Rockefeller Center is the most ambitious private development in American history. Rockefeller Center was built during the Great Depression by John D. Rockefeller Jr. on land leased from Columbia University, a complex of nineteen buildings completed between 1930 and 1939 at a cost that would equal billions today. Its centerpiece, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, known as 30 Rock, rises 70 stories and houses NBC, whose Saturday Night Live has broadcast from here since 1975.
The sunken plaza before you with its golden Prometheus statue and holiday ice rink becomes one of the most watched outdoor spaces in the world every December. Diego Rivera's famous mural was commissioned for the lobby of 30 Rock, then destroyed when it was discovered to contain a portrait of Lenin that Rockefeller found unacceptable. The Channel Gardens — the promenade you may have walked through — evoke the English Channel between France and England, and on either side rise the facades of the British and French buildings.
Take the elevator to the Top of the Rock observation deck for the view the Empire State Building's owners prefer you not to know about: it is arguably better.