The historic GE Building houses the headquarters of the NBC television network. The GE Building is an Art Deco skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA.
The building was completed in 1933 as part of the Rockefeller Center. The noted Art Deco architect Raymond Hood led a team of Rockefeller architects. It was named the RCA Building for its main tenant, the Radio Corporation of America, formed in 1919 by General Electric. It was the first building constructed with the elevators grouped in the central core. During construction, photographer Charles Clyde Ebbets took the famous photograph Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper on the 69th floor. National Broadcasting Company, also owned by General Electric, leased space in the building.
Studio 3H was the first studio in the building to be converted for Television production, being converted in 1935 and served as NBC Television's lone studio[13] until the conversion of Studio 8G in 1948. 3H was adjacent to Studio 3C. This studio has been decommissioned since the early 1960s and served as scenery storage[14] for a number of decades. Small portions of Studio 3C have been expanded into this area..
The office of the Rockefeller family occupied Room 5600 on the 56th floor. This space is now occupied by Rockefeller Family & Associates, spanning between the 54th floor and the 56th floor of the building. In 1985, the building acquired official landmark status. The RCA Building was renamed as the GE Building in 1988, two years after General Electric re-acquired the RCA Corporation.
The GE Building is one of the most famous and recognized skyscrapers in New York. The frieze located above the main entrance was produced by Lee Lawrie and depicts "Wisdom",[5] along with a slogan that reads "Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times", from Isaiah 33:6 (KJV). The vertical detailing of the building's austere Art Deco facade is integrated with a slim, functionally expressive form. The present exterior is recognized for the large GE letters at the building's top. Unlike most other tall Art Deco buildings constructed in the 1930s, the GE Building has no spire on its roof.
At 850 feet (259 m) tall, the 70-story building is the 10th tallest building in New York City and the 33rd tallest in the United States. Some of the building's nicknames include The Slab and 30 Rock. The latter is derived from its address which is at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
The observation deck atop the skyscraper, dubbed "Top of the Rock", reopened to the public on November 1, 2005, after undergoing a $75 million renovation. It had been closed since 1986 to accommodate the renovation of the Rainbow Room. The deck, which is built to resemble the deck of an ocean liner, offers sightseers a bird's eye view of the city, competing with the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building.[24] It is often considered the best panoramic city view,[10] if only because it offers a view of the aforementioned Empire State Building, which obviously cannot be seen from its own observation deck.[11]
KWO35, the NOAA Weather Radio station for the majority of the Tri-State area, transmits from atop the GE Building at 162.55 MHz.
Below the building is a shopping concourse, connected to the lobby via an escalator. The open lobby's rich materials and reduced black and beige ornamental scheme is enhanced by dramatic lighting. Granite covers the building base to a height of 4 feet (1.2 m), and the shaft has a refined facade of Indiana Limestone with aluminum spandrel panels.
The 65th floor of the GE Building was an event room and restaurant named the Rainbow Room. It was revamped and reopened to the public with new operators until it closed in 2009 due to the economic downturn.
Saturday Night Live is telecast live from the building (Studio 8H).
NBC owns floors 1-30 & 50-59. The office of Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, is located on the 51st floor of the GE Building.
The Tonight Show was also taped at the GE Building in Studio 6-B from the early Jack Paar years until 1972, when the show moved to Burbank, California. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon now occupies the former Tonight Show space. During its run, Rosie O'Donnell broadcast her syndicated talk show from the building.
Tomorrow Coast To Coast
Established as more of an intimate talk show, Tomorrow differed from the usual late-night fare, with host Tom Snyder conducting one-on-one interviews sans audience, cigarette in hand, alternating between asking hard-hitting questions and offering personal observations that made the interview closer to a genuine conversation.
On April 28, 1975, Tomorrow aired what eventually became its most talked about and enduring moment: John Lennon appeared in what would turn out to be his final televised interview. Since Lennon faced deportation proceedings from America at the time over his 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London, after the first part of the interview during which Snyder covered the regular topics, Lennon's legal representative - immigration attorney Leon Wildes - joined him on the panel to discuss the details of the case, as the famous musician directed his message at the American public in an appeal of sorts to be allowed to remain in the United States.
NBC occasionally used Tomorrow to plug various holes in its late-night schedule. Snyder did a special Saturday show with Jerry Lewis as the only guest in October 1975 because the originally scheduled program (new sketch show called Saturday Night Live), which was supposed to premiere that night was not ready to air. Lewis was interviewed for one hour and fifteen minutes, before Snyder brought out then unknown youngsters Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, Billy Crystal, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, and John Belushi for the last fifteen minutes of the show so that the national audience can meet them for the first time.
On September 8, 1980, the name was changed to "Tomorrow Coast To Coast".
Jerry was interviewed and performed here on
11/11/78 Grateful Dead (Saturday Night Live)
3/12/81 Gene Shalit (interviewer)[13]
The Grateful Dead also performed at the Boston Garden, Boston, MA on this date.
12/10/81 Geraldo Rivera
NBC's 20-20.
Jerry tells Geraldo, "Our audience is like people who like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice."
5/7/81 Bob Weir Ken Kesey Bill Kreutzmann Mickey Hart Bob Weir (Tomorrow Coast To Coast)
They perform Cassidy and Dire Wolf.
4/13/82 Bob Weir (Late Night with David Letterman)
Jerry plays a Takamine guitar.
Jerry and Bob played "Freddie King's "Hideaway", with Paul Schaffer and the NBC band.
"Jerry doing a little schtick with David Letterman. He was on the show that night and was always up for a little comedy. David teaches Jerry how to play Proud Mary."[10]
"Dave tells Jerry which fingers to put where and Jerry says, "that hurts." and Dave says, "well, you have to build callouses like me."[6]
7/7/87 Mickey Hart (The Today Show)[1]
I must say, I haven't seen Jerry appear so happy and animated (ding ding ding!) for a long time.[1]
9/17/87 Bob Weir (Late Night with David Letterman)
Jerry plays the guitar Tiger.
"They play "When I Paint My Masterpiece"... afterwards, they spoke about their new album "In The Dark" and video "So Far", the MSG shows, Woodstock, Egypt."[11]
The band's night-off during a five night stand at Madison Square Garden. In the midst of all this was Bobby's "parlour trick" with the gang and crew lifting Jerry each with two fingers. The sight of an unwitting Jerry is one of the most hilarious images of the band.
"I also recall one of Jerry's appearances they opened with Dave and Jerry playing Scrabble and Dave protested Jerry adding "in" to "truck" to make the word "trucking".[2]
The Dead came on and did "Sugar Magnolia" in a made-for-TV version.(9)
10/13/89 Grateful Dead (Late Night with David Letterman)
They perform I Second That Emotion and play with Late Night Band (theme song, Another Brick In The Wall, I Can't Turn You Loose, Mighty Quinn, Hideaway and Good Lovin' during the commercial breaks.[7]
Friday night October 13 --- Woody Harrelson was also on the show. As Julia Child cooks the duck Dave says that he used to pound his duck during college homecoming. Julia was tanked![8]
10/31/89 Bob Weir, Rona Elliot (interviewer)
Today on NBC[7][12]
1992 David Grisman (Tomorrow Coast To Coast)
Sitting Here in Limbo
NBC Studios, New York, NY
1.)^Unbroken Chain, Vol. 2, No. 6, 1987-08, http://www.gdao.org/zoom?ark=ark%3A%2F38305%2Fg4j966dh%2Fis%2F1&id=825878&c=8
2.)^briandavisradio, comments, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58HSRyNH5iA
3.)^"National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
4.)^"Rockefeller Center". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service.
5.)^http://www.worldofstock.com/closeups/TNY2205.php
6.)^david bonan, comments, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58HSRyNH5iA
7.)^Slabicky, Ihor, The Complete Grateful Dead Discography (12th revision), Joseph Jupille Archives.
8.)^sigehead, comments, 2009-07-06, http://www.dead.net/features/news/general-news/dead-letterman
9.)^Allah1975, comments, 2009-04-27, http://www.dead.net/features/news/general-news/dead-letterman
10.)^"Top of the Rock Observation Deck at Rockefeller Center - Tickets and Discounts for Tours, Attractions and Museums
11.)^Uden, Tim, 2010-02-05, Empire State Building vs Top of the Rock, http://www.bug.co.uk/blog/2010/02/05/empire-state-building-vs-top-of-the-rock/
12.)^Slabicky, Ihor, The Compleat Grateful Dead Discographt, 2014-04-28, http://tcgdd.freeyellow.com/tcgdd.txt
13.)^Jackson, Blair; McNally, Dennis; Peters, Stephen; Wills, Chuck, Grateful Dead - The Illustrated Trip, pg. 260.