Women
of
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center conjures images of hyper-masculinity. Think Prometheus by Paul Manship (how appropriate) in The Rink. Women also shaped this important part of New York City, both in their mentions and their erasures.
Dance, Drama, and Song by Hildreth Meière
This season, my wigless day job is at Rockefeller Center! Recently, I took a 75-minute tour of the campus, which includes 14 original buildings plus five newer structures.
I learned a little more about the visuals I see everyday. I also noticed who got credit: usually the beefiest and most powerful men.
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.
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 Lowrie’s 45-foot-Atlas, installed in 1937 in front of the International Building on Fifth Avenue.
And here is the back of Atlas facing St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Our tour guide said that men who installed Atlas thought, at first, the figure was Jesus Christ.
This huge complex also involves underground passages and shops that connect Rockefeller to the subways. As we were moving underground between buildings, I wondered how women in the 1930s felt as they moved through these office spaces, including this skinny escalator. I felt the presence of old cigarette smoke, even though I couldn’t smell it. Some of the walls are stained with what has to be cigarette smoke.
Imagine riding this in high heels.
Underground barbershop
Old newsstand in 1 Rock converted into a podcast station for celebrities like Martha Stewart
As we passed a line of people camping out on a Friday to get tickets for Saturday Night Live, I also felt a charge of what it must have been like to be a woman on the show.
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. Notice all the naked goddesses. Dean Cornwell was the artist. Wilmuth Masden Stevens was his assistant and model for the goddesses. Known for stepping out on his wife, I sensed an inappropriate relationship. Sadly, I couldn’t find a photo of Stevens. The Rockefeller Center website doesn’t list her name. However, I found one mention on the internet. He was as famous as Norman Rockwell in his day. She certainly did not credit for 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. The tree lighting is Dec. 4. This picture shows the Channel Gardens. Soon, Valerie Clarebout’s angels will line the fountain. But … still no Mrs. Claus anywhere on the entire complex.
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 Word 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.
Here is a promotion for 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 of the time. Who will be the fastest?
News by Isamu Noguchi
A Santa once told me to stay away from Rockefeller. “That’s my territory,” he said. Well, as I was walking around freely, I felt that it belongs to everybody. I left feeling I had fought a dragon.