Top of the Rock
For Thursday, June 18th, we’d start out with an excursion that Judy and Lauren had done on their New York City trip -- the Top of the Rock tour. It was a tour of the art and architecture of Rockefeller Center, which included tickets to the observation deck on the roof of the building at 30 Rockefeller Center. I was looking forward to this.
I took this picture of an intersection as we walked to Rockefeller complex. I’m not really sure why, but at least you get to see a little New York hustle and bustle.
Judy and Marlene hoofing it. We must be heading in the right direction because it says “Top of the Rock” on a sign on that pole in the picture.
These next pictures are from our tour of the Rockefeller center, which was pretty fantastic. The Rockefellers were patrons of the arts - my kinda people - and the style was art deco, also a favorite of mine. Our tour guide gave us headphones and history regarding anything Rockefeller. I would definitely recommend this tour.
“Art Deco” is also a great alias. Feel free to use it...like when your Starbucks barista or your Chick Fil-A server asks for your name. Please report back on the results.
Here we are, wired for sound, and waiting for the tour to start. Actually, these headsets were a real help. They allowed all of us on the tour, probably 20 or so people, to hear the tourguide without having to be right on top of him, even when we made stops on the street or were in other public areas with people who weren’t on the tour.
Our first stop was outside, where our tourguide, Brooks, talked about these art pieces on the wall at Radio City Music Hall. I think each one depicted a different type of art, like dance, drama, and song.
This one could be song. Or, maybe dance. Or it could be, “let me help you with your towel”...I’m really not sure.
This next one is pretty good. This was a mosaic over a set of doors right across from the Radio City Music Hall pictures above. I had to look this up while writing this, but it’s called “Intelligence Awakening Mankind”. The “Jesus” figure at the center is actually “Thought”.
Through the spoken word and the written word, mankind will achieve the triumph of knowledge over the evil of ignorance. Remember, this was (and is) a radio and television building, and they had pretty lofty goals for this new “television” medium.
I think “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” (although I’ve never seen it, I swear!) pretty much put those hopes and dreams to rest.
Maybe the internet will achieve the triumph of knowledge over the evil of ignorance instead!
We walked a little ways, and were soon going past Studio 1A and the “Today” show. We weren’t allowed to stop on the sidewalk there, so I had to take these pictures on the fly.
At least we knew “where in the world” Matt Lauer was today. (Anybody else remember when they used to do those segments? The theme song for that was the best!)
This is a shot looking back after we got past. We had just walked along the right side of that building, not in front of those people.
Brooks told us a lot about John D. Rockefeller Jr. (“Junior”) building the complex, and his wife Abigail (“Abby”), handling the art. In short, they didn’t see eye-to-eye on these endeavors most of the time. He was pretty conservative and prudish, and she was much more liberal. If it wasn’t for her, much of the art around the complex wouldn’t be here -- she overspent her budget and asked for forgiveness later, she commissioned works from controversial artists (more on that later), and installed things without consulting Junior. Basically, a lot of stuff that only a wife could get away with. For example, there’s some art over one of the doorways leading into the building that includes some nudity. Brooks told us that once Junior saw that, he refused to ever enter the building through that doorway again.
(As a side note, Junior and Abby were also some of the main benefactors toward the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, which is another location I love, so I have to admire their philanthropy.)
This was a mural in one of the buildings that wrapped around the walls and depicted the History of Transportation. This was probably another place that Junior didn’t frequent much.
I took this picture because Brooks told us to look at how “30 Rock” looks from this angle -- pretty big. Later on, we’ll see how it shrinks.
What a relief! This bas relief piece is called “News” and is on the building that used to house the Associated Press. I think it represents the art deco movement pretty well, when you look at the sharp lines and the shiny metal.
I googled “elements of art deco style” and found this description that sums up the style pretty well: “The art deco style, which above all reflected modern technology, was characterized by smooth lines, geometric shapes, streamlined forms and bright, sometimes garish colours.” The period ran from about 1925 to around 1940.
This next area was a lobby that had some art of small metal pieces hung by from strands of metal. (I found out while writing this that it’s called “Light and Movement”.) It also had some big windows over the doors (which you can kind of see in the picture). Originally, the windows were kept open so that the metal pieces would move from the wind, but they found that the city air, with all of the exhaust fumes and whatnot, coming in through the windows wasn’t the best idea. It also had a lot of bookmatched marble on the walls, and if you looked closely you might think you could see things in the patterns.
Like faces perhaps.
Here’s a good picture of our tourguide, Brooks. (With St. Patrick’s Cathedral behind him.) He was a great tourguide, he really knew his stuff, and he also seemed like the quintessential New Yorker.
From the front, Atlas is a mighty god carrying the weight of the world on his strong shoulders. Brooks told us that the people at St. Patrick’s weren’t too happy seeing this piece of secular art going up across the street.
But then this perspective was pointed out to them, and as Marlene says...
From the back he bows before the church across the street. Struggling not to fall on his knees.
Down the street, I forget what building this was, but these depict industries of the British Empire. Oh, and the sun at the bottom...that’s from the expression that “the sun never sets on the British Empire”.
I got them crazy eyes going.
Here’s the view of 30 Rock from a different angle that I alluded to earlier. It looks like it went on a crash diet.
This is a bad, blurry picture, but I left it in just to mention that this little courtyard leading up to the Prometheus sculpture is called the “English Channel” since it’s in-between the British building (with the “industries” figures above) and a French building.
Here’s what we all came to see -
Lego Prometheus.
continued in next post
I'm glad it surpassed your expectations!
not that I take it seriously, I just can't take my eyes off a grain wreck, always - I could see that style fitting you really well. We expect to see pictures!
