Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
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Outide of the Christmas show when is the organ played? Also Geoffrey what are the years you are talking about with a 99 cents admission.
The early 60’s?
Geoffrey- I am not one of the BISHOPS, I do however work for the family. The Prompt console in fact has two extra stop rails, on the right are Tibias ( White Tabs) at all pitch levels for Ease? of finding them. Dick, Ray & co. never had trouble finding them and neither do I. Left side bottom are Black tabs for MIDI control. Now you can play Midi on all manuals & Pedals. There are also extra toe pistons on the console for more control. A dear friend of mine who also worked on the organ and has recently passed away was a Dick Liebert & Ray Bohr fan and knew them both VERY WELL! He gave me some of Rays intros to learn & I enjoy duplicating the old sound at 3AM
when the theatre is quiet & I can experiment the quieter voices of the organ. The OLD LADY as the guys call her is in fine tune, too bad
it may not be used for the show do to the musicians strike.
PS, you’re correct! The Theatre Organ Did put musicians out of work
except for the organist.
BoxOfficeBill – Thanks for your kind remarks. I figure it’s time I stop lurking and start to contribute what I can. Thanks also to you and Warren and REndres and the other “regulars” for your amazing posts over the life of this page, and other pages on this remarkable site. It blows me away that there is all this accumulated knowledge and experience in one place! I am especially liking the posts of the old programs and ads. I have collected a number of programs from the thirties (the 12- and 16-pagers) and some day when time and commitments allow it is my intention to haul them out of storage and scan and post them here.
And while I’m thanking people, special thanks must go to Patrick Crowley and Ross Melnick for starting this site and making it available to us all – free of charge!! It’s so easy to start taking this site for granted after a while, but it truly is something to be grateful for.
Bravo to you all!
Denpiano – I should have included Ray Bohr in my comment as I was able in my sophomore and Junior years to arrange my classes so that my Friday afternoons would be free, thus enabling me to arrive before the afternoon stage show around 3, hear Ray play that one, stay for the movie and then do the show all over again at 6 with Leibert presiding.
Ray always appeared to be very tense when he played, but his arrangements were excellent and you could tell he really loved that organ. I only wish I had shown up for more house openings, when he would, as I was told much too much later, play for up to half an hour before the first movie. I met him at the stage door a couple of times (I was a teen-age theatre organist groupie) and even exchanged a couple of letters with him later on, and he was always very polite and patient with my youthful exuberance and curiosity.
I also learned to arrange my dates for after 10 and to bring a book so that if Leibert was especially “on” I could sit out the next movie in the grand lounge (in those days it really was both those things) and catch him again at 9. And all for something like 99 cents, as I recall! My interest in Leibert’s astonishing playing, in the Music Hall and in the organ bordered on the pathological in those days, and has not waned much since, despite almost 40 years and the distance to Toronto. Leibert, Bohr and Jack Ward, along with Ashley Miller, Lee Erwin and a few others were as you say the last of their kind. And each had his unmistakable style of playing – you just don’t find that much anymore.
I broke into a broad smile over your comments about the virtual orchestras, coming as they do from the person who takes care of the largest Wurlitzer ever built. The Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra was marketed the better part of a century ago to be precisely the same thing – a one-person substitute for pit orchestras in theatres where the proprietors couldn’t or didn’t want to pay for all those musicians but wanted the same richness of sound to accompany the films and stage presentations. Eventually just the organists were left, especially in England.
I must admit that I am full of envy that you get to take care of that wonderful behemoth (you must be one of the Bishops, no?), and since you do, I have a question. I have noticed in recent photos of the prompt console that there is an extra stoprail at the bottom on either side – stops that were not there originally. Would you be able to enlighten me as to what they are for? I understand that in the conversion to a solid state relay the original stoplist and stoprail layout was not altered – are these additional Tibia unifications and things for those present-day organists who might not be able to play without them? (LOL)
By the way people were extolling The Producers as a possible holiday film(my personal learned opinion would be yuck)but the new Zorro seems like it would have been a nice choice. The right star power, costumes, set design and rating. Sight unseen it might have complemented very nicely a Leonidoff or Markert Christmas show.
Well allow me my dreams.
“Don’t Go Near the Water” was the Thanksgiving attraction that year(see my post of 13 Oct above). Yes, “Peyton Place” was the Roxy’s Christmas rival that year, and its lurid reputation possibly pushed the family crowd into the gloom of “Sayonara” at RCMH— better suicide than (gasp) teen-age sex. But the show at the Roxy was wonderful— I remember its stage presentation as one of its best, though I no longer have the program.
Was there a Thanksgiving film in ‘57 or did Pajama game as an end of summer film run long enough so that Les Girls played until December and there was in effect only one fall film?
I wonder if the Hall got complaints from parents concerning Sayanora as a Christmas film I mean not only the sex and suicide but miscnegation as well. But then I believe that Peyton Place was the Roxy Christmas attraction.
Bless you, BobT!!! I’ve been trying to figure that out for ages, now. I’ll have to dig around online for more historical info and hopefully some photos, but that’s a personal project apart from the doings at this site. Thanks for the push in the right direction!
Hey folks… I can’t find a good spot on this site to pose this question, but it seems this page gets hit a lot so I’ll give it a shot: There used to be a restaurant in mid-town that was located in a sunken plaza (like the concourses at the McGraw-Hill or Paramount Plaza buildings). The place had an automotive theme where patrons would dine at tables fashioned after varying makes and models of vintage cars. There was one particular room towards the back that was set up like a drive-in theater and all the “cars” faced a screen and you could watch a movie while you ate.
I remember going there with my family when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old and the movie we saw was “Airport” – which would have been 4 or 5 years old at that point and I can recall having already seen the movie on Network Television. In fact, I remember thinking that the version I was seeing was somehow different from the one I’d seen on TV because of it’s widescreen use of split images. This was probably the very first time I remember being aware of the concept of aspect ratios and how certain films were somehow not being presented on TV as they were originally intended.
Anyway… does my description of the restaurant jog any memories? I’ve asked my Mom about it, but she doesn’t really remember the name or location. Unfortunately, my Dad is deceased, so I can’t ask him. BoxOfficeBill… perhaps if you flip through one of your mid-70’s era RCMH programs, you might find an ad for this restaurant? I want to say the name had something to do with Ford or had “Ford” in the name, but I really can’t be certain.
This site could use a forum for questions such as this. Maybe even a “mystery theater” page where folks can post recollections about theaters they’ve been unable to identify and employ the collective memories (and detection skills) of Cinema Treasures members as a useful resource. I’ll have to email Ross or Patrick with the suggestion one of these days.
Geoffrey—
Thanks for the clarification in your splendid post. Daniel Okrent, until last June the Public Editor of the NY Times (appointed in 2003), has written generalist books on such topics as baseball and New England, and he gets his stuff right. Carol Krinsky, an architectural historian of distinction who teaches at NYU, sorted out the problems and issues in her 1978 book. She recounts that the design of Rockefeller Center was thoroughly collaborative as it enlisted the talents of several companies (Todd, Robertson, and Todd; Reinhard and Hofmeister; Corbett, Harrison, and MacMurray)under the combined name of The Associated Architects. Harrison designed the building and appointed Stone as design supervisor of the auditorium. Ground was broken in summer ‘31 and construction was well underway by the following June when Deskey won the competition for interior decorating, which itself had enlisted the talents of mural, furniture, fabric, and lighting artists. The rapidity of its completion is staggering.
Here’s a Program from September, 1957, a quarter-century later when RCMH was at its height of day-to-day operating success:
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RCMH was flooded with long-running musicals that year. “The Pajama Game†opened as its Labor Day attraction, the rare Warner Brothers musical that could stand up to the MGM competition flanking it. This program does not note that Bob Fosse did the choreography, but who could ever forget “Steam Heat†or “Hernando’s Hideway†after seeing Carol Haney performing them? Four years earlier Fosse and Haney had both appeared on the RCMH screen in the amazing “From This Moment On†number in “Kiss Me Kate.†Rich stuff.
The stage show matched the tune fest on the screen, from the Gershwin overture to the featured appearance of India Adams in two segments. Adams had dubbed the singing voice of Cyd Charisse in “The Band Wagon†and held a steady career performing B’way pop in supperclubs and variety shows. The Foursome who accompanied her as an opener to the Rockettes was not likely the original group that had introduced “Biding My Time†in “Girl Crazy†and had appeared with Eleanor Powell in “Born to Dance,†but it quite possibly revived the latter’s style in the ‘50s. In ’57 their sort of pop music was still holding sway after more than a quarter-century of dominance. Then, within a couple of years, it would suddenly seem horribly anachronistic to most tastes.
Georgie Kaye was a stand-up comedian who appeared regularly on the Ed Sullivan TV show. He offered a nice balance to the Ponchielli ballet. You could always predict that the RCMH stage show would build to a jazzy climax when the overture was by Gershwin and the opening segment featured a classical ballet such as “The Dance of the Hours.†The latter, elegant and refined and sumptuously staged as it was, seemed extravagant barrier to get through in completing the trajectory from Gershwin to the Rockettes. In a way, RCMH spoiled me for ballet. The company was super disciplined and super precise (a bit in the manner of the precision of the Rockettes) and super large. When, a few years later, I found myself attending Sadler’s Wells and Bolshoi, I thought them smaller and less pointedly in-synch than Margaret Sande’s and Florence Rogge’s dancers. For all its exaggeration, RCMH’s Corps de Ballet introduced serious dance to hundreds of thousands of us who otherwise would not have bothered to seek it out.
The notice for “Sayonara†as an up-coming attraction does not indicate that it would be the Christmas show. I wonder whether the management had planned it for an earlier release, perhaps as the Thanksgiving show. Its length and brooding content had always struck me as inappropriate for the holiday season. Heaven knows that the hold-over runs of musicals such as “The Pajama Game†that year would have pushed back its opening in any event.
Geoffrey- Great Comments, excellent! I too went to hear Liebert and
later on Ray Bohr, both last of a Dead breed. Concerning Virtual
orchestras, they are basically just that, a computer that uses a
real conducter( computer operator) that conducts this machine to play arrangements of REAL orchestra sounds. I’ve seen and heard it
and I can tell you, its scary!! Vincent- The organists are 802 members and were at the protest yesterday across from the Hall.
I take care of the organ and I put the locks on it when I left yesterday. No one has come in to use it as yet and we are just tuning and general maintenance.
Wow!
I am responding to Warren’s October 25 question about Edward Durell Stone being credited as the designer of the Music Hall in the introduction to this page. I don’t know where the writers got their information, but it is true. If you read pages 216 through 232 of Daniel Okrent’s 2003 book “Great Fortune – The Epic of Rockefeller Center” you will find a detailed description of who is credited with what and the process they went through. Carol Herselle Krinsky in her 1978 book “Rockefeller Center” fills in a lot of the detail and provides a number of excellent photos of the auditorium models.
According to Okrent, “responsibility for the Music Hall fell to [architect Wallace K.] Harrison… to Harrison must go much of the credit for the theatre’s radical break with the recent history of American theater architecture”. Harrison hired Stone to work on the project and it was Stone, along with a team of architects and others, who evolved the final auditorium design using René Chambellan’s clay models. Krinsky writes: “Edward Durrell Stone who was in charge of the designs of both theaters [the Music Hall and the Center] worked on this problem [of the organ grilles] during the summer… Raymond Hood then suggested concealing the grilles behind radial lines on the ceiling… By September 17 [1931], a model with this arrangement was ready, complete with Stone’s scalloped curtain design.” Okrent credits Roxy with the idea of three shallow cantilevered mezzanines instead of one huge balcony, and says that he insisted on only two things: red seats and at least 6,201 of them so there were more than in the Roxy Theatre, which he had left in early 1931. Okrent continues: “the finished auditorium accommodated only 5,960, but Roxy got his number up to the required 6,201 by counting the seats in the orchestra pit, the operators' stools in the elevators, the chairs in front of the makeup mirrors in the powder rooms.” Okrent credits Stone with the exterior innovation of concealing the fire escapes behind metal screens, and with the vertical signs and marquees. He continues: “Inside the building he was responsible for all the public spaces that give the Music Hall its grandeur. The most notable of these was the Grand Foyer…”
Donald Deskey was proclaimed winner of the interior design competition (more correctly an interior decoration competition) on June 27, 1932 with the announcement that he would be responsible for “the interior furnishings of the Music Hall and its ‘31 auxiliary rooms’ – for the most part, its bathrooms and lounges” plus what Okrent calls “Donald Deskey’s masterwork, an exquisite group of rooms known as the Roxy Suite. If Nick and Nora Charles had lived above a theater, this is what their apartment would have looked like.”
David A. Hanks in his 1987 biography of Deskey says: “At the depth of the Depression, Deskey’s investment of $5,000 dollars for a spectacular presentation, which included numerous color renderings as well as actual samples of carpet and fabric designs, was a risk for his business… The work included thirty lobby areas, smoking rooms, retiring rooms, foyers and lounges… The employment of [leading artists] to assist with the Music Hall scheme was as important as Deskey’s own design for the furnishings. Although each artist worked independently, Deskey coordinated their work to assure an integrated, harmonious whole.”
I hope this adds a bit of clarification. Deskey has been so often credited with the “interior design” of the theatre that he is assumed to have done just that – designed it. In fact, he was in charge of decorating and furnishing interior spaces designed by many others. And what decorations and furnishings they are! Though he apparently hated the Ezra Winter mural in the foyer and the 50th street medallions, the cumulative effect of his work on the interior is what makes the Music Hall so breathtaking when considered as a whole. It is the reason I found the place so warm and comfortable when I went there at least twice a month in my college years from 1967-71 (the real reason was to hear Dick Leibert performing live, but it was so exquisite a space that I just loved to wander about exploring – not wanting to leave).
What I don’t understand is they only do two months. What are they asking for that Cablevision won’t give them?
What does a virtual orchestra consist of? Are these musicians scabs on tape? Or is it done with synthesizers? What about the organists? Are they a different union? Will they play? Are they then crossing the picket line if they do? Is then every performer then crossing that line?
It seems there will be a show regardless of musicians. Virtual
orchestra anyone? The post reported ( small article ) that they
are at an impass with union and Will use other means..
What a mess!
I can only hope there will be solidarity with all the unions and they shut down the show. Local 802 will hold a rally today at 5pm
So will there be a Christmas show this year? Just curious. Not that I really care. With the show as it is now they could just as well have wet t shirt contests for the Rockettes four times a day for two months and it would be just as reverent and probably a lot more entertaining. And Chase you’d make a helluva lot more money. Just think of the beer tabs sold throught the house!
I remember a class trip in 1976 to see this at Christmas time.
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I guess for the Rodgers it would be Words and Music(Christmas ‘48) and Flower Drum Song(Thanksgiving '61.)
Anybody know of any other Music Hall movies with Rodgers music?
Ginger Rogers. Richard Rodgers. Either spelling, still obscure.
I see that Chase now has its name on the marquee, albeit somewhat discreetly. The Chase Radio City Music Hall? Why not if we could get them to sponsor an Astaire/Rodgers or MGM summer festival. Though I wonder if any of the 30 year olds who work for Chase have ever heard of Astaire and Rodgers. Or RKO. Ok how about an Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller festival?
1938
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1938
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There will be a musicians rally Oct.26th , 5PM between 50th & 51st
Streets as reported on the unions web site.
Bravo Vincent! certain people wanted to amplify the organ to the surround system installed in the theatre. Was a time the organ
was the loudest sound there! So much for the “Mighty Wurlitzer"
You’re correct, everything is overdone today. No quality,
all quantity!