RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL OPENS:

Here is another "lost" item......................PEACE.................Scott


RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL OPENS:
December 27, 1932

At the height of the Great Depression, thousands turn out for the opening of
Radio City Music Hall, a magnificent Art Deco theater in New York City. Radio
City Music Hall was designed as a palace for the people, a place of beauty where
ordinary people could see high-quality entertainment. Since its 1932 opening,
more than 300 million people have gone to Radio City to enjoy movies, stage
shows, concerts, and special events. Radio City Music Hall was the brainchild of
the billionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who decided to make the theater the
cornerstone of the Rockefeller Complex he was building in a formerly derelict
neighborhood in midtown Manhattan. The theater was built in partnership with the
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and designed by Donald Deskey. The result was
an Art Deco masterpiece of elegance and grace constructed out of a diverse
variety of materials, including aluminum, gold foil, marble, permatex, glass,
and cork. Geometric ornamentation is found throughout the theater, as is
Deskey's central theme of the "Progress of Man." The famous Great Stage,
measuring 60 feet wide and 100 feet long, resembles a setting sun. Its
sophisticated system of hydraulic-powered elevators allowed spectacular effects
in staging, and many of its original mechanisms are still in use today.In its
first four decades, Radio City Music Hall alternated as a first-run movie
theater and a site for gala stage shows. More than 700 films have premiered at
Radio City Music Hall since 1933. In the late 1970s, the theater changed its
format and began staging concerts by popular music artists. The Radio City Music
Hall Christmas Spectacular, which debuted in 1933, draws more than a million
people annually. The show features the high-kicking Rockettes, a precision dance
troupe that has been a staple at Radio City since the 1930s. Today, Radio City
Music Hall remains the largest indoor theater in the world.