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Robert
A.M. Stern, Christina R. Davis, and Mariana Kaufman
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Leigh
Nichols and Barbara de Portago
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On
a Wednesday, two weeks ago, the New York Landmarks Preservation
Foundation held a very interesting lunch at Christie’s
in Rockefeller Center with guest speaker, the distinguished architect
and Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, Robert A.M.
Stern.
It was called “Lunch at a Landmark” and the landmark
was, of course, Rockefeller Center.
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Stephen
Lash and Robert A.M. Stern
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Tens, perhaps hundreds of millions, New Yorkers and visitors, have
enjoyed and been in awe of Rockefeller Center since it first started
a-building at the dawn of the 1930s, replacing an area that was on
its way to becoming derelict with tenements and theatres. The idea
was
John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s, the heir and only
son of the founder of Standard Oil.
Mr. Rockefeller, who devoted most of his life to good works and
philanthropy, set about his task in early 1929. There were going
to be office buildings
and a new Metropolitan Opera House (replacing the then existing one
on 39th Street between Broadway and 7th Avenue). Then, in the autumn
of ’29, came the Stock Market Crash which stopped everything
and practically everyone in its tracks.
Rockefeller was still determined to build – three office buildings
and the opera house situated around a plaza. The Met had to bow out,
however, because it now could not rally the financial support to
change (and another thirty years would pass before it made its move
to Lincoln Center).
Columbia University owned the land, and so it was leased from them.
The re-development was re-conceived as strictly commercial. The original
group of buildings were finally completed in 1939, although
the RCA Building (now the GE), housing NBC Studios and the
Rainbow Room was finished mid-decade. The massive sculpture
of Atlas by Lee Lawrie with Rene
Chambellan in front of 630 Fifth
was
up by
1937. Subway stations were built for the new 6th Avenue line which
included some of the first underground shopping malls in the world.
A second underground system provided for off-street truck loading
and deliveries.
The
end result of Mr. Rockefeller’s dream which
some considered a folly at the outset (in view of the catastrophic
economic situation
of the nation and the world), was a jewel of design, a magnet for
tourists, for business, for shoppers and even an architectural achievement.
Rockefeller Center marked the city’s entrance into the modern
age. By its first decade of completion (the 1940s), it was a huge
success, and today is considered the greatest urban complex of the
20th century. In 1985 it was designated a city landmark.
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Christina
R. Davis, Robert B. Tierney, and Robert J. Speyer
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Mr. Stern, the
luncheon’s speaker, is a bit of a landmark and
a renaissance man himself. Founder and senior partner of his own
firm, he is also a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects,
besides being Dean of the Yale architectural school. His style of
residential design is the subject of many books and remains very
popular. Besides that, he and his firm have designed a number of
important public buildings including the Ohrstrom Library at St.
Paul’s School, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts;
the Feature Animation Building for the Walt Disney Company in Burbank,
California; the Spangler Center at the Harvard Business School, the
Nashville, Tennessee Public Library and the Hobby Center for the
Arts in Houston, to name only a few.
“Lunch at a Landmark” was chaired by Mariana Kaufman, with Honorary
Chair Robert J. Speyer and Corporate chair, Bessember Trust and Gensler.
Christina Davis gave the opening remarks, Landmarks’ chair Robert B. Tierney delivered the Greetings from the Mayor. Mr. Speyer
made the Rockefeller Center Observations and then Jaquelin
Robertson introduced Mr. Stern. |
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Christina
Bennison, Justin Rockefeller, Christina Davis, and J.V.
Avlon
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Catherine
Cahill and Mariana Kaufman
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Thomas
Schutte and Solange Fabio
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Ralph
Destino and Kitty McKnight
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Jean
Doumanian, George S. Kaufman, and Elizabeth Stribling
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Silvia
Zoullas and Robert Lindgren
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Fernanda
Kellogg and Kirk Henckels
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Peter
Pennoyer, Katie Ridder, and friend
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Gillian
Miniter and Heather Leeds
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Robert
Speyer and Mariana Kaufman
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Joyce
Brown, Arie Kopelman, and Topsy Taylor
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Diana
Taylor
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| Photographs
by Star Black |
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