complex of buildings in central Manhattan, New York City, between 48th and 51st streets and Fifth Ave. and the Ave. of the Americas (Sixth Ave.). The project was sponsored by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., with fourteen of the buildings built between 1931 and 1939. These include the 70-story GE (General Electric) Building, known prior to 1989 as the RCA (Radio Corp. of America) Building. The Time-Life Building (built 1960–61), the most recent addition to the group, extended the center's boundaries west of the Ave. of the Americas. The buildings house offices, shops, restaurants, exhibition rooms, broadcasting studios, and the opulently Art Deco Radio City Music Hall, New York City's largest theater. Five of the western buildings of Rockefeller Center in the broadcasting and entertainment section are known as Radio City. Many sculptors and painters are represented in the decoration of the buildings and grounds. Paul Manship designed the Prometheus of the central fountain, which overlooks an outdoor skating rink and mall.

See studies by C. Krinsky (1978), W. Karp (1982), and D. Okrent (2003).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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