The construction of Rockefeller Center occurred between 1932 and 1940[a] on land that John D. Rockefeller Jr. leased from Columbia University.[3][4] The Rockefeller Center site was originally supposed to be occupied by a new opera house for the Metropolitan Opera.[5] By 1928, Benjamin Wistar Morris and designer Joseph Urban were hired to come up with blueprints for the house.[6] However, the new building was too expensive for the opera to fund by itself, and it needed an endowment.[7] The project ultimately gained the support of John D. Rockefeller Jr.[7][8] The planned opera house was canceled in December 1929 due to various issues, with the new opera house eventually being built at Lincoln Center, opening in 1966.[9][10][11]

With the lease still in effect, Rockefeller had to quickly devise new plans so that the three-block Columbia site could become profitable. Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect, came up with the idea to negotiate with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its subsidiaries, National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), to build a mass media entertainment complex on the site.[12][13] By May 1930, RCA and its affiliates had made an agreement with Rockefeller Center managers. RCA would lease 1,000,000 sq ft (93,000 m2) of studio space; get naming rights to the western part of the development; and develop four theaters, at a cost of $4.25 million per year.[14] A skyscraper at 30 Rockefeller Plaza's current site was first proposed in the March 1930 version of the complex's blueprint,[15] and the current dimensions of the tower were finalized in March 1931.[16][17] The skyscraper would be named for RCA as part of the agreement;[14] the RCA name became official in May 1932.[18]

The designs for Radio City Music Hall and the RCA Building were submitted to the New York City Department of Buildings in August 1931, by which time both buildings were to open in 1932.[19] Work on the steel structure of the RCA Building started in March 1932.[1] Several artists were hired to design artwork for the RCA Building.[20] Lee Lawrie was hired to design the RCA Building's eastern entrance in June 1932, at which point the sunken plaza in front of the building was also announced.[21][22] The next month, Barry Faulkner was commissioned to create a large glass mosaic on the western entrance facing Sixth Avenue.[23] Gaston Lachaise received the commission for bas-reliefs on the Sixth Avenue entrance in September 1932.[24] The same month, Hood and the complex's manager John Todd traveled to Europe to interview five artists for the lobby.[25] Frank Brangwyn, Josep Maria Sert, and Diego Rivera were hired the following month,[25][26] despite John Rockefeller Jr.'s hesitance to hire Rivera, a prominent communist.[25][27] Henri Matisse had been reluctant to commission a highly visible lobby mural, and Pablo Picasso had refused to even meet with Hood and Todd.[25][28]

Installation of the exterior stonework began in July 1932 and proceeded at a rate of 2,000 cubic feet (57 m3) per day.[29] Window installation began the same month.[30] The building's structural steel was up to the 64th floor by September 16, 1932.[31][32] The photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper was taken on September 20, 1932, during the construction of the 69th floor;[33][34] it was part of a publicity stunt promoting the RCA Building.[35] The building was topped out on September 26, 1932, when an American flag was hoisted to the top of the primary 66-story tower on Rockefeller Plaza. The Indiana limestone cladding had been erected to the 15th floor on the Rockefeller Plaza wing, and the facade of the Sixth Avenue wing had been completed.[29] The stone was fabricated at four factories in New York state and then shipped to New York City. Two traveling cranes lifted the stone from the ground to two hoists 70 feet (21 m) high, which then raised the stone to the upper floors.[36] The stonework of the primary tower was completed on December 7, 1932, without fanfare.[36][37] Officials said at the time that they did not host a ceremony for the stonework's completion because the elevators only ran to the 55th floor.[37] It had taken only 102 workdays to install the 212,000 cubic feet (6,000 m3) of stonework.[36]

Rockefeller Plaza was added to the city's official street map in January 1933, and the RCA Building gained the address 30 Rockefeller Plaza.[38] The next month, John D. Rockefeller III honored 27 mechanics for their work on the RCA Building.[39][40] At the time, The New York Times reported that 1,600 workers were busy completing the interior work. According to the main contractors, the laborers, plasterers, and metal lathers involved in the project would need to be compensated the equivalent of 25,000 eight-hour workdays. The building would require 26,900 short tons (24,000 long tons; 24,400 t) of plasterwork, covering about 650,000 square yards (540,000 m2).[41] By April 6, 1933, there were 1,400 mechanics working to complete the RCA Building, which was 90 percent complete; the upper floors were mostly finished, but the base was still incomplete.[42] As late as April 24, more than 1,000 workers were still fitting out the RCA Building.[43][44] As a result of the Depression, building costs were cheaper than projected. The final cost of the first ten buildings, including the RCA Building, came to $102 million (equivalent to $1.7 billion in 2022 dollars[45]).[46]

Todd, Robertson, Todd Engineering Corporation, which was constructing Rockefeller Center, relocated to the RCA Building on April 22, 1933, becoming the first tenants.[43][44] The RCA Building was slated to officially open on May 1, 1933.[47] Its opening was delayed until mid-May because of a controversy over Rivera's Man at the Crossroads,[48] which in large part stemmed from the communist motifs of the mural.[49] On May 10, 1933, Rivera was ordered to stop all work on the mural,[50][51] which was covered in stretched canvas and left incomplete.[50][49][52] Brangwyn's murals were also incomplete at the time of the building's opening.[53] Rivera's mural remained covered until February 1934, when workmen peeled the mural off the wall.[54] Columbia University originally owned most of Rockefeller Center's land as well as the complex's buildings, including the RCA Building. However, Columbia received no rental income; Rockefeller Center's managers collected the rent and owned the land under the western part of the complex, including a section of the RCA Building West.[4]

The RCA offices moved to the RCA Building's 52nd and 53rd floors in June 1933.[55] The Rockefeller family took up space throughout the building to give potential tenants the impression of occupancy.[56][57] Their Rockefeller Foundation, as well as the General Education Board and the Spelman Fund of New York, had leased space,[58][57] and the Rockefeller family's Standard Oil Company moved into the RCA Building in 1934.[59] NBC was one of the first tenants in the new RCA Building and, with 35 studios packed into the base, it was also one of the largest tenants.[60] Westinghouse moved into the 14th through 17th floors of the RCA Building,[56][61] receiving the contract for the building's elevators as a result.[62] American Cyanamid took four floors and part of another.[63][64] Other space was taken by the Greek consulate,[65] the Chinese consulate,[66] the National Health Council,[67] and a branch of the Chase National Bank.[68] A double-height space at the center of the ground story, which had been difficult to rent, opened as the Municipal Art Exhibition in February 1934.[69][70] The space, referred to as the Forum,[71] had contained a large stairway leading up to a second-story balcony with exhibition rooms.[72] Despite the large number of tenants, Rockefeller Center was only 59 percent rented by the end of 1933.[62]

Shortly after the RCA Building's opening, there were plans to use the building above the 64th floor as a public "amusement center". That section of the building had several terraces, which could be used as a dance floor, observation deck and landscaped terrace gardens.[73][74] On the 65th floor, there was also a two-story space for a dining room with a high ceiling.[75] Frank W. Darling quit his job as head of Rye's Playland[76] to direct the programming for the proposed amusement space.[73][74] In July 1933, the managers opened an observation deck atop the RCA Building, which consisted of 190 by 21 ft (57.9 by 6.4 m) terraces on the 67th, 69th, and 70th floors.[77] The 40-cents-per-head observation deck saw 1,300 daily visitors by late 1935.[78] Meanwhile, the floors below the observation deck were planned as a restaurant, solarium, game room, and ballroom, which would later become the Rainbow Room.[77] The Rainbow Room opened on October 3, 1934.[79][80]

A revolving beacon was installed atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza in 1935, the first such beacon to be installed in Manhattan.[81] That September, the ground-floor retail space was fully leased.[82] The New York Museum of Science and Industry leased the Municipal Art Exhibition space shortly afterward after Nelson Rockefeller became a trustee of the museum.[83][84] Subsequently, Edward Durell Stone removed the partitions on the second floor of the exhibition space,[72] and the museum opened there in February 1936.[85][86] The central wall of the main lobby remained empty until 1937, when Jose Maria Sert's American Progress was installed.[87][88] At the time, the RCA Building was 84 percent leased.[89] By 1938, the NBC studios at the RCA Building received 700,000 annual visitors, while the observation deck had 430,000 annual visitors.[90]

Two 24-ton cooling machines were installed in the basement of the RCA Building in 1940. The air-conditioning units supplemented the RCA Building's existing units and also served 1230 Sixth Avenue, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, and 1 Rockefeller Plaza.[91] The lobby was then renovated in 1941. As part of the project, an overpass at mezzanine level was removed, the lighting was brightened, and another mural by Jose Maria Sert was installed.[92] An air-raid siren was installed atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza in 1942 during World War II.[93][94] The Rainbow Room and Grill atop the RCA Building was closed at the end of that December because of staffing shortages.[95][96] In 1943, Rockefeller Center's managers purchased the lots at 1242–1248 Sixth Avenue and 73 West 49th Street, part of RCA Building West; these lots had previously been held under a long-term lease.[97] By the next year, the RCA Building was almost fully rented.[62][98]

During the war, the RCA Building's Room 3603 became the primary location of the U.S. operations of British Intelligence's British Security Co-ordination, organized by William Stephenson. It also served as the office of Allen Dulles, who later headed the Central Intelligence Agency.[99][100] The revolving beacon, which had been darkened during the war, was reactivated in 1945 after the air-raid siren was dismantled,[101] but the Rainbow Room restaurant remained closed until 1950.[102][103] The Museum of Science and Industry moved out of the RCA Building's lower floors in 1950. Rockefeller Center's managers hired Carson and Lundin to design two new levels of retail space with about 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of new floor area.[104] The retail space was twice as profitable as the museum; the remaining street-level space was transformed into a studio for the Today Show.[105] In mid-1953, Columbia bought all of Rockefeller Center's land along Sixth Avenue, including the western part of RCA Building West, for $5.5 million. Rockefeller Center then leased the land back from Columbia.[106][107][108]

The building's largest tenants, RCA and NBC, renewed their leases in 1958 for 24 years.[109] The National Weather Service's radar was placed on the roof in June 1960, adjacent to RCA's and NBC's antennas,[110][111] and the NWS offices relocated to the building that December.[112] The Singer Manufacturing Company became another major tenant, leasing six floors in 1961;[113][114] this required the installation of a dedicated air-conditioning system on the 58th floor for that company.[115] In addition, the Rainbow Room atop the building was refurbished in 1965.[116] An anti-Vietnam War bombing occurred on the 19th floor in 1969, causing substantial damage, though no one was hurt.[117][118] Also in 1969, the RCA sign atop the building was updated with RCA's new logo in neon lights.[119] The RCA Building maintained high occupancy through this time. Even at its lowest point during the 1973–1975 recession, the building was 88 percent occupied and Rockefeller Center's managers were able to lease space at the building above market rate.[62]

In 1973, the RCA sign atop the building was turned off to conserve energy, the first time it had not lit up since World War II.[120] The next January, RCA renewed its lease for 20 years, having previously considered relocating from New York City.[121][122] RCA's chief executive Robert Sarnoff also announced that the company would construct a "management and conference center" atop the central section of the building.[122][123] The conference center would have been designed by Ford & Earl Design Associates and Justin Lamb and would have been powered by solar heat.[124][125] RCA applied for permission to build the conference center in September 1975,[126] but the project was canceled after Sarnoff resigned that December.[127] The RCA Building's central location and consistent upkeep meant that it was 93 percent occupied by 1975, despite a relatively high vacancy rate in New York City office buildings.[128] Several law firms had moved into the building during this time.[129] Singer moved out of the RCA Building in 1978, freeing up a large block of office space,[130] but RCA and NBC renewed their leases on a combined 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m2) two years later.[131]

Columbia University was not making enough money from Rockefeller Center leases by the 1970s,[132] and the university started looking to sell the land beneath Rockefeller Center, including the RCA Building, in 1983.[133] That year, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held hearings to determine how much of Rockefeller Center should be protected as a landmark.[134] The Rockefeller family and Columbia University acknowledged that the buildings were already symbolically landmarks, but their spokesman John E. Zuccotti recommended that only the block between 49th and 50th Streets be protected, including the RCA Building and RCA Building West.[b] By contrast, almost everyone else who supported Rockefeller Center's landmark status recommended that the entire complex be landmarked.[136][137][138] The LPC granted landmark status to the exteriors of all of the original complex's buildings, as well as the interiors of the International Building's and 30 Rockefeller Plaza's lobbies, on April 23, 1985.[138][139][140][c] Rockefeller Center's original buildings also became a National Historic Landmark in 1987.[141]

Columbia had agreed to sell the land to the Rockefeller Group, an investment company owned by the Rockefeller family,[142] for $400 million in February 1985.[133][143] The Rockefeller Group formed Rockefeller Center Inc. that July to manage the RCA Building and other properties.[144][142] By late 1985, NBC began planning to relocate, leaving half the RCA Building's space vacant.[145][146] The network needed 1 million square feet (93,000 m2) of space and the RCA Building's facilities required hundreds of millions of dollars in renovations.[145] The same year, General Electric acquired RCA/NBC and began looking to save money.[147] The developers of Harmon Meadow and Television City had both made offers to NBC, but demand for office space in New York City was starting to decrease, which led the building's owners to focus on keeping NBC at the RCA Building.[147][148] NBC agreed to stay at 30 Rockefeller Plaza at the end of 1987 after city and state officials offered $72 million in tax exemptions, $800 million in industrial bonds, and sales-tax deferments on $1.1 billion worth of purchases.[149][150] These incentives would not need to be repaid as long as NBC stayed at the building until 2002, or for 15 years.[149] NBC extended its lease by 35 years so that it would last into 2022 and secured an option to buy the western and central sections of the skyscraper.[150]

Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Group had begun expanding the Rainbow Room. The observation deck closed in 1986 because the expansion cut off the only access between the observation deck and its elevators.[151] The Rainbow Room also reopened in December 1987 after the Rockefeller Group conducted an extensive renovation.[152] The RCA Building was renamed the GE Building in July 1988, and the signage atop the building was changed accordingly, despite concerns that it could be confused with the General Electric Building on 570 Lexington Avenue.[153][154] Mitsubishi Estate, a real estate subsidiary of the Mitsubishi Group, purchased a majority stake in the Rockefeller Group in 1988, including the GE Building and Rockefeller Center's other structures.[155][156] Despite the renaming, 30 Rockefeller Plaza continued to be popularly known as the RCA Building.[119] Subsequently, Rockefeller Center transferred some of the unused air rights above the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise to the Rockefeller Plaza West skyscraper on Seventh Avenue.[157][158] In exchange, the Rockefeller Group had to preserve the original buildings between 49th and 50th Streets[b] under a more stringent set of regulations than the rest of the complex. While the GE Building's air rights were unaffected, the structure fell under the new regulations.[159]

The Rockefeller Group filed for bankruptcy protection in May 1995 after missing several mortgage payments.[160][161] That November, John Rockefeller Jr.'s son David and a consortium led by Goldman Sachs agreed to buy Rockefeller Center's buildings for $1.1 billion,[162] beating out Sam Zell and other bidders.[163] The transaction included $306 million for the mortgage and $845 million for other expenses.[164] As that sale progressed, GE and Goldman Sachs discussed selling part of the GE Building to its namesake, allowing GE to lower its occupancy costs on the 1,600,000 sq ft (150,000 m2) that it occupied.[165][166] In May 1996, GE bought the space for $440 million, as well as an option to renew the lease on the Today Show studios at 10 Rockefeller Plaza.[167] Before either transaction was finalized, GE subleased 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) of that space.[168][169] Goldman Sachs made numerous upgrades to the building and allowed brokers to finalize leases more quickly.[62] In addition to GE, other large tenants at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the late 1990s included law firm Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine and Chadbourne & Parke.[170] Cipriani S.A. took over the Rainbow Room in 1998.[171]

Tishman Speyer, led by David Rockefeller's close friend Jerry Speyer and the Lester Crown family of Chicago, bought the original 14 buildings and land in December 2000 for $1.85 billion, including the GE Building.[164][155] The next year, Tishman Speyer began planning a renovation of the rooftop observation deck, which would be rebranded Top of the Rock.[172] Kostow Greenwood Architects also started designing a renovation for NBC Studios.[173] The observation deck plans were announced publicly in November 2003.[174] Two existing elevator shafts were lengthened so that the observation deck could be accessed without going through the Rainbow Room to get to the "shuttle" elevators. In addition, a ground-floor entrance was created on 50th Street and a three-level storefront was converted into an observation deck entrance.[172] The deck reopened in November 2005 after a renovation by Gabellini Sheppard Associates.[175][176]

During the late 2000s, the building retained an 85 percent occupancy rate.[62] The WNBC-TV newsroom was renovated during 2008,[177] after NBC had announced earlier the same year that it would start a 24-hour news channel.[178] In addition, Tishman Speyer hired EverGreene Architectural Arts to restore the lobby, and a two-year restoration commenced in 2009.[179] The Rainbow Room closed that year after Rockefeller Center Inc. ended Cipriani's lease,[180] and the LPC designated the Rainbow Room as an interior landmark in 2012.[181] Comcast, which had bought a 51 percent ownership stake in NBCUniversal in 2009,[182] bought the remaining ownership stake from GE in 2013.[183] The sale included NBC's portion of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and the building's naming rights;[183] by then, GE occupied only two stories in the building.[184] The Rainbow Room reopened in October 2014 under new management,[185] and the rotunda above the lobby was restored starting in 2014.[186]

In June 2014, the LPC granted Comcast permission to modify 30 Rockefeller Plaza.[187][188] Comcast planned to rename the building and replace the signage on the roof.[187][119] Additionally, a new marquee was added to the Sixth Avenue entrance, advertising it as the home of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.[187][189] The GE signage was dismantled starting in September 2014,[184] and 30 Rockefeller Plaza was officially renamed the Comcast Building on July 1, 2015.[190] Toy store FAO Schwarz opened a store at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in November 2018.[191][192] In April 2022, the LPC approved Tishman Speyer's proposal to install additional visitor attractions at Top of the Rock.[193][194] One of the attractions, the Beam, opened in December 2023.[195][196]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).