Construction of Rockefeller Center

Common card · No. 415511

The construction of the Rockefeller Center complex in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States, was conceived in the late 1920s and led by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Rockefeller Center is on one of Columbia University's former campuses and is bounded by Fifth Avenue to the east, Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the west, 48th Street to the south, and 51st Street to the north. The center occupies 22 acres (8.9 ha) in total, with some 17 million square feet (1.6 million square meters) of office space. Columbia University had acquired the site in the early 19th century but had moved to Morningside Heights in Upper Manhattan in the early 1900s. By the 1920s, Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan was a prime site for development. Around that time, the Metropolitan Opera (Met) was looking for a new site for their opera house, and architect Benjamin Wistar Morris decided on the former Columbia site. Rockefeller eventually became involved in the project and leased the Columbia site in 1928...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Samuel Herman Gottscho; restored by Michel Vuijlsteke, Public domain