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 complex's first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), who planned a mass media complex called Radio City on the west side of Rockefeller Center. Construction on Radio City Music Hall started in December 1931, and the hall topped out in August 1932. In November 1932, Russell Markert's American Rockets (later to be known as the Rockettes) stopped performing the Roxy Theatre and announced that they would be moving to the Music Hall. By then, Roxy was busy adding music acts in preparation for the hall's opening at the end of the year. The Music Hall opened to the public