1.
Midtown Manhattan
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Midtown Manhattan, or Midtown, represents the central lengthwise portion of the borough and island of Manhattan in New York City. Along Manhattans north-south long axis, Midtown Manhattan separates Lower Manhattan from Upper Manhattan, the majority of New York Citys skyscrapers, including its tallest hotels and apartment towers, lie within Midtown. Midtown spans the island of Manhattan along an east-west axis, being bounded by the East River on its east. The Encyclopedia of New York City defines Midtown as being from 34th Street to 59th Street and it is sometimes broken into Midtown East and Midtown West, or north and south as in the New York City Police Departments Midtown North and Midtown South precincts. Midtown South can refer to the part of Midtown between 23rd Street and around 42nd Street, Midtown West can refer to the area between 34th and 59th Streets, and between 5th and 12th Avenues. Midtown East can refer to the area between 42nd and 59th Streets, and between 5th Avenue and the East River, in other sources these districts are referred to as separate central business districts. Midtown Manhattan, along with Lower Manhattan, is one of the leading financial centers. Midtown Manhattan is the countrys largest central business district and it has the headquarters of major companies, including 4Kids Entertainment, Barnes & Noble, Bloomberg L. P. The New York Institute of Finance is located in Midtown Manhattan, Haier operates its United States offices in the Haier Building at 1356 Broadway, the building used to be a building of the Greenwich Savings Bank. Haier held the ceremony on March 4,2002. Sumitomo Corporation operates its New York Office, the headquarters of the corporations United States operations, el Als North American headquarters are in Midtown. The Air France USA regional headquarters are in 125 West 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan, hachette Book Group USA has its headquarters in 237 Park Avenue. In 1994 Alitalia considered moving its USA headquarters from Midtown to Lower Manhattan, global Infrastructure Partners has an office in Midtown Manhattan. Biotechnology is emerging in Midtown Manhattan, bolstered by the strength in academic scientific research and public. Aer Lingus had its United States offices in Midtown, in 1997, Aer Lingus announced that it was moving its North American headquarters to Melville, New York, in Suffolk County. New York City Department of Education public schools in Midtown Manhattan include Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School, private schools include The Beekman School, Rebecca School, and a number of private language and music centers. The La Scuola dItalia Guglielmo Marconi Italian international school will move to West Midtown in 2016, in addition to its well-known Main Branch research library—now known as the Stephen A. Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal are major railroad stations located in Midtown Manhattan, the Port Authority Bus Terminal is also in Midtown
2.
Fox News
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Fox News, officially known as the Fox News Channel, is an American basic cable and satellite news television channel that is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. As of February 2015, approximately 94,700,000 American households receive the Fox News Channel, the channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York. The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who hired former Republican Party media consultant and it launched on October 7,1996, to 17 million cable subscribers. It grew during the late 1990s and 2000s to become a dominant cable news network in the United States, Rupert Murdoch is the current chairman and acting CEO of Fox News. Fox News Channel has been accused of biased reporting and promoting the Republican Party, critics have cited the channel as detrimental to the integrity of news overall. Fox News Channel employees have responded that news reporting operates independently of its opinion and commentary programming, in July 1985, 20th Century Fox announced that Murdoch had completed his purchase of 50 percent of Fox Filmed Entertainment, the parent company of 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. A year later, 20th Century Fox earned $5.6 million in its third period ended May 31,1986. Prior to founding FNC, Murdoch had gained experience in the 24-hour news business when News Corporations BSkyB subsidiary began Europes first 24-hour news channel in the United Kingdom in 1989, in February 1996, after former U. S. Republican Party political strategist and NBC executive Roger Ailes left cable television channel Americas Talking, Ailes demanded five months of 14-hour workdays and several weeks of rehearsal shows before its launch on October 7,1996. At its debut 17 million households were able to watch FNC, however, it was absent from the markets of New York City. Rolling news coverage during the day consisted of 20-minute single-topic shows such as Fox on Crime or Fox on Politics, interviews featured facts at the bottom of the screen about the topic or the guest. The flagship newscast at the time was The Schneider Report, with Mike Schneiders fast-paced delivery of the news, during the evening, Fox featured opinion shows, The OReilly Report, The Crier Report and Hannity & Colmes. From the beginning, FNC has placed emphasis on visual presentation. Graphics were designed to be colorful and attention-getting, this helped the viewer to grasp the main points of what was being said, Fox News also created the Fox News Alert, which interrupted its regular programming when a breaking news story occurred. To accelerate its adoption by cable providers, Fox News paid systems up to $11 per subscriber to distribute the channel and this contrasted with the normal practice, in which cable operators paid stations carriage fees for programming. Time Warner selected MSNBC as the news channel, not Fox News. Fox News claimed that this violated an agreement, citing its agreement to keep its U. S. City officials threatened to take action affecting Time Warners cable franchises in the city, during the September 11,2001 attacks, Fox News was the first news organization to run a news ticker on the bottom of the screen to keep up with the flow of information that day
3.
Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)
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It is commercial for much of its length. Sixth Avenues northern end is at Central Park South, adjacent to the Artists Gate traffic entrance to Central Park at Center Drive, historically, Sixth Avenue continued north of Central Park, but that segment was renamed Lenox Avenue in 1887 and co-named Malcolm X Boulevard in 1987. Sixth Avenue was laid out in the Commissioners Plan of 1811, as originally designed, Sixth Avenues southern terminus was at Carmine Street in Greenwich Village. In the early and mid 1800s it passed by the roadhouse and tavern Old Grapevine at the corner of 11th street. The IRT Sixth Avenue Line elevated railway was constructed on Sixth Avenue in 1878, darkening the street, proposals to extend the street south from Carmine Street, to allow easier access to lower Manhattan, were discussed by the citys Board of Aldermen as early as the mid-1860s. Construction of the resulted in considerable dislocation to existing residents. One historian said that ten people were displaced, most of them Italian immigrants who knew no other home in America. According to the WPA Guide to New York City, the resulted in blank side walls facing the uninspiring thoroughfare. Dozens of buildings, including the original Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, were demolished, by the mid-20th century, a coalition of commercial establishments and building owners along Sixth Avenue campaigned to have the El removed. The El was closed on December 4,1938 and came down in stages, beginning in Greenwich Village in 1938–39, demolition of the Sixth Avenue elevated railway, meanwhile, resulted in accelerated commercial development of the avenue in Midtown. Beginning in the 1960s, the avenue was rebuilt above 42nd Street as an all-but-uninterrupted avenue of corporate headquarters housed in glass slab towers of International Modernist style. On March 10,1957, Sixth Avenue was reconfigured to carry one-way traffic north of its intersection with Broadway in Herald Square, the rest of the avenue followed on November 10,1963. In the mid-1970s, the city spruced up the street, including the addition of patterned brick crosswalks, repainting of streetlamps, special lighting, rare throughout the rest of the city, was also installed. The avenues official name was changed to Avenue of the Americas in 1945 by the City Council, at the behest of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who signed the bill into law on October 2,1945. The intent was to honor Pan-American ideals and principles and the nations of Central and South America and it was felt at the time that the name would provide greater grandeur to a shabby street, and to promote trade with the Western Hemisphere. After the name change, round signs were attached to streetlights on the avenue, however, New Yorkers seldom used the avenues newer name, and the street has been labelled as both Avenue of the Americas and Sixth Avenue in recent years. Most of the old round signs with country emblems were gone by the late 1990s, R. Grace Building, International Center of Photography, Rockefeller Center — including the Time-Life Building, News Corp. Building, Exxon Building and McGraw-Hill Building, as well as Radio City Music Hall, the Steinway Hall of New York was moved to 1130 Sixth Avenue in October 2014
4.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
5.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
6.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
7.
Rockefeller Center
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Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 high-rise commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th and 51st Streets in New York City. Commissioned by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan and it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It is famous for its annual Christmas tree lighting, Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928 and developed it beginning in 1930. Rockefeller stated, It was clear there were only two courses open to me. One was to abandon the entire development, the other to go forward with it in the definite knowledge that I myself would have to build it and finance it alone. The initial cost of acquiring the space, razing some of the existing buildings and it was the largest private building project ever undertaken in modern times. Construction of the 14 buildings in the Art Deco style began on May 17,1930, principal builder and managing agent for the massive project was John R. Todd. The construction of the project employed over 40,000 people and it was the public relations pioneer Ivy Lee, the prominent adviser to the family, who first suggested the name Rockefeller Center for the complex, in 1931. Rockefeller, Jr. initially did not want the Rockefeller family name associated with the commercial project, what could have become a major controversy in the mid-1930s concerned the last of the four European buildings that remained unnamed. Ivy Lee and others attempts to rent the space to German commercial concerns. Rockefeller ruled this out after being advised of Hitlers Nazi march toward World War II and this subsequently became the primary location of the U. S. In 1985, Columbia University sold the land beneath Rockefeller Center to the Rockefeller Group for $400 million, in 1989, Mitsubishi Estate, a real estate company of the Mitsubishi Group, purchased the entire Rockefeller Center complex, and its owner, Rockefeller Group. In 1996, the complex was purchased by a consortium of owners that included Goldman Sachs, Gianni Agnelli, Stavros Niarchos, and David Rockefeller. Tishman Speyer, led by Jerry Speyer, a friend of David Rockefeller. The landmark buildings comprise over 8,000,000 square feet on 22 acres in Midtown, bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues and these are co-owned by Tishman-Speyer, and open to the public. 1 Rockefeller Plaza – The original Time–Life Building, a tenant was General Dynamics. 10 Rockefeller Plaza – Originally the Holland House, then the Eastern Air Lines Building, currently home of Today Show studios. 30 Rockefeller Plaza – Originally the RCA Building, in 1988 it was renamed the GE Building, headquarters of NBC, the Rainbow Room restaurant is located on the 65th floor
8.
International Style (architecture)
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A visually weightless quality engendered by the use of cantilever construction. Glass and steel, in combination with usually less visible reinforced concrete, are the materials of the construction. Commissioned in 1931 by the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred H. Barr Jr. The original exhibition catalogue was then followed up immediately by the book titled The International Style, the aesthetics-based definition of The International Style identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics said to be common to Modernism across the world and its stylistic aspects. Hitchcock and Johnson identified three principles, the expression of volume rather than mass, the emphasis on rather than preconceived symmetry. The aim of Hitchcock and Johnson was to define a style that would encapsulate this modern architecture, all the works in the 1932 Museum of Modern Art exhibition were carefully selected, only displaying those that strictly followed these rules. Many Modernists disliked the term, believing that they had arrived at an approach to architecture that transcended style, the British architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner commented, To me what had been achieved in 1914 was the style of the century. It never occurred to me to look beyond, here was the one and only style which fitted all those aspects which mattered, aspects of economics and sociology, of materials and function. It seems folly to think anybody would wish to abandon it. The exhibition Modern Architecture, International Exhibition opened on February 9,1932, at the Museum of Modern Art, in the Heckscher Building at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street in New York. In the largest exhibition space, Room C, were works by Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Room B was a section titled Housing, presenting the need for a new domestic environment” as it had been identified by historian and critic Lewis Mumford. In Room D were works by Raymond Hood and Richard Neutra, among these works was shown Alvar Aaltos Turun Sanomat newspaper offices building in Turku, Finland. The exhibition is significant for its approach to the architectural exhibition. Highly curated in nature, the 1932 exhibition was driven by a desire to promote and consolidate the theory of international modernism, as such, the exhibition featured prominently the work of the core of the modernist group. With Van Der Rohe, Corbusier, Oud, and Gropius at the forefront, moMAs then director Alfred H. Barr hired art historians Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock to curate the museums first architectural exhibition. In 1929, Johnson attended the ceremony of his sister in Wellesley College, where he met Barr. In one month, Barr would be interviewed by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller for the position of the director of the MOMA, Barr added Johnson to MOMAs Junior Advisory Committee. Hitchcock graduated in 1924 after having completed his studies in three years and spending his senior year in architecture
9.
Skyscraper
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A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building having multiple floors. When the term was used in the 1880s it described a building of 10 to 20 floors. Mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses, a skyscraper can also be called a high-rise, for buildings above a height of 300 m, the term supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as megatall. One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls and these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, a relatively big building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. The maximum height of structures has progressed historically with building methods and technologies, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers, the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Even the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic and this definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicagos Monadnock Building. What is the characteristic of the tall office building. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, the word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft. The tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and it was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 14th century AD Lincoln Cathedral being conjectured by many to have exceeded it
10.
Texas
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Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous state capital in the U. S. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify its former status as an independent republic, and as a reminder of the states struggle for independence from Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the Texan state flag, the origin of Texass name is from the word Tejas, which means friends in the Caddo language. Due to its size and geologic features such as the Balcones Fault, although Texas is popularly associated with the U. S. southwestern deserts, less than 10 percent of Texas land area is desert. Most of the centers are located in areas of former prairies, grasslands, forests. Traveling from east to west, one can observe terrain that ranges from coastal swamps and piney woods, to rolling plains and rugged hills, the term six flags over Texas refers to several nations that have ruled over the territory. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas, Mexico controlled the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence, becoming an independent Republic. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th state, the states annexation set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican–American War in 1846. A slave state before the American Civil War, Texas declared its secession from the U. S. in early 1861, after the Civil War and the restoration of its representation in the federal government, Texas entered a long period of economic stagnation. One Texan industry that thrived after the Civil War was cattle, due to its long history as a center of the industry, Texas is associated with the image of the cowboy. The states economic fortunes changed in the early 20th century, when oil discoveries initiated a boom in the state. With strong investments in universities, Texas developed a diversified economy, as of 2010 it shares the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 companies with California at 57. With a growing base of industry, the leads in many industries, including agriculture, petrochemicals, energy, computers and electronics, aerospace. Texas has led the nation in export revenue since 2002 and has the second-highest gross state product. The name Texas, based on the Caddo word tejas meaning friends or allies, was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves, during Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas, La Provincia de Texas. Texas is the second largest U. S. state, behind Alaska, though 10 percent larger than France and almost twice as large as Germany or Japan, it ranks only 27th worldwide amongst country subdivisions by size. If it were an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile, Texas is in the south central part of the United States of America. Three of its borders are defined by rivers, the Rio Grande forms a natural border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south
11.
Radio City Music Hall
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Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city and its interior was declared a city landmark in 1978. It is notable as being the headquarters for the dance company. The 12-acre complex in Midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center was developed between 1929 and 1940 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. on land leased from Columbia University. The Radio City Music Hall was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and its originally planned name was International Music Hall. The names Radio City and Radio City Music Hall derive from one of the complexs first tenants, Radio City Music Hall was a project of Rockefeller, Samuel Roxy Rothafel, who previously opened the Roxy Theatre in 1927, and RCA chairman David Sarnoff. The Music Hall opened to the public on December 27,1932 with a stage show featuring Ray Bolger, Doc Rockwell. The opening was meant to be a return to high-class variety entertainment, the new format was not a success. The program was long, and individual acts were lost in the cavernous hall. On January 11,1933, the Music Hall converted to the format of a feature film. The film-plus-stage-spectacle format continued at the Music Hall until 1979, with four complete performances presented every day, plans for alternate uses for the structure included converting the theater into tennis courts, a shopping mall or the American Stock Exchange. Joining forces with the media and political allies, including New York Lt. Gov. Mary Anne Krupsak, they challenged the Rockefeller establishment, against all odds, to save The Showplace of the Nation. On March 28,1978 New York Citys Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the interior of Radio City Music Hall a landmark guaranteeing that the building would remain a theatre, on May 12,1978, Radio City Music Hall was placed on The National Register of Historic Places. Regular film showings at Radio City ended in 1979 and in 1980, after a renovation, Radio City Music Hall is currently leased to and managed by The Madison Square Garden Company. Movie premieres and feature runs have occasionally taken place such as the Harry Potter film series. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular continues to be an important annual event, starting in 2013, however, the Tony Awards will be the only major televised awards ceremony at Radio City, as the Video Music Awards relocated permanently to the Barclays Center that year. Radio City has 5,933 seats for spectators, and additional seating can be placed on the pit elevator during events that do not require that space bringing the capacity to over 6,000. Designed by Edward Durell Stone, the interior of the theater with its austere Art Deco lines represented a break with the ornate rococo ornament associated with movie palaces at the time
