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Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall
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Radio City Music Hall opened its doors in 1932, in New York City, the brainchild of John D. Rockefeller, RCA, and impresario S.L. "Roxy" Rothafel. Rockefeller, who held the lease on the property in downtown Manhattan, approached RCA — at that time a young company whose NBC radio programs were attracting huge audiences and whose RKO studios were producing and distributing popular motion pictures — and Rothafel, a reputed theatrical genius who combined vaudeville, movies and razzle-dazzle décor to revive struggling theatres across America, suggesting they join forces in developing the entertainment complex.

The result, Radio City Music Hall, is the largest indoor theatre in the world. Its marquee is a full city-block long. Donald Deskey designed the interior, creating more than thirty separate spaces, including eight lounges and smoking rooms, each with its own motif. Its auditorium measures 160ft./48.8m from back to stage and the ceiling reaches a height of 84ft/25.6m. The shimmering gold stage curtain is the largest in the world. The "Mighty Wurlitzer" organ, which was built especially for the theatre, has pipes ranging in size from a few inches/centimeters to 32 ft/9.8m, which are housed in eleven separate rooms.

Two weeks after its gala opening, Radio City Music Hall premiered its first film, The Bitter Tea of General Yen. Since 1933 more than 700 movies have opened there. They include the original King Kong; National Velvet; White Christmas; Breakfast at Tiffany's; To Kill a Mockingbird, starring former Radio City usher Gregory Peck; Mary Poppins; 101 Dalmatians and The Lion King. Radio City Music Hall hosts performances by celebrities from the worlds of entertainment, sports, the media and national life.

A seven-month, $70 million restoration was completed in 1999.

Last updated: August 12, 2007.

 
 
Dictionary of Dance: Radio City Music Hall

New York theatre which opened as a vaudeville house but went on to present films, grand-scale musicals, dance events, ice shows, etc. It opened 27 Dec. 1932, with an auditorium seating 6, 000 and one of the largest stages in the world. Martha Graham appeared in the first night programme, and the precision dance group the Rockettes remained a renowned feature. It was closed for several months during 1999 for refurbishment, restoring the clean lines of its (now listed) 1930s' design.

 
Wikipedia: Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall
Radio_City_Music_Hall_2003.jpg
Front facade of the Radio City Music Hall
Nickname(s) Radio City, Showplace of the Nation
Location 1260 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, New York
Coordinates 40°45′35″N, 73°58′45″W
Type Indoor theatre
Opened December 27, 1932
Owner Cablevision (through Madison Square Garden L.P.)
Renovated 1999
Seating type Reserved
Capacity 5,933

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city. Its interior was declared a city landmark in 1978.

Early history

The 12 acre (49,000 m²) 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. Rockefeller initially planned a new home for the Metropolitan Opera on the site, but after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the plans changed and the opera company withdrew from the project.

The names "Radio City" and "Radio City Music Hall" derive from one of the complex's first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America. Radio City Music Hall was a project of Rockefeller, Samuel Roxy Rothafel who previously opened the Roxy Theater in 1927, and RCA chairman David Sarnoff. RCA had developed numerous studios for NBC at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, just to the south of the Music Hall, and the radio-TV complex that lent the Music Hall its name is still known as the NBC Radio City Studios.

The Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932 with a spectacular stage show, featuring Ray Bolger and Martha Graham. The opening was meant to be a return to high class variety entertainment. Unfortunately, it was not a success and on January 11, 1933, the first film was shown on the giant screen: Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck.

Radio City has 5,933 seats for spectators; it became the largest movie theater in the world at the time of its opening. Designed by Edward Durell Stone, the interior of the theater, by Donald Deskey, incorporates glass, aluminum, chrome, and geometric ornamentation. Deskey rejected the Rococo embellishment generally used for theaters at that time in favor of a contemporary Art Deco style, borrowed heavily from a European Modern aesthetic style, of which he was the foremost exponent at the time.

For much of the theater's history, it presented both a movie and a stage show as part of the same program. By the 1970s, changes in film distribution made it difficult for Radio City to secure exclusive bookings of many films; furthermore, the theater preferred to show only G-rated movies, which became less common as the decade wore on. Regular film showings at Radio City ended in 1979, although movies have occasionally been shown there in succeeding years.

Attractions

The Great Stage, measuring 66.5 feet (20 m) deep and 144 feet (44 m) wide, resembles a setting sun. Its system of elevators was so advanced that the U.S. Navy incorporated identical hydraulics in constructing World War II aircraft carriers. According to Radio City lore, during the war, government agents guarded the basement to assure the Navy's technological advantage.

The Music Hall's Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ is the largest theater pipe organ built for a movie theater. Twin identical consoles flank both sides of the Great Stage, 144 feet apart. As it was installed in 1932, the instrument, the largest produced by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company of North Tonawanda, New York, was not built to accompany silent movies, but rather to be a concert instrument, capable of playing many styles of music, including classical organ literature. Its 4,410 pipes are installed in chambers on either side of the proscenium's arch. A restoration of the historic organ was undertaken that was completed in time for the theater's restoration in 1999. A smaller Wurlitzer organ was installed in the theater's radio studios, but was put into storage when the studio was converted into office space.

The theater is also home to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, a New York Christmas tradition since 1933, and to the women's precision dance team known as The Rockettes. The theater, which is managed by Cablevision, is also used for a variety of concerts and special events. In 1998, Latin pop artist Luis Miguel held shows in the hall by selling out five consecutive shows in five straight nights, and also sold out four straight nights in four straight concerts in 2000.

The Music Hall is the regular home of the Daytime Emmy Award ceremony (though the 2006 and 2007 shows were held in Los Angeles) and the Tony Awards, is the frequent site of the annual MTV Video Music Awards (although the ceremony has occasionally been held since the 1990s in Los Angeles, Miami and was in Las Vegas in 2007), and has often been the venue for the Grammy Awards on years when New York has won the bid to host the show, although Madison Square Garden, owned by Cablevision, hosted the Grammys in 2003 while the Staples Center in Los Angeles most recently hosted the awards in 2007. In addition, Radio City Music Hall is also the regular home of commencement ceremonies for Hunter College and Pace University's New York City campus. The Great Stage has been home for the NFL Draft in 2006 and 2007, and will do so again in 2008.

On January 15, 2000, Radio City Music Hall played host to its first ever sports event, a boxing card that featured undisputed light heavyweight champion Roy Jones, Jr. defeating David Telesco in the main event, and in the co-feature heavyweight David Izon defeating Derrick Jefferson.

The New York Liberty played some of their 2004 home games at Radio City while Madison Square Garden was renovated for the Republican National Convention.

Famous Progressive Rock band, Dream Theater, recorded their concert here on April 1, 2006 during their 20th anniversary tour and released it on a 3CD/2DVD live album named Score (album). Heaven and Hell recorded their March 30, 2007 concert here, releasing it as a two CD live album and DVD, Heaven and Hell: Live from Radio City Music Hall.

Further reading

  • Okrent, Daniel. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center, New York: Viking Press, 2003.
  • Roussel, Christine. The Art of Rockefeller Center, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.

See also

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