller Center’s integration of art and design set a standard for placemaking. The development commissioned dozens of works from prominent artists, essentially becoming an outdoor gallery of Art Deco and Modern art: murals by Spanish modernist Sert, sculpture by Paul Manship, reliefs by Lee Lawrie and Isamu Noguchi.
This kind of patronage was rare in commercial construction at the time. It demonstrated that including culture in development could enhance property value and public goodwill. Cities around the world took note.
Today it’s common for large projects to include public art, performance spaces, or cultural institutions as part of their plans – much of that can be traced back to the success of Rockefeller Center’s approach. Even something as simple as holiday decorations on a grand scale (like the tree and ice rink) has been emulated in city squares globally.
The architectural vocabulary of Rockefeller Center also rippled outward. The complex’s post-war expansions – the sheer glass-and-steel towers of the 1960s and ‘70s on Sixth Avenue – helped usher International Style modernism into Midtown.
And in a kind of full-circle, postmodern architects later paid homage to the 1930s originals: For instance, the NBC Tower in Chicago (1989) is explicitly modeled on 30 Rockefeller Plaza, right down to its vertical emphasis and stylized setbacks. In San Francisco, developer (and Rockefeller heir) David Rockefeller built the Embarcadero Center in the 1970s, nicknamed “Rockefeller Center West” for its multi-tower layout with plazas and shops.
Even globally, one sees echoes – complexes like Toronto’s BCE Place or Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills incorporate mixed-use skyscrapers with integrated public spaces, clearly following the template pioneered here in New York.
From an urban perspective, Rockefeller Center proved that large-scale planning could succeed in a dense city, at a time when most cities grew building-by-building. It wasn’t just about erecting tall towers; it was about orchestrating how they worked together and with the streets around them.
The fact that a single family (the Rockefellers) had the vision and clout to execute this during the Depression is astounding. They treated it almost like a civic venture – John D. Jr. reportedly made decisions not just on ROI, but on what he felt was best for the city’s morale and beauty. His motto could well have been: “if we build a place people love, the success will follow.”
And indeed, people came in droves. By 1939, over 6 million visitors a year were enjoying the underground shops, and another 1.3 million were going up to the observation deck. Those are numbers any urban retail developer today would envy.
As I gaze now at the bronze plaque declaring this a National Historic Landmark, I realize Rockefeller Center’s ultimate impact might be this: it humanized modernism. It showed that the modern city – with its tall buildings, technology, and efficiency – could also be beautiful, inspiring, and welcoming.
The American Institute of Architects once ranked Rockefeller Center among the top American architecture achievements, and generations of New Yorkers simply call it “the Center,” as if it were the heart of the city. In blending commerce with community, modern design with human-scale details, this place set a gold standard.
It’s no surprise that when urban theorist Rem Koolhaas studied Manhattan, he highlighted Raymond Hood’s Rockefeller Center plan as a triumph of “fantasy-pragmatism,” merging imaginative design with practical needs. The fantasy was a city of the future; the pragmatism was making it work for ordinary people.
Reflections
My day at Rockefeller Center ends where it began, in the bustling Plaza. The façade of 30 Rock is aglow with floodlights, its strong vertical lines reaching into a cobalt sky. Office lights speckle the tower like a grid of stars. Below, the skating rink’s ice reflects the multicolored Christmas tree lights. I take a moment on the Prometheus statue’s granite steps, just absorbing the scene.
It strikes me that Rockefeller Center today feels both historic and strikingly modern. Despite being over Eighty years old, it’s still thoroughly alive: new restaurants and shops in the concourse, art installations in storefront windows, workers leaving their offices, tourists snapping selfies, a couple engaged in a quiet conversation on a bench.
The modernist dream that birthed this complex – one of progress, culture, and community intertwined – is very much still in motion here.
Personally, visiting Rockefeller Center has been like time travel. In a single afternoon I’ve touched multiple eras: the optimism of the 1930s, when steel beams rose and an idea took form; the patriotic fervor of the 1940s, imagining a victory garden on the rooftop; the cool corporate expansion of the 1960s with glass towers; the nostalgia and preservation efforts of the 1980s when New Yorkers realized what a treasure they had.
And now, in the 2020s, I experience it as a dynamic public space that adapts to contemporary life without losing its soul. Few places manage that balancing act. Perhaps it’s because Rockefeller Center was designed with human experience at its core – from the gentle slope of the Channel Gardens leading you in, to the artworks that provoke thought, to the way the Lower Plaza invites you to pause and look up at the sky (framed by skyscrapers) and maybe feel a bit of wonder. I certainly have.
Before I leave, I ride up to the Top of the Rock observation deck, reopened in 2005 after decades of closure. As the elevator whooshes upwards, I recall a snippet of a 1941 speech by Henry Luce, who said Rockefeller Center represented “the true world of tomorrow” in contrast to short-lived World’s Fair fantasies.
At the deck, I step out to a jaw-dropping 360° night view of New York City. The Empire State Building blinks to the south, Times Square’s glow pulses west, and directly north Central Park lies in darkness, a void amid the glittering grid. Luce’s words resonate: this view is the world of tomorrow they dreamed of – vibrant, modern, electrified – and it’s very much our world today. And at the center of it, literally under my feet, is Rockefeller Center, still contributing to that vision.
I leave with an appreciation of something deeper: how it became a landmark of human aspiration. In the grand geometry of its buildings and the intimate moments it fosters (be it a first kiss on the ice rink or a shared laugh at Radio City), Rockefeller Center tells a story of a city honoring the communal. That, to me, is its greatest legacy, one that will surely live on well into our future.
