Radio City Music Hall

Overview

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Nicknamed the Showplace of the Nation, it is the headquarters for the Rockettes, the precision dance company. Radio City Music Hall was designed by Edward Durell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style.

Radio City Music Hall was built on a plot of land that was originally intended for a Metropolitan Opera House, although plans for the opera house were canceled in 1929. It opened on December 27, 1932, as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center. Radio City Music Hall was designated a New York City Landmark in May 1978, and the Music Hall was restored and allowed to remain open. The hall was extensively renovated in 1999.

One of the more notable parts of the Music Hall is its large auditorium, which was the world's largest when the Hall first opened. The Music Hall also contains a variety of art. Although Radio City Music Hall was initially intended to host stage shows, it hosted performances in a film-and-stage-spectacle format through the 1970s, and was the site of several movie premieres. It now primarily hosts concerts, including by leading pop and rock musicians, and live stage shows such as the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. The Music Hall has also hosted televised events including the Grammy Awards, the Tony Awards, the Daytime Emmy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and the NFL Draft.

Exterior

Its exterior is notable for a long marquee sign that wraps around the corner of Sixth Avenue and 50th Street, as well as narrower, seven-story-high signs on the north and south ends of the marquee's Sixth Avenue side; both signs display the hall's name in neon letters. The main entrance to the Music Hall was placed at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 50th Street, underneath the marquee. The entrance's location, which was enhanced by the amount of open space in front of that corner, ensured that the hall could easily be seen from the Broadway theater district a block to the west.

Interior

The interior contains a "majestic" grand foyer, the large and lavishly decorated main auditorium, and a series of stairs and elevators that lead to levels of mezzanines. Designed by Edward Durell Stone, the interior of the theater with its austere Art Deco lines represented a break with the traditional ornate rococo ornament associated with movie palaces at the time. Donald Deskey coordinated the interior design process, as well as designed some of the wallpaper, furniture, and other decor in the Music Hall. Deskey's geometric Art Deco designs incorporate glass, aluminum, chrome, and leather in the ornament for the theater's wall coverings, carpet, light fixtures, and furniture. All of the Music Hall's staircases were fitted with brass railings, an aspect of the Art Deco style.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Radio City Music Hall", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0