Radio City Music Hall the "International Music Hall" and the Center Theatre, as part of the "Radio City" portion of Rockefeller Center. The 5,960-seat Music Hall was the larger of the two venues. It was largely successful until the 1970s, when declining patronage nearly drove the Music Hall to bankruptcy. Radio City Music Hall was designated a New York City Landmark in May 1978, and the Music Hall was restored and allowed to remain open. The hall was extensively renovated in 1999. Radio City Music Hall was designed by Edward Durell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. One of the more
Radio City Music Hall said of the new Music Hall that it needs no performers; that its beauty and comforts alone are sufficient to gratify the greediest of playgoers." On January 11, 1933, after incurring a net operating loss of $180,000, the Music Hall converted to the then-familiar format of a feature film, with a spectacular stage show that Roxy had perfected. The first film shown on the giant screen was Frank Capra's "The Bitter Tea of General Yen", and the Music Hall became the premiere showcase for films from the RKO-Radio Studio, with "Topaze" the first RKO film to play there. The film-plus-stage-spectacle