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The first
It began as a plan for an opera house
The site was first envisioned for a new Metropolitan Opera building. After the stock market crash of 1929 the Met could no longer afford to move, and its plans were canceled on December 6, 1929.
19commercial buildings across 22 acres in Midtown Manhattan
The name
How Rockefeller Center got its name
Early on it was often called Radio City, Rockefeller City or Metropolitan Square. Ivy Lee, the family's publicity adviser, suggested Rockefeller Center, and John Rockefeller Jr. was persuaded that the name would attract far more tenants.
The work
Built through the Depression
The construction employed between 40,000 and 60,000 people. Architectural historian Carol Herselle Krinsky calls it the only large private permanent construction project planned and executed between the start of the Depression and the end of the Second World War.
“...you could do anything you wanted except sleep (no hotels), pray (no churches), or not pay rent to [John Rockefeller Jr.]”
As reported by the writer Daniel Okrent
Winter
The tree and the rink
The Christmas tree in the center of the plaza was first put up in December 1933. In 1936 an ice skating rink replaced unprofitable retail space on the lower plaza, below ground level.
Day 1, midday
It comes after Grand Central Terminal. Then Top of the Rock.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Rockefeller Center, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.