Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
favorited this theater
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Re: Stadium seating vs. the sunken, gradual rake of RCMH
One of the interesting benefits of a stadium seating design, at least as shown by the current Ziegfeld (movie theater), the Majestic, the Richard Rodgers and the Virginia (“legit” theaters), is that a very steep rake allows a theater’s builder to save space and use his/her land more efficiently by tucking the theater’s lobby beneath the rear of the theater’s orchestra level (or its equivalent) seats. (The orchestra level then rakes downward, so that the front rows of the orchestra level are at or near ground level.)
In the case of at least two of these “legit” theaters (and perhaps all three), one actually first steps DOWN into the main lobby, before one must ascend a full flight of stairs again just to access the orchestra-level seating! And then, remember, all the “legit” theaters with stadium seating have balcony levels too, which involve even more stairs. Speak of being inconvenient! (And, as far as I know, none of the OLDER [pre-1960s] Broadway theaters [or concert halls, opera houses, etc.] — even the more conventional ones — had passenger elevators or escalators for ticket holders to use! Speak of being inconvenient for everyone — let alone inaccessible and inhospitable to the handicapped!)
So I think one reason this design didn’t catch on more in NYC, even in the pre-accessibility for the handicapped era, was because it did involve the introduction of a lot of stairs at a time when escalators (also, not seen as very classy) and elevators (in those days, with attendants!) were probably seen as being unnecessarily expensive. (As compared to the newer Broadway theaters and, I believe, the current Ziegfeld, which depend on escalators to get almost all patrons into the theater.) But I suppose, for certain theaters in the “old” days, where they really wanted to put a relatively big theater on a very small site, such a design probably was the only economically viable way to go.
In Radio City Music Hall, on the other hand, because of its enormous seating capacity (especially on the orchestra-level), the importance of its grand foyer to its overall presentation, the economic feasibility of elevators for grand movie palaces and the relative availability of a large parcel of land, a sunken and more modestly raked orchestra level was, quite understandably, a better way to go.
Re: photos of the interior of RCMH
The photos that I’m referring to, do not just show stage show, but also include a good deal of the “telescoping” interior of the auditorium PLUS the stage show. While these photos may have changed weekly, I’m guessing that this wasn’t the case, as it was probably too involved to do every week. So I’m guessing that the “Camera Highlights” that BoxOfficeBill refers to was probably more of a photograph of what was happening on the stage and didn’t include the auditorium with hundreds (thousands) of people filling the orchestra-level seats.
When I say I wished they had more photos of the interior of the auditorium, I am talking about a “greedy” little kid. (Same holds true for the wish for more movie stills, in general.) I’m just explaining why I think I so closely poured over the few photos that were available.
Of course, there is very little economic reason for the owners of the RCMH to provide more than just one stock shot of the interior (to acquaint those, who are otherwise unfamiliar with the theater, with its spectacular auditorium). For most potential customers, however, this one stock shot was probably sufficient to make them interested — if they had any interest in the first place — in seeing the theater.
It seems to me that in her book Krinksy (pg. 180) is implying that this photo, and others like it, are the work of the Radio City Music Hall publicity department — meant to show off the theater rather than the stage show. In any case, as far as I know, almost all the shows produced at RCMH were done by RCMH itself, anyway. (The one exception that I can think of is I believe Disney was invited one time to put on a stage show to accompany one of his own films.) So I don’t think the photo was altered to highlight the glories of a particular production. (Plus even with the enlargement, the photo doesn’t really tell you much about what is happening on stage anyway.)
Although it is true that enterprises like RCMH are often run by MBA types rather than theater people, etc., I think this is very much more of a current day phenomenon — something that wasn’t true as much when Roxy “built” the theater, and probably wasn’t all that true even when this photo was re-touched either. Reading various things about the history of RCMH, the history of the movies (with a lot of garment entrepreneurs become movie titans) and the history of business in general (prior to the 1960s), a surprising number of “big-time” businesses in the “old” days seem to be entrepreneurial operations (with non-college graduates running the show) or even “Mom and Pop” family operations.
Although RCMH management may, indeed, have been making the right decision regarding enlarging the Rockettes and the stage shows in these photos (my feelings could be the exception), it seems to me that they were being misguided and somewhat overly sensitive. To the limited extent that the photo makes any difference in the first place, I think they would probably be attracting more potential customers than they would lose.
Aside from being “fake” and “inauthentic” such photos seems to rob RCMH of some of its wonderful grandeur. How disappointing that, in the photo the world’s largest stage, it is barely big enough to fit all 36 Rockettes! (It looks like you can squeeze in an additional two Rockettes on stage right and one more on stage left — but that’s it.) It would be like having an interior shot of the RCMH auditorium where they take out some of the seats and enlarge the rest of them to fill out the space!
Also, it seems to me that the kind of stage shows they had — especially the ones that were the most effective — did not depend upon theatergoers seeing the faces of the performers up close. Now my memories of these stage shows are a bit fuzzy (it was a long time ago and I was just a kid for most of them), but it seems to me that the actual appeal of the shows was in their overscaled pageantry — something that is enhanced not diminished in a photo of a gigantic stage brimming over with spectacular scenery and dozens upon dozens of costumed performers.
Actually, as much as I know I enjoyed the stage shows at RCMH, I remember only one specific scene from, maybe, the five to ten shows I saw at RCMH: the Rockettes falling down like dominos during their “March of the Toy Soldiers” routine. (As far as I know, I never got to see gems such as the “Underwater Ballet” mentioned in previous posts.) So I don’t think of these shows as conventional shows — something to be seen, heard and understood — but rather as shows intended to entertain through spectacle.
I hope those older than myself will correct me if I’m wrong. But aside from the Rockettes and some other clever and truly theatrical spectacles, it seems to me that the live shows at RCMH were bright, cheery, melodic and insipid (genuine) entertainments. While the shows were genuinely entertaining in the 1950s and 1960s, they were an entertainment world equivalent of 1950s and 1960s “comfort food”! (As was much of show business in the 1950s?!) The shows at RCMH were kind of a fancifully done up, spectacularly presented, feast of “Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup,” “Wonder Bread,” “Peter Pan Peanut Butter,” “Welch’s Grape Juice” and “Hostess Twinkies” all presented in an unparalleled environment! I don’t think such entertainment, “suffers” from being seen on a giant, far away stage, but actually is enhanced by the theaters vast spaces, its echoy sound, its warm glow, the boomy rumbling organ, the mass of fellow spectators, and the giant, far away stage with tons of scenery and a virtual small town of costumed performers.
By the way, I suspect that this was true of the Music Hall in the 1930s as well as the 1950s. As mentioned previously there is a wonderful 1938 Rodgers and Hart song, “At the Roxy Music Hall” which is an affectionate send-up of Radio City Music Hall. The Lorenz Hart lyrics say that you don’t have to read the ads to decide whether or not to go to the Roxy Music Hall:
“It’s always worth the dough.
Any week you go,
It’s the same old show!”
This lyric can be heard by the same performer who introduced it on Broadway on track 19 of the “Ultimate Rodgers & Hart, Vol. II” which is produced by the Pearl division of Pavilion Records Ltd. in England. (I got it at a local chain store.) But I noticed in the published version (from the “Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart” by Hart and Kimball, Knopf, 1986) that there is even more that isn’t on the CD.
“The ballet that you saw is called "Othello”,
though it might as well have been some other fellow.
The stuff’s been here so long it’s good and mellow."
Hart says that on the stage of RCMH you can see the Grand Canal and the Bridge of Sighs of Venice — “They do Venice swell, and without the smell.”
He also says:
“Where the spectacle goes on ad infinitum, and the picture is a second item.”
I am curious about the great steam curtain that was used for special effects many times and was wondering if it is used any more. Jets, set around the perimeter of the stage apron, started to hiss and spout steam, and before you knew it the entire proscenium opening was hidden behind its billowing cloud- it literally obliterated the whole front of the auditorium. A dazzling effect when back or front lit to be sure. Also, I remember the hapless stagehand in a dark outfit slealthily scooting a mop over the nozzles after the effect was over.
But guys even if the Hall management would want to do this(yeah right)is this a Christmas family film? Better a revival of Meet Me St Louis or Singing in the Rain.(They blew Mary Poppins big time.)Of course then I would have to go in and completely redo that wretched stage show.
Oh Eric, what an interesring idea, I think Mel Brooks would love to see that happen. Perhaps we should write him about it. Of course it could not be exclusive, too much money to be made in a wide Christmas release. I like your wishful thinking, it would make a grand time for Christmas in New York.
To those who miss the combination film and stage shows at RCMH: wouldn’t the upcoming film of the stage musical version of “The Producers” —-scheduled for release in mid-December—-be the ideal Christmas attraction for RCMH? I know, wishful thinking.
Yes— red corpuscles and all! Benjamin has mentioned Carol Krinsky’s 1978 book on “Rockefeller Center,” which I’ve just examined. The composite photo on p. 175 (recalled from a 50 Street display case) is an at least double composite, with Rockettes superimposed upon a crowded stage superimposed upon an open proscenium. Writing on the eve of the theater’s change of policy, K refers to “giantism” as “the fatal flaw of the RCMH” (p. 180) and speculates about its future as “some sort of multi-purpose structure, or even a department store” (p. 183) (!).
For me, the most interesting visual in K’s book is the theater’s full floor plan and section cut on p. 169, showing the rake below street-level and the various scene docks and stage assembly rooms. What I had never encountered before is the small protruding room at the rear of the stage, elevated to mezzaine level and extending into the Associated Press Building behind RCMH. It appears to be labeled “projection room” (?) and was used for rear-screen projection?
Vincent here hits upon the old dilemma which confronts all owners and builders/designers of theatres: at what point are more seats facing the law of diminishing returns? As more seats are added the owner may get greater income, but the audience will see less of the performance since they must be seated farther from the stage. The old opera houses of the previous centuries were galleries not only because they did not have the steel to create cantilevered balconies, but because the stacks of galleries kept the audience closer to the stage so that one could see the performers in some reality of size. And the human voice can only project so far. With the advent of motion pictures, the scale of image and the force of sound were much larger and it was then possible to cram lots more people into roughly the same foot print of land, thus making the potential profit on greater attendance much greater. This is why Radio City M.H. and a few other ‘pageantoriums’ like it cannot really be called ‘theatres’ in the traditional meaning of the word; they are beyond the size of realistic use of the human voice without amplification, and seeing someone on the stage —as opposed to one the screen— means looking at dwarfed images that make the experience a parody of the real thing. With these concerns, RCMH faced a unique situation in that it was more of a civic auditorium than a traditional theatre or opera house, so one can easily see why special photos were made to enhance the performers rather than the hall.
Refering to comments above about the size of performers in relation to the size of the house if one reads the Variety reviews of the stage shows in the 30’s even then in an era used to large presentation houses critics complained about the size of the Hall and how distant and small the performers seemed. I remember one review that described the ballet as an army of red corpuscles battling the white.
Also the line from the Rodgers and Hart “At the Roxy Music Hall”-Where the actors seem to be a lot of midgets.
My second to Vito’s comments. One of the great pleasures of this site is the extreme care with which it is maintained. Thanks again!
Thanks Bryan, It’s nice to know someone is out there watching over us as we stroll along memory lane thru your magnificent website.
Yes Warren, it’s been bugging me as well.
This has happened to me on a lot of other pages here too, and yes it is annoying. Maybe Pat Crowley will read these words and offer an explaination, if not a cure. :)
Does anyone know if the steam curtain is used anymore? I remember it so well as the jets, set around the perimeter of the stage apron, started to hiss and spout steam, and before you knew it the entire proscenium opening was hidden behind its billows. A dazzling effect when lit from the front or behind. I remember too the stagehand in a dark outfit slealthily scooting a mop over the nozzles after the effect was over…funny how the details of certain images stay with one over the years…
Whether or not a theatre was “sunken” (having a rake to the floor) was often determined by local ordinances especially if they adopted the IFPA standardized building code into law. Obviously, the two primary criteria for an auditorium is that the audience be able to see the performance, and that the traffic patterns therein be swift and safe especially in an emergency. The best means to accomplish these objectives in a theatre of a single level of seating was to ‘dish’ the floor so that it sloped to some permissible extent, sometimes in the front as well as the rear. This also allowed the patrons to enter from grade at the sidewalk elevation, and gradually descend into the auditorium to preserve the sightlines for the audience. In many photos of theatres one can see the ramps or steps going up to grade in those exits at the front of the auditorium. In those auditoria with the ‘stadium’ plan of seating with a bank of seats on risers at the rear, the depth of the curve was even more important to allow access and good sightlines for all. Much of this is diagrammed on page 4 of the 1927 book “American Theatres of Today”, sometimes still available as the 1977 reprint in one volume. While most theatres had stairs to some extent, every architect knows that they are a hazard, especially to the young and the elderly, so are to be avoided if possible, thus the impetus to avoid them at grade, and only employ them as an option for those who prefer the balconies. While wheelchair access was not usually thought of in early years, it turns out that the use of slopped (raked) floors was very beneficial to wheelchair users to this day.
As to the apparently odd photos that Benjamin mentions earlier, I wonder if he wasn’t looking at skillful process prints which where there to promote the stage attraction, not the theatre. We visitors here are primarily theatres buffs, but the management of a theatre usually is not. They are businessmen charged with the task of turning a profit, and whether they manage a great theatre or a grocery store is often immaterial to them, since they are usually MBA types that see the same business principles as applying to both. So no, the theatre did not figure large in the viewpoints of such men, and if one wanted to see the theatre, then they expected one to buy a ticket for that privilege and not get a ‘freebie’ by viewing large photos of it. Also, if an outside producer were involved, you can bet that he didn’t want his production to be dwarfed in the photos by the immensity of the Music Hall. He would therefore supply agreed photos to the theatre that he probably had made specifically to emphasize his people, and not the Hall. Process photography and expert retouching were commonplace even before the age of computer manipulation of images, so distorted views having a preferred, or ‘enhanced’ image were not unusual.
While I think most theaters — especially large older ones — probably try to use a “sunken” arrangement, I can quickly think of quite a few theaters (in New York City at least) that, for one reason or another, haven’t.
The two that come to mind the quickest are the main auditorium of Carnegie Hall and the now demolished Helen Hayes on 46th St. I believe in both of them you had to go up a steep, but small flight of stairs to get into the theater at the orchestra level (the back of the orchestra). Since both of these theaters also had box offices in their very small “stairway” lobbies, it made for very lobbies that were awkwardly memorable. (The renovation of Carnegie Hall somehow did away with the awkwardness — can’t remember exactly how.)
Plus there are two big old Broadway theaters (from the 1920s?), the Majestic and the Richard Rodgers, that have early versions of stadium seating in which the back of the orchestra level is a between a half-story and a full story above street level. (I believe in the Richard Rodgers you first go down a few steps to get into the lobby and then you go up a full flight of stairs for the back of the orchestra). I believe the Virginia (which used to be called the ANTA?), also from around the same time, has a similar set-up. Plus there are the more modern Broadway theaters (the ones that were built as part of office buildings) that really only begin after you get one or more flights off the ground: the Minskoff, the Uris, and the Mariott Marquis (correct name?).
Getting back to movie theaters, I think in the current Ziegfeld Theater, the entire (single screen) seating area of the theater is on the second floor. Plus in Manhattan and all over the country there are all those small multiplex theaters, probably very few of which are sunken.
But generally speaking, putting the back of the orchestra level at the same grade as the surrounding sidewalks does often seem to make the most sense, especially for a large theater.
I don’t think the ‘sunken auditorium’ Benjamin describes is at all uncommon- how many theatres have you been in where you have to step up into the lobby or orchestra level? I can’t think of any.
Thought you might like to see the program from the opening week of the hall. I’m an out of print book dealer dealing in mostly film.
Benjamin: Your description of Krinsky’s photo seems weirdly familiar, and I’ll check it out on Monday. The most familiar photo of the Rockettes in full proscenium is Herbert Gehr’s, taken for Life Magazine in ’42 and reprinted in Charles Francisco’s “The RCMH.†The set depicts a WWII aircraft carrier, on whose deck the full-thirty-six kick up a storm in sailor-suits. (I have memories of this routine from my first visit to RCMH in Sept ’45 to see “Our Vines Have Tender Grapes†at the age of three, but that would take paragraphs to explain and verify geometrically.)
RCMH devoted one display case to “Camera Highlights of the Current Stage Show.†It was located among the front doors, second case from right on the 6 Ave side. (Francisco’s book provides a picture of it in the first color photo insert, third page verso.) If you went to the opening Thursday of a new production, that case would be bare: the pictures were likely taken during the early-morning dress rehearsal and were evidently still in the developing room when the first show let out at 1:15 pm. Unlike the other display cases that exhibited pictures only in b&w, this one offered color.
On 16 Jan. you mentioned the scene in “The Godfather I†shot in the lobby as Pacino and Keaton exit from the Christmas show of ’45. The film was “The Bells of St. Mary’s†(I saw that there too then, but it would take paragraphs to… my strongest memory of it has my grandfather laying a few bucks in the hand of an usher who then smuggled us inside through the 51 Street doors; whoever said the entire white-gloved platoon was incorruptible?). Coppola got the display cases right with their b&w stills of Crosby and Bergman. That’s exactly the format followed in those years, as those of us who stood on long lines around the block remember. About the marquee light bulbs, I know nothing, but a glance at the DVD might help answer the question.
P.S. — Of course I could understand the management wanting the audience to think that they could see performers up close when RCMH was truly a “music hall.” But, of course, RCMH was a true music hall only for a few weeks when the theater first opened.
Finally got around to re-reading the early posts in this listing — great to see that RCMH listing has so many posts!
Especially loved reading the July posts from SimonL (explaining how the theater operated, and the practical difficulties of moving people in and out of a 5,945 seat theater), BoxOfficeBill (on the way the curtains were used to present a movie), and the post listing movies that played the Music Hall that was compiled by Ron3853(?) (which helped me remember when I saw certain movies there).
If I remember correctly, when I went to see “Crossed Swords” at the Music Hall (another poster mentions seeing it there in 1978) it was after it had been announced that they were considering closing the theater for good. It was such an emotional experience each time that the Rockettes came on — everyone thinking that this might be the last series of shows that the Rockettes might ever do.
Around 1978 and 1979, I was a tourgroup leader who used to escort out-of-town tour groups to see the movie and the stage show at RCMH as part of a multi-day NYC tour package. If I remember correctly, RCMH was ususally scheduled for Sunday evening (the last evening of a multi-day visit), and it was great because there was actually very little else that one could do with a tour group in NYC on a Sunday evening.
I believe I saw “The Promise” with Kathleen Quinlan with one of these tour groups. Didn’t realize that (according to another poster) this was the last regular movie shown at RCMH.
I think I also took a tour group to the first edition of the Christmas Spectacular after the Music Hall switched to its new format. I remember thinking to myself that the show wasn’t all that good — or, at least, that it needed a lot of work (although I was, of course, rooting for it to be good enough to “save” the Music Hall).
Perhaps the show wasn’t that good, but to be fair perhaps I was also overcritical because I so wanted it to succeed. (My tour group liked it.)
One very strange “act” in the first edition that I believe they did drop though: at one point in the first of the new Christmas Spectaculars, they had a singer dressed as a homeless bag lady come out to sing a ballad. The idea, I assume, was to make a poignant statement about the disadvantaged at Christmastime.
I thought this was strange scene for the RCMH Christmas Spectacular, however, in part because homeless bag ladies were relatively new in New York City (with the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the mid-1970s[?]) and I didn’t think out of town tourists would really get what was happening. (If I remember correctly, the one or two people in my group that mentioned this scene didn’t really know what it was supposed to be about, but more or less got the general gist — rememember the disadvantaged at Christmastime, too — anyway.)
I also thought it seemed to be too severe a departure from the tone of the rest of the show.
Re: why the Music Hall doesn’t look so big from outside
I’ve wondered about this too, and here are some thoughts:
1) Some of the theater’s public spaces are concealed in the office building fronting on Sixth Ave. (the ticket lobby and the lounges, etc. above it);
2) Most of the great size of the auditorium is in it’s block long (200' wide) width, rather than it’s length. And since the theater’s width is concealed by the office building on Sixth and the office building on Rockefeller Plaza, you never really get to see from the outside how wide the theater is.
3) The theater has a plain exterior and the two buildings that bookend it also have the same plain exterior which blurrs the dimensions of the theater — where does the theater begin and where does it end?
4) I’m not sure about this, but I believe RCMH has a somewhat sunken auditorium that lessens the apparent height of the theater.
Explanation: when I went by the theater the other day, the door to the loading dock that leads onto the stage was open and you could see onto the stage. If I remember correctly, this loading dock was flush with the sidewalk, which means parts of the auditorium are below street level.
The same holds, true, by the way with the Hudson Theater (which I’m more sure of). The loading dock to the stage is only inches above the sidewalk, which would mean the the first rows of the orchestra level are probably below sidewalk level.
(This is also common, I believe, in atheletic stadia [when a low water table permits it]. The playing field is below street level, and when patrons enter the field boxes from the surrounding street, they find themselves going down to the level of the playing field. Otherwise a lot of stadiums would be much taller — like Shea Stadium with its high water table — than they are now.)
5) The size of the theater might be camouflaged a bit by the beautiful grills that cover the firescapes and by the windows (to the executive offices and the dressing rooms) which, again, might help blur the difference between where the theater ends and the other buildings begin.
I don’t know, from what I’ve read here and experienced at the Hall, a small screen and bad sound don’t add up to much of a movie-going experience. But I still love the place!
BoxOfficeBill: Thanks for the fascinating info about how the RCMH contour curtain was used. I wish I had thought of observing and counting the folds like that!
I’m not sure, however, if that is what the touch-up artist did in the photo that Krinsky shows and comments upon in her book — but, then again, maybe it is? Let me describe the photo.
First, a brief description to identify it: the photo in the book, and on the back cover, shows 36 (I counted!) towering Rockettes lined up before scenery that … well, is hard to describe. On stage right, there seem to be three enormous circles (hula-hoops?) covered in flowers. (The hoops are about twice the size of the people standing infront of them.) On stage left, there seems to be the top three quarters of a rising moon that is just a bit taller than the performers in front of it. And in the background there seems to be an elevated swan boat. Above the scene there appears to be two floral moons connected by a garland of flowers (or lights) hung from the sky, with more flowers (or lights) in some sort of pattern in the background.
In this photo the contour curtain has 10 “genuine” folds that are fitted within the portion of the arch that contains 9 of the radiating grilles (sunbursts). This is about three-quarters of the way up the arch — which I suspect is much higher than the curtain would really go?
To the left and right of the 10 “genuine” folds, there are very elogated, droopy folds that appear to me to be painted in! Behind these painted in folds, there is a traveling curtain, that also looks to me to be painted in! (For one thing, they seem to be “lighted” differently.) Also the end Rockettes on either end of the line seem to be partially cut off by the traveling curtain.
The clues for me in this photo that the Rockettes are larger than life — and the performers BEHIND the Rockettees make the Rockettes themselves look as big as large dolls! — was that the end Rockettees on stage left(?) not only seem much, much larger than both the people in the orchestra pit and in the audience just in front of them (and closer to the camera, yet), but they also look a bit too big to fit behind those curtains on the stepped stages going up the side of the auditorium.
(By the way, I didn’t notice how large the performers behind the Rockettes were [!] or that the curtains seem painted-in until just now.)
As a kid, I use to love to look at the movie stills outside a theater (there never seemed to be enough of them), and I remember wishing that RCMH, in particular, had more photos (and a greater variety of them) in the display cases along 50th St. I also remember being disappointed that this one photo of the Music Hall’s interior (or a similar photo) seemed to be the one and only photo of the interior of RCMH that they ever showed in the display case — and actually the one and only one of the interior of RCMH that you ever seemed to see anywhere.
Looking at “this” photo as a kid, I wanted to be overwhelmed by the giganticism of RCMH and its stage and was thus disappointed that the performers were so big and that the stage seemed so “small” (judging by the way the performers so easily filled it up) for such a large theater. Examining the photo as carefully as I could, I could sense that something seemed wrong about “the” photo, but couldn’t put my finger on it — couldn’t find the smoking gun, so to speak.
It’s ironic that the management of RCMH specifically wanted the performers to appear large (and thus have the stage appear “small”). I suppose they knew what they were doing, and perhaps my kid’s mentality was the exception. But I would think that most people going to RCMH were not going to see live performers up close, anyway, but were going for the spectacle of it all — enormous scenery, large crowd scenes, etc. — in which case a stage full of tiny scenery and tiny, tiny performers would seem to me to be an asset in a publicity photo rather than a liablity.
To bring in another example: when I was a pre-schooler, and before I ever went to visit the Empire State Building, I remember being thrilled by the tales told to me by my slightly older friends who had been there. “The people on the sidewalk are so tiny, they look like little ants!” When I finally went to the Empire State Building, however, I was disappointed because the people on the sidewalk really didn’t look all that small (and the Empire State Building, itself, didn’t really look all that tall either)!
There are certain experiences where you want to be overwhelmed by enormous scale of things — so seeing large crowds of tiny people, in these instances, would seem to me not to be a liablity but an asset! (At least if the sound applification was good enough for you to hear what is going on.) Now if RCMH management chose to enlarge the image of a movie screen in a photo of the interior, that would be a different story!
Benjamin: Thanks for all the expert info you’ve contributed. About those publicity composite photos that show the Rockettes as bigger than members of the audience or orchestra: the contour curtain at RCMH drapes at fourteen folds when fully raised (as it was for film presentations). But most (all?) stage productions that I remember from the late ‘40s-'50s would raise the curtain only in its twelve center folds and not to full height. (Even as a kid, I figured this out as I tried to analyze the illusionistic transformations of space in those great spectacles.) For small-scale specialty acts, the curtain rose in even fewer folds. The expansive proscenium simply did not open to a performance area that filled its entire width. To compensate, many productions deployed some stationary scenery on the apron in front of the curtain at either or both sides of the arch: snowy pine trees at Christmas, statuary altar niches at Easter, a lighthouse and some fish nets for the often repeated Underwater Ballet, etc. As a result, for publicity photos that aimed to display the contour curtain in its complete fourteen-fold glory, the composite artist needed to blow up the shot of the Rockettes et al. taken in their twelve-fold setting. These pictures, even the best of them, look contrived and out of proportion.
The David Loth book, “The City Within a City,” also has lots of interesting info about the Music Hall.
One of Loth’s most informative interviewees when he did the research for the book seems to be G.S. Eyssell who ultimately became president of Rockefeller Center, but started out with Rockefeller Center in the Radio City Music Hall organization. So there is lots of info in the book about the business of running the Music Hall (the problem of finding movies for it, etc.), especially during its tumultuous early days.
For example on pg. 85 he says that “The president of RKO … had talked to Eyssell reservedly about the Music Hall’s problems only a few days after the debut. A few days later, he invited Eyssel to work out of his office at RKO as a troubleshooter, and the first trouble to be shot was finding pictures for the Music Hall.”
He also mentions (pg. 78) that after RKO went bankrupt (about a month after the Music Hall and the Center Theater opened), the leases on Radio City Music Hall and the Center Theater were “automatically terminated. Claims for damages as a result of this liquidation went in and out of court for the next seven years before a complicated settlement was finally reached in 1939.”
Some interesting tidbits:
Loth claims (pg. 127) that about twenty pounds of chewing gum a day, on average, was removed by hand from underneath the Music Hall’s seats!
The Music Hall was closed for five days early in 1965 for a thorough cleaning (pg. 158). (Maybe this is when that very laudatory article about the Music Hall, that I read in Reader’s Digest, came out?)
Chapter XIII of Carol Krinsky’s book, “Rockefeller Center” has very detailed info and lots of great pictures about the history and development of both Radio City Music Hall and the Center Theater.
The portion of the chapter dealing with the Radio City Music Hall, pgs. 164 to 187, has two photos of the early clay models that were used to judge various proposed designs for the interior of the auditorium. It also has a photos of some early theaters, and drawings of proposed theaters, that may have influenced the ultimate design of the theater (five photos). There are (very small) reproductions of a cross section of the theater and the floor plans for the ground floor and first balcony levels. Plus there are photos of Roxy’s studio/reception room, the grand lobby (one photo looking north; one photo looking south), the basement lounge, the side/back of the auditorium, the men’s smoking room, the women’s powder room that has painted murals, and the women’s powder room that is encircled by mirrors.
Some interesting tidbits from the chapter:
Edward Durell Stone (an architect who later became famous and controversial) was in charge of the designs for both Radio City Music Hall and the Center Theater (pg. 180).
Donald Desky won a limited competition to decorate the interiors of both theaters (pg. 183). (If I understand her correctly, because he could not do all the work for both theaters, he apparently subcontracted out the work of the Center Theater to Eugene Schoen who shared a similar interest in contemporary design.)
Krinsky challenges the Roxy story that he conceived of the idea of a radiating sunburst design for the auditorium after seeing a glorious sunrise or sunset while at sea. She says that he did not even embark on the trip in question until six days after the model for such a design had been photographed (pg. 180).
Krinsky says (pg. 180) that shortly before the theater opened, Roxy “entered the auditorium to demonstrate its acoustic properties” and discovered that the sound was unsatisfactory. So, according to Krinsky, “several stretches of auditorium wall had to be moved, and their fabric coverings rewoven in time for the opening night.”
Krinksy claims (pg. 180) that certain publicity photos (like the one shown on page 175) that show the auditorium with a stage show in progress are, in reality, composite photos that show the Rockettes and the performers behind them to be bigger on the stage than they really are (so as to make the stage not seem so far away). (I think as a kid I suspected this.)
Re: the underside of the marquee
The main point of posting about the change from incandescent to florescent was really to alert first-time, post-renovation visitors that, despite the vaunted “restoration” of the Music Hall, there are actually a few changes from the original that have diminished the original effect of the theater’s wonderful architecture.
And while none of these may be big things, a lot of little things (e.g., the heaters, the loudspeakers, the pedestrian fences) do add up to give the visitor a different (and, unfortunately, less impressive, in my opinion) experience when waiting outside, or entering into, the Music Hall.
This was also the reason for pointing out in an earlier post that the grand lounge had been radically re-designed. (I must admit that I’m skeptical that the lounge has been restored to its original grandeur, as one poster seems to feel. I’m not sure, but I think I did visit the grand lounge on my last visit in 2001, and I believe the alterations to the grand lounge had been “prettied up” a bit, but not undone.)
While one certainly doesn’t expect the owners of the Music Hall to jeopardize its financial viability by refusing to cut corners here and there, it’s also kind of interesting to look at, and to note, what corners the owners of a building choose to cut and what corners they choose not to cut — as it ultimately shows the values that are placed on various things.
For instance, I doubt the owners of the Music Hall would replace interior incandescents with florescent. So apparently the marquee incandescents were seen as an expendable part of the Radio City Music Hall “experience.”