Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center is a New York City landmark known for its ice skating rink, the city’s main Christmas tree, and the golden figure of Prometheus. However, not many people know that on the roof of the GE building, the tallest building in the center of the city, there is a tiered observation deck that provides a bird’s eye view of the Middletown skyline.

General Information

The nine-hectare Rockefeller Center was built in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its construction, including the famous Art Deco skyscraper, provided employment for 70,000 workers for more than nine years. The center was the first building to combine retail and entertainment functions with office space, for which it was often referred to as a “city within a city”. Rockefeller Center is hardly the only place in New York City where you can take a photo with the Empire State Building

Rockefeller Center is the second most popular observation deck after the Empire State Building, and it is much less crowded. The observation deck on the roof of the building is called Top of the Rock. Keep in mind that many tourists from different countries are going to watch the sunset, so take a place at the edge of the observation deck on the roof in advance, if you want to capture the view once seen by a gorilla in love from a rival skyscraper.

The building itself is part of a commercial center and architectural ensemble of 19 buildings, 14 of which were built from 1931 to 1940. There is also the 70-story Radio City Music Hall, the NBC studio, which you can visit and see how American television is organized from the inside. The Top of the Rock observation deck is three full floors.

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There is a fully open area on the 70th floor, a glass-fenced gallery on the 69th floor, and the 67th floor, which includes both a room with benches in front of the windows to shelter from the cold and weather, and a glassed-in gallery. The total area is so large that it allows visitors to move freely, relax and look at the surrounding city from any convenient place. This observation deck was opened more than 70 years ago, but in the early eighties it was closed for restoration and refurbishment. It wasn’t until 2006, almost twenty years later, that it, now known as Top of the Rock, welcomed visitors again. The tiny observation deck on the Empire State Building, is always packed with crowds of tourists. and sometimes you even have to wait in line just to get to the railing, not to mention it becomes an almost impossible task to take a photo against the backdrop of the city.

The Empire State’s main virtue is recognizability; it is a New York icon, known from many movies and countless postcards, and, after the destruction of the Twin Towers, it is once again the city’s tallest skyscraper.

From the Empire State site, there is a better view of the Chrysler Building. which is partially obscured when viewed from Rockefeller Center) and the 22-story skyscraper Iron (Flatiron Building).

For an additional $15 (plus the cost of a regular ticket), you can go up to a second platform on the 102nd floor.

Admission prices are about the same at both locations (about $18). But near the street ticket booths of Top of the Rock there are always agents who give coupons for a two-dollar discount on the ticket, which reduces the price to $16 per person, which can already be significant if a whole family is going. Although the observation deck at Rockefeller Center is lower than its counterpart at the Empire State (70th floor vs. 86th floor), it doesn’t feel that way when visiting. Rockefeller Center still towers over the rest of the nearby skyscrapers, and nothing obstructs the 360-degree view at 260 meters.

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So the verdict is unequivocal – Top of the Rock is more enjoyable to visit than the Empire State Building, especially if standing in hours-long lines is not one of your favorite activities.

Rockefeller Center employs more than 60 thousand employees of various organizations. Most of the buildings are connected by passages and galleries. It is a huge complex that has everything: offices, stores, cafes and restaurants, doctors’ offices, schools, theaters and movies, post offices, travel agencies, home services, and even squares and waterfalls, trees and palm trees. And in the heart of the complex is the 47th-50th Street (“47th-50th street”) subway station.

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The “Lower Level” plaza is interesting, it is the one you have to go down the steps to, turning left off Fifth Avenue after crossing 49th Street. In the summertime it is filled with tubs of palm trees and tables under awnings. Here is a branch of a large café located inside an entire underground city that connects many of the buildings of Rockefeller Center. At the edges of the square are two elegant glass pavilions with elevators lowering you directly from the street into this cafe. But the most interesting change here comes in late fall: an ice rink with artificial ice takes the place of the summer cafe. This is one of the most popular places in the city. The rink is paid: a session lasts 45 minutes. In the very center of the lower square, as if pressed against the wall, there is a fountain (naturally, working in the summer), and above it is a gilded bronze figure of the American sculptor Paul Menshina “Prometheus.”

The austerity and geometricity of the Rockefeller Center buildings are enlivened by sculptures, high reliefs, and decorative panels. Virtually all the buildings are decorated with them. They are executed in a style that in America is called “art deco.”

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Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center

Many streets and squares in New York City claim the right to be called the center of New York City. But maybe the center of the city is where the city’s Christmas tree is placed?

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In New York City, since 1936, the Christmas tree has been placed right in the center of Rockefeller Center. Already at the end of September, all the New York press begins to print reports about where this tree was found. bought or received as a gift; how it will be delivered to the city – on a trailer or on a barge. And all with a lot of details and small details, almost like the life of Princess Diana. And now, finally, this beautiful giant, 25 to 30 meters tall, studded with thousands of electric lights, is ceremonially installed right outside the main building of the Center on a tiny street in Rockefeller Plaza.

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The tree pleases the eye from Christmas to January 2 of the new year, gathering around itself up to a million people a day.