Center Theatre (New York City)
The Center Theatre was a theater located at 1230 Sixth Avenue, the southeast corner of West 49th Street in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Seating 3,500, it was originally designed as a movie palace in 1932 and later achieved fame as a showcase for live musical ice-skating spectacles. It was demolished in 1954, the only building in the original Rockefeller Center complex to have been torn down.
Radio City - RKO Roxy Theatre ad from, The Film Daily, 1932
RKO Roxy Theatre, 49th Street, New York, N.Y., 1932
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres (89,000 m2) between 48th Street and 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue, split by a large sunken square and a private street called Rockefeller Plaza. Later additions include 75 Rockefeller Plaza across 51st Street at the north end of Rockefeller Plaza, and four International Style buildings on the west side of Sixth Avenue.
View from the northeast of 30 Rockefeller Plaza at the heart of the complex
Rockefeller Center originated as a plan to replace the old Metropolitan Opera House (pictured).
Construction progress in December 1933
The iconic photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper depicts workers resting for a meal during the construction of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.