Rockefeller Center (also known as Rockefeller Square) is a complex of 19 commercial buildings, between 48th and 51th Street in New York City, Built by the Rockefeller family, is located in Midtown Manhattan, is a tourist destination because of the decoration in the Rockefeller Plaza, the view offered by the observatory at GE Building (Top of the Rock) and besides the many seasonal activities, as skating ice that runs from November to mid-April or the great Christmas tree that every year thousands of people congregate. All symbols of the Rockefeller Center following a Greek aesthetic that has been somewhat adulterated to suit the popular taste of the moment: The Deco-Art, quintessential symbol of American capitalism has a system of gateways connected between the roofs of the buildings, referring to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the concept of its creator was to make a city within a city, gathering bunch of offices and shopping centers for recreation for the new Yorkers and tourists, building the second largest economic center of Manhattan after Wall Street.
The main entrance to the complex from Fifth Avenue leads to a nice landscaped promenade known as Channel Gardens. This name comes to remember the English Channel, the promenade is flanked by two buildings: the British Empire Building and the French one, La Maison Française. The gardens are decorated with fountains and fish sculptures in bronze. The Channel Garden flows into the Lower Square dominated by the golden sculpture Prometheus. This square has an ancient entrance to the luxury shops that years ago occupied the whole complex, Its used as a restaurant terrace in summer and as ice rink for skating in winter. Other important buildings that complete the Rockefeller Center are: Radio City Music Hall, the Associated Press Building, The International Building with its famous Atlas sculpture.
Our advice:
When you are visiting the Rockellefer Center look carefully the Atlas sculpture, where you can see in north-south axis a great orb made by bronze that points to the North Star, In one of its rings are represented the 12 constellations that the sun crosses over a year (seen from Earth). On the Atla’s shoulders you can also see a kind of curved beam with traditional symbols of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune.
And remember that famous photograph taken by Charles E. Ebbets in 1932?? Where some construction workers are eating lunch on a beam without safety harnesses over 260 meters above the ground? The picture was taken at the top of the General Electric Building, which today is part of the complex of buildings of Rockefeller Center, you can recreate the same photograph when you are visiting the viewpoint of the Top of the Rock!
