30 Rockefeller Plaza was known for its main tenant, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), from its opening in 1933 until 1988 and then for General Electric until 2015, when it was renamed for its current owner, Comcast.

In addition to its offices and studios, 30 Rockefeller Plaza contains the Rainbow Room restaurant and an observation deck called Top of the Rock.

[19][20] The owners of the parcel on Sixth Avenue and 49th Street, at the southwest corner of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, had demanded an exorbitant price for their property upon learning of the planned skyscraper.

[24] The other tenant, who occupied a plot on Sixth Avenue and 50th Street at 30 Rockefeller Plaza's northwest corner, never received a sale offer due to a misunderstanding.

[30] The design was influenced by Rockefeller Center manager John Todd's desire for the building to use its air rights to their maximum potential.

[33] Hartley Burr Alexander, a mythology and symbology professor who oversaw Rockefeller Center's art program, led the installation of artwork throughout the complex.

[33] Some sources give 30 Rockefeller Plaza's height as 70 stories, but this arises from a hyperbolic press release by Merle Crowell, the complex's publicist during construction.

[75][76][77] The portal is topped by four 11.5 by 4 ft (3.5 by 1.2 m) limestone panels by Gaston Lachaise, each of which signifies an aspect of civilization as it related to the original Radio City complex.

[78][79][80] The two panels on either side of the entrance are entitled The Conquest of Space and Gifts of Earth to Mankind; these respectively depict aspiration and life, two qualities that Lachaise believed were most important to humanity.

[91] The lobby's main entrance is from Rockefeller Plaza to the east, with revolving and double-leaf bronze-and-glass doors underneath a paneled bronze screen.

Additional stairs to the basement and mezzanine are placed at the point where the corridors continue into 1250 Avenue of the Americas; they also contain Champlain marble and bronze railings and moldings.

[39] Josep Maria Sert was originally hired to paint four murals in the northern lobby corridor: Time; Spirit of Dance; Man's Triumph in Communication; Conquest of Disease; Abolition of Bondage; Fraternity of Men; and Contest-1940, depicting different aspects of the world and mankind.

[108][109][37] It depicts a vast allegorical scene of men constructing modern America and contains figures of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[105][110][92] The space occupied by American Progress was originally taken up by Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads mural,[93][106][111][112] which was controversial because of its communist imagery and was destroyed in 1934.

[195][196] As of 2024[update], the 70th story includes a rotating "skylift" ride,[198][199] as well as spherical rooftop beacon and floor tiles with a celestial pattern.

Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect, came up with the idea to negotiate with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its subsidiaries, National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), to build a mass media entertainment complex on the site.

[104][222] Henri Matisse had been reluctant to commission a highly visible lobby mural, and Pablo Picasso had refused to even meet with Hood and Todd.

According to the main contractors, the laborers, plasterers, and metal lathers involved in the project would need to be compensated the equivalent of 25,000 eight-hour workdays.

However, Columbia received no rental income; Rockefeller Center's managers collected the rent and owned the land under the western part of the complex, including a section of the RCA Building West.

[282][283] The revolving beacon, which had been darkened during the war, was reactivated in 1945 after the air-raid siren was dismantled,[284] but the Rainbow Room restaurant remained closed until 1950.

Rockefeller Center's managers hired Carson and Lundin to design two new levels of retail space with about 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of new floor area.

[287] In mid-1953, Columbia bought all of Rockefeller Center's land along Sixth Avenue, including the western part of RCA Building West, for $5.5 million.

[291] The National Weather Service's radar was placed on the roof in June 1960, adjacent to RCA's and NBC's antennas,[182][292] and the NWS offices relocated to the building that December.

[300][301] RCA's chief executive Robert Sarnoff also announced that the company would construct a "management and conference center" atop the central section of the building.

[340][341] In May 1996, GE bought the space for $440 million, as well as an option to renew the lease on the Today Show studios at 10 Rockefeller Plaza.

[251] In addition to GE, other large tenants at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the late 1990s included law firm Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine and Chadbourne & Parke.

[33] A Hearst's International magazine article described the RCA Building as "soaring to an incredible petrous peak", with the sunken plaza "shimmering in brilliant floodlight" at its base.

[49] Architectural critic Paul Goldberger said, "Nothing is more attuned to romantic fantasies of New York than the RCA Building's black granite lobby, the Rainbow Room's ornamental framing of a 70-story view...".

[372] Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon, an attraction at the Universal Studios Florida amusement park, is also based on 30 Rockefeller Plaza's design.

[377][378] In particular, the critics Paul Goldberger and Rick Kogan wrote that the NBC Tower's buttresses, setbacks, and vertical stripes were similar to those at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.