Radio City

Covered by a wet cloth at night, patted, scraped and moulded by day, a huge mass of modeler's clay on a draughting table in the offices of Todd, Robertson & Todd, Manhattan engineers, was slowly taking form last week as the preliminary sketch model of a gigantic group of buildings. Reporters realizing that this mass of clay will soon evolve into a $250,000,000 development, probably the largest, most important single architectural project ever undertaken in New York, clamored for latest details.

Last year John D. Rockefeller Jr. obtained on long term lease from Columbia University three full city blocks in mid-Manhattan (48th to 51st Streets, between Fifth & Sixth Avenues). He offered to incorporate a new Metropolitan Opera House upon it in the midst of a great new commercial-cultural centre. The plan fell through. Mr. Rockefeller was left the embarrassed landlord of three city blocks and many of the best known speakeasies in Manhattan. Three weeks ago it was announced that Mr. Rockefeller had assembled collaborators: Radio-Keith-Orpheum, National Broadcasting Co., Radio Corporation of America. Not an opera house, but a Radio City incorporating three skyscrapers and four theatres, would be built (TIME, June 23).

Engineers and constructors of the Radio City are Todd, Robertson & Todd. Architects include the firms of Reinhard & Hoffmeister, Raymond Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux and Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray. No one in this congress of talent will admit being either the originator or the "executive architect'' of the project. It was learned last week, however, that it was Senior Partner John Raynard Todd. of Todd, Robertson & Todd who suggested the radio-city idea to Mr. Rockefeller and who persuaded Vice President David Sarnoff of the R. C. A. and President Hiram S. Brown of Radio-Keith Orpheum to join the project. From the Todd offices came a brief statement giving the first definite news of what Radio City would look like:

"Fronting Fifth Avenue and forming the central structure on that side of the development will be an oval building of moderate height and great beauty of design. On the first floor will be located many fine shops. The second floor will be occupied by a large banking institution, and on the roof a large restaurant will be built with an outdoor promenade running around the entire building. This oval building will extend to a magnificent garden plaza that will be cut through the development and will run parallel with Fifth Avenue from 48th to 51st Streets . . . the most impressive boulevard of its kind in the world.

"Over the entire development will tower a great 60-story office building in which 27 broadcasting studios will be located, extending from the west side of the plaza through to Sixth Avenue. From this central office building a grand corridor, about three stories in height, will run to the other office buildings from Fifth to Sixth Avenue" (provisionally, six 30-story buildings, two 12-story).

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