Dance, Drama, and Song by Hildreth Meière
This season, my wigless day job is at Rock Center! Recently, I took a 75-minute tour of the campus, which includes 14 original buildings plus five newer structures.
I learned more about the visuals I see every day. I also noticed who got credit: usually the beefiest and most powerful men.
Funny, when I first started as Mrs. Claus, an agent told me: “Stay away from Rockefeller. That’s my territory.”
I didn’t know the territory, but I felt terrified to defy him. Until recently.
Huh! I just can’t find the lines of demarcation anywhere, although the center still doesn’t employ a Mrs. Claus for its annual tree lighting. Santa couples light trees together all across the United States. Not at the Rock, at an event that attracts millions of viewers and literally stops traffic.
No one can break through that spruce ceiling. (Every time I’ve used the center’s full name in this blog, Facebook blocked the post.) That’s the power of tradition.
Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, 1932, Charles C. Ebbets. Distributed by Acme Newspictures, Original caption: "While New York's thousands rush to crowded restaurants and congested lunch counters for their noon day lunch, these intrepid steel workers atop the 70 story RCA building in Rockefeller Center get all the air and freedom they want by lunching on a steel beam with a sheer drop of over 800 feet to the street level. The RCA building is the largest office building in terms of office space in the world."
As an answer to the famous workmen photo, here are just a few fabulous women whose contributions invigorate spaces between 51 and 48th streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues.
Perhaps it’s a man’s word, but their footprints are all over Rockefeller.
1) Her husband John D. Rockefeller, Jr., financed Rockefeller Center during the Great Depression. Abby Rockefeller maintained relationships with artists and actively selected public works for the complex.
2) Best known for mosaics and murals, Hildreth Meière created Dance, Drama, and Song outside Radio City Music Hall, as seen in the first photo of this blog.
3) Martha Stewart, America’s first self-made female billionaire, hosts a weekly podcast in a converted newsstand in my building at 1 Rock. I can’t wait to discuss cookies with her.
4) Danitra Vance was the first Black female cast member of Saturday Night Live, filmed at 30 Rock.
5) Valerie Clarebout was an English artist who handcrafted the dozen 8-feet-tall angels along the Channel Gardens. Her sculptures, installed in 1954, lead the way to the Rockefeller Christmas tree.
6) TODAY Show host Hoda Kotb, sitting between Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager, announced her retirement in September. She has been with NBC for nearly three decades. I see the back of Hoda’s head almost every morning when I head into work.
7) The Rockettes have been a Radio City Music Hall feature since 1932. Standing between 5’5’’ and 5’10’’, these powerful women are known for their eye-high kicks. They hired the first dark-skinned dancer in 1987 and the first visibly disabled dancer in 2019.
8) Eleanor Roosevelt was First Lady during Rockefeller Center’s construction in the 1930s. Her My Day column mentioned visits to Rockefeller for post-broadcast nibbles, award ceremonies, and trips to Women’s City Club.
Now let’s check out some of the male art that dominates everything and gets all the attention. And on this scale, how could it not? Below, see Lee Lawrie’s 45-foot-Atlas, installed in 1937 in front of the International Building on Fifth Avenue.
Notice the back of Atlas facing St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Men who installed Atlas thought, at first, the figure was that of Jesus Christ.
The Rockefeller complex also involves underground passages and shops that connect offices to the subways. As we were moving underground between buildings, I wondered how 20th-century women moved through the spaces, including a skinny escalator. Can you imagine riding this while wearing high heels?
Some of the walls are stained with what has to be cigarette smoke.
As we passed a line of people camping out on a Friday to get tickets for Saturday Night Live, I wondered what it must have been like to be a woman on the show. Such pressure, even now!
Saturday Night Live fans camping out on a Friday night to get tickets to the show.
One of the weirdest things we saw was The Story of Transportation inside 10 Rockefeller, once home of Eastern Airlines. All four walls depict modes of travel, all blessed by identical naked goddesses.
Dean Cornwell was the artist. Wilmuth Masden Stevens was not only his assistant but the model of all those naked goddesses, according to The Art of Rockefeller Center by Christine Roussel. Known for stepping out on his wife, Cornwell might have been inappropriate. That’s my opinion. Sadly, I couldn’t find a bio or photo of Stevens on the internet. The Rockefeller website doesn’t list her name, although our tour guide said that the face of the goddesses is that of Cornwell’s wife. There’s a story here.
However, I found one mention of her on a site called VoiceMap in reference to him. (I’m avoiding links to see why Facebook continued to block this post. It seems it’s a matter of using the center’s full name and anything critical about its tree lighting.)
Cornwell was as famous as Norman Rockwell in his day. He certainly did not credit her work as assistant muralist.
Below is Wisdom, by Lee Lawrie. The relief is on the entrance to 30 Rock, facing the Christmas tree.
This year’s Norway Spruce is from West Stockbridge, Mass. Santa will be there for the lighting on Dec. 4. But … still no Mrs. Claus anywhere on the entire complex.
This next picture shows the Channel Gardens, which lead to the Rink and tree. Valerie Clarebout’s angels line the fountain.
Female figures are everywhere in Rockefeller Center, often as goddesses or mythical figures representing big ideas. In Intelligence Awakening Mankind, artist Barry Faulkner shows this central figure, Thought, to be an anchor to Written Words on the left and Spoken Words on the right.
By listening to the radio, listeners can hear the human voice, the “bird of the air,” which can educate them and help them from sinking into poverty. That was the thought at the time.
Here is a promotion for the movie Wicked, as presented on the Plaza between 1 Rock, where I work, and 10 Rockefeller. All of the figures are made of Legos!
Here’s where I see the back of Hoda Kodb’s head every morning.
Below is a fabulous bas-relief, News, outside the old Associated Press building. Artist Isamu Noguchi intended for these five male figures to seek the same story, using all the latest technology. Who will be the fastest?
News by Isamu Noguchi
Rockefeller Center belongs to everybody. While I couldn’t find actual lines of demarcation between Santa and Mrs. Claus, I did feel boundaries between Black and White people, the rich and the poor, and men and women.
Landmark status provides preservation, a mostly good thing. However, in celebrating tradition, must we continue to repeat history?
