During our walking tour, I felt like a tourist even though I live in New York and been in Manhattan many times. With our class I had the opportunity to really observe my surroundings and get to know many new buildings. Rockefeller Center really caught my attention because of the plaza and the main building in front. It is one of the most visited areas in the city.
Rockefeller center is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, between 48th and 51st street, 5th and 6th avenue. It is a complex of 19 commercial buildings. There is a pathway in the middle with retail stores on the sides. It’s also divided by a beautiful garden in the middle with fish fountains. It’s designed this way so tourists have the opportunity to see the stores and walk in. Rockefeller Center has one of the biggest and most known plazas in the city. In this space you can go ice skating in the winter or have dinner in the summer. My favorite time to go is in the winter when the beautiful Christmas tree is up and you can go ice skating with your friends and family. When the Christmas tree comes down, they use that space for other different sculptures each year. Along the plaza there are 200 flag poles from all over the world. There is also a beautiful bronze gilded statue of the Greek legend, Titan Prometheus. On the granite wall behind it says, “Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends.”
It’s funny how I’ve been around this area many times but never decided to walk into the main building of Rockefeller Center, the RCA building. The ground floor and mezzanine floor interior amazed me. The double height entrance lobby symbolically welcomes visitors, drawing them from the Rockefeller Plaza entrance into a beautiful mural designed by Jose Maria Sert and Frank Brangwyn. The murals are all around the walls of the corridors where the elevators and shops are. Right outside the entrance there is detailed Art Deco design. It reads, “Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times.”
It was a good experience walking through Midtown Manhattan with the class. I got to learn more about the city and I’m now more motivated to go out more to get to know new buildings. I will also continue visiting Rockefeller Center during the holidays; it’s something I can’t get tired of.
