The largest indoor theatre in the world when it opened in 1932, with a proscenium designed to look like a sunset and a stage that still works on 1930s hydraulics.
The room
5,960 seats, and no columns anywhere. The ceiling is a series of receding arches sweeping from the back of the auditorium down to the stage, lit so that they read as a sunset over the horizon — Donald Deskey’s design, and one of the great interiors of American Art Deco.
It opened in December 1932 as part of Rockefeller Center, conceived by Roxy Rothafel as a variety palace. The opening night programme ran so long the audience left before the end and it was judged a disaster. Within weeks the format switched to a film plus a stage show, and that combination filled the hall for forty years.
The stage machinery is original: three hydraulic elevators plus a turntable, powered by a system so far ahead of anything else that the US Navy studied it during the war and posted a guard on it. It still runs on the same controls.
The Wurlitzer organ has 4,410 pipes and two consoles, so two organists can play at once.
The Rockettes
The precision dance line moved here from St Louis in 1932 and has been the house company ever since. Thirty-six dancers, height-matched between about 5’6“ and 5’10½“, arranged tallest in the centre to exaggerate the line — which is why they look like they are all exactly the same height and are not.
The Christmas Spectacular runs from November to early January, several shows a day, and has done since 1933. It is a specific kind of American institution: unironic, extremely polished, and if you are in New York in December with children it is the thing to do. Tickets sell hard and prices climb through the season.
The Stage Door Tour
About 75 minutes, most days, and worth it if you cannot get to a show. It covers the auditorium, the Grand Foyer with its 60-foot ceiling and Ezra Winter mural, the private apartment Roxy built for himself upstairs, and the backstage machinery. It ends with a Rockette taking questions.
Book ahead in December. In quieter months you can usually walk up.
Nearly lost
In 1978 the hall was losing money and was scheduled to close. A campaign got it landmarked at the last moment, and the interior was designated as well as the exterior, which is rarer and is what saved the room rather than just the shell.
More Theatre & Music
Broadway Theatre District
Forty-one theatres between 41st and 54th, only four of which are actually on Broadway. Here is how the tickets work and where the cheap ones are.
Carnegie Hall
Opened in 1891 with Tchaikovsky conducting, nearly demolished in 1960, and saved by a violinist. The acoustics are the reason it still matters.
Lincoln Center
Sixteen acres of performing arts built on the cleared remains of the neighbourhood that West Side Story was filmed in. The plaza and the fountain are free.