The Radio Historian's Photo gallery

The National Broadcasting Company made its inaugural broadcast from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York on November 15, 1926. The following year it moved into the twelfth and thirteenth floors of a new office building at 711 Fifth Avenue. At the time this seemed like plenty of room, but just three years later NBC had already outgrown the space. Its six studios were not sufficient for its needs -- program production for both the Red and Blue Networks and local stations WJZ and WEAF, plus the need for ample rehearsal space. They foresaw that shortwave broadcasting and television were on the horizon, and would have their own future needs. By 1930, plans were already underway for an even larger and grander NBC facility.

On November 11, 1933, NBC celebrated its seventh anniversary by opening the nation’s largest and most opulent broadcasting facility. “Radio City” occupied the first ten stories of the 72-story central tower building at 30 Rockefeller Center. There were no less than 27 studios on the 3rd, 4th 8th and 9th floors. Master control was on the 5th floor; offices were on the 2nd and 5th floors; and the air conditioning and electrical systems were on the 10th floor. Initially, the 6th and 7th floors were left vacant for future expansion, but they were filled in a 1940 expansion that brought the total up to 35 studios.

Rockefeller Center consists of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres (89,000 m2) in Midtown Manhattan. Construction began in 1931 and the first buildings opened in 1933.

The façade of "Radio City" at 30 Rockefeller Center. This section of Rockefeller Center contains NBC's "Radio City" and the Radio City Music Hall.

Opening night at Radio City, November 11, 1933. (from an NBC postcard)

The street entrance lobby of 30 Rockefeller Center.

The mezzanine rotunda of NBC Radio City featured an artistic photo mural of NBC technology.

Another view of the Radio City public reception area.

Floor plan of the third floor of NBC Radio City.

Floor plan of the eighth floor of NBC Radio City.

Radio City’s "Guild" Studio 8-G had a glass curtain that separated the performer from the audience.

Studio 8-H, the ‘World’s Largest Radio Studio’, during a broadcast of the Cities Service program, circa 1934 (NBC postcard)

Studio 8-H during its construction. The massive room (130 ft. x 76 ft. x 34 ft. high) was converted for television in 1950.

Studio 8-H was the home of the award-winning NBC Symphony Orchestra, directed by Arturo Toscanini.

A view of the stage of Studio 8-H, as seen from the control room.

This was the lobby showing the doors where the audience entered 8-H.

Studio 8-E was one of two "Speaker's Studios" or the "Library Studios", decorated in a home settings and designed to reduce the “mike fright” of nervous public speakers or dignitaries.

A view of the other Speaker's Studio at Radio City.

Floor plan of the ninth floor of NBC Radio City.

Studio 9C was designed as four studios served by a rotating control room, but never saw usage as envisioned.

There were no studios on the fifth floor. It was where all of the system infrastructures resided.

The monstrous master control desk, 27 feet long, required as many as four operators to run it. (Colorized image)

The master control desk was able to switch the 27 studios plus innumerable remote lines to 14 output channels – network line feeds to several geographical regions, the transmitters of local stations WEAF and WJZ, plus in-house monitoring.

The master control operator would preset the switching to take place at the next station break, which would then be activated by the announcers at the right time on a control panel installed in each studio.

This was the announcer's control desk - dubbed the "Announcer's Delight", where the studio announcers would activate the audio switching that was preset in master control.

Here is an NBC announcer in one of the Radio City studios, giving a program cue to the performers. The "Announcer's Delight" control desk is visible in the background.

These generators in the power room created the DC power that ran all of the equipment at Radio City.

This emergency battery system provided enough capacity to run the whole facility for a week without outside power.

The elaborate air conditioning system kept the entire facility at a comfortable 72 degrees with 45% humidity.

This page from a 1935 magazine revealed more details about Radio City's impressive systems.

An expansion program in 1940 built out new studios on the 6th floor. Studios 6-A and 6-B had ramped floors for better audience viewing.

A stage view of one of the new 6th floor studios.

World War II pushed the importance of radio news to the forefront. Here is a view of Radio City's news studio in 1944.

Another view of the news broadcasting area at Radio City.

NBC's "RADIO CITY" IN NEW YORK