GE Building

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GE Building
Information
Location	30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, New York 10112 USA[1]
Status	Complete
Constructed	1933
Use	Offices and television studios (NBC)
Height
Roof	850 ft (259 m)
Technical details
Floor count	70
Companies
Architect	Associated Architects

The GE Building is an Art Deco skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. Known as the RCA Building until 1988, it is famous for housing the headquarters of the television network NBC. At 850 feet (259 m) tall, the 70-story building is the 9th tallest building in New York City and the 32nd tallest in the United States. The building is sometimes referred to as 30 Rock, a reference to its address at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

[edit] History

Rockefeller Center with (then) RCA Building, December 1933

The building was completed in 1933 as part of the Rockefeller Center. The noted Art Deco architect Raymond Hood led a team of Rockefeller architects. It was named the RCA Building for its main tenant, the Radio Corporation of America, formed in 1919 by General Electric. It was the first building constructed with the elevators grouped in the central core. The National Broadcasting Company, also owned by General Electric, leased space in the building.

The office of the Rockefeller family occupied Room 5600 on the 56th floor. This space is now occupied by Rockefeller Family & Associates, spanning between the 54th floor and the 56th floor of the building. In 1985, the building acquired official landmark status. The RCA Building was renamed as the GE Building in 1988, two years after General Electric re-acquired the RCA Corporation.

[edit] Features

Facade of the GE Building

The GE Building is one of the most famous and recognized skyscrapers in New York. The frieze located above the main entrance was executed by Lee Lawrie and depicts "Wisdom"^[2], along with a slogan that reads "Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times". The vertical detailing of the building's austere Art Deco facade is integrated with a slim, functionally expressive form. The present exterior is recognized for the large GE letters at the building's top. The famous marquee above the building's entrance is seen on numerous television shows, such as Seinfeld. Unlike most other tall Art Deco buildings constructed in the 1930s, the GE Building has no spire on its roof.

Some of the building's nicknames include The Slab and 30 Rock. The latter is also the title of the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, which follows the cast and crew of a fictional television show filmed inside the building. The television show uses the building for exterior shots while interior shots are filmed at Silvercup Studios in Queens.

[edit] NBC Studios

The building is well known for housing the headquarters of NBC and the New York facilities of NBC Studios. In 1996, NBC bought the 1,600,000 square feet (149,000 m²) of space it had leased since 1933. The purchase allowed the company to introduce new technologies and renovate the space; it also gave them options to renew the lease on the Today Show studios, broadcast from a nearby building, 10 Rockefeller Plaza.^[3] The office of Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, is located on the 51st floor of the GE Building.

NBC's most famous studio is Studio 8H^{[citation needed]}, the home of Saturday Night Live. Studio 8H was once the largest radio studio in the world, originally home to the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. It was converted into a television studio in 1950. The Tonight Show was also taped at the GE Building in Studio 6-B from the early Jack Paar years until 1972, when the show moved to Burbank, California. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon now occupies the former Tonight Show space. During its run, Rosie O'Donnell broadcast her syndicated talk show from the building.

The NBC Studios entrance to the GE Building

Below the building is a shopping concourse, connected to the lobby via an escalator. The open lobby's rich materials and reduced black and beige ornamental scheme is enhanced by dramatic lighting. Granite covers the building base to a height of 4 feet (1.2 m), and the shaft has a refined facade of Indiana Limestone with aluminum spandrel panels.

The top floor of the GE Building is an event room and restaurant named the Rainbow Room, which was recently revamped and reopened to the public with new operators. The famous photograph Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper was taken there when the building was under construction in 1932. The Rainbow Room announced on January 4, 2009 that it would no longer operate as a restaurant due to the economic downturn.

[edit] NBC Studio productions

The building is also the headquarters for Bravo, Chiller, MSNBC, Oxygen, Syfy, Sleuth, Universal HD and USA Network. CNBC is headquartered in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

[edit] Observation deck

The observation deck atop the skyscraper, dubbed "Top of the Rock", reopened to the public on November 1, 2005, after undergoing a $75 million renovation. It had been closed since 1986 to accommodate the renovation of the Rainbow Room. The deck, which is built to resemble the deck of an ocean liner, offers sightseers a bird's eye view of the city, competing with the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building.

The "Top of the Rock" had also been co-opted for NBC's Sunday Night Football during the 2006-07 season, with the top player/MVP in that night's game according to John Madden and Al Michaels receiving the honor of being that night's "Rock Star" in the form of a glass trophy display on the observation deck; this was a replacement for the Horse Trailer Award formerly awarded on ABC's Monday Night Football. The Horse Trailer honor was restored for the 2007-08 season.

View of New York City from the "Top of the Rock" observation deck of the GE building

[edit] See also

A composite of the GE Building as seen from Fifth Avenue at three different times.

• Architecture of New York City
• Baker Botts (tenant)
• Original General Electric Building (1931, built as the RCA Building)
• List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan
• List of tallest buildings in New York City
• List of tallest buildings in the United States

[edit] Further reading

• Harr, John Ensor, and Peter J. Johnson. The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988.
• 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 ISBN 0-393-06082-9

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: GE Building

• Top Of The Rock - Official "Top Of The Rock" page
• in-Arch.net: The RCA/GE Building
• Top Of The Rock Photo Gallery - About.com

Coordinates: 40°45′32″N 73°58′44″W / 40.759°N 73.979°W / 40.759; -73.979