365 Wow Places:
If you like these posts, click here to subscribe. (It don’t cost nuthin’.) And feel free to pass them along to your friends, family and colleagues!]
Wow Place #275: Radio City Music Hall
I was awfully young – perhaps 11 years old — when my brother, Brian (13), and I first went to New York City to visit my grandparents. Back then, the early 70s, NYC was a pretty rough and tumble place: crime, muggings, graffiti in the subways, that kind of thing. But for me, the overwhelming impression was vastness. New York was just so BIG compared to Millbrae, the San Francisco suburb I had grown up in. And nothing I had previously encountered prepared me for the size and splendor of the 4-tiered Radio City Music Hall.
Although not much of a movie theater today, back in the mid-to-late 20th century RCMH was a spectacular place to see a film. With its cavernous main hall, huge screen and deep stage, this was a venue that screamed, “Here you will experience an event.” After viewing The Little Prince (1974), directed by Stanley Donan and starring Richard Kiley, Bob Fosse and Gene Wilder, I boldly pronounced to my brother and my grandparents, “This is going to win the Oscar for best picture!” It didn’t, by the way; it wasn’t a very good movie. But you can imagine why a star-struck, 11-year-old boy like me might make such a declaration while under the influence of a theater like this! Everything looked more grand at Radio City.
Nicknamed “The Showplace of the Nation,” the Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932 as part of the new Rockefeller Center project. Although initially intended to host stage shows, it soon segued into a movie palace, hosting “film-and-stage spectacles” throughout the 70s. Some notable films that premiered there include King Kong (1933), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Mary Poppins (1964) and The Lion King (1994).
These days, Radio City mostly hosts concerts and live stage shows. It’s a frequent host of televised events like the Grammies, the Tonys, the MTV Video Music Awards and the NFL Draft, as well as university graduation ceremonies.
One of the theater’s most popular annual events is the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, one of the only places you can still see the Rockettes. An American, woman-only, precision dance company, the Rockettes have been performing at Radio City since its inception. Although famous for their tall dancers and synchronized kicks, each member of the Rockettes much also be proficient in tap, modern, jazz and ballet.
Although I never asked my Grandpa, I can’t help thinking that the primary reason he took us to Radio City was to see the Rockettes. And there they were, right after the movie, kicking and twirling on the stage like there was no tomorrow. What a great day for an innocent, 11-year-old from the burbs – seeing the future Oscar-winning film (ahem) and being dazzled by the world’s greatest, synchronized, dancing Amazons.
Thank you, Grandma Addy and Grandpa Zach!
(It’s funny how big things look when you’re young, and how small they appear when you revisit them as an adult. When I returned to New York in my 20s, it just seemed like a big, American city – impressive, to be sure, but not a magical wonderland like it was when I was a kid. I had the same feeling recently when I went back to Millbrae and walked up what my mom used to call “the Dirty Hill” behind my old house. Back in the day, it was like Mt. Everest to my chubby, elementary-school mind and body. Now, it’s just a modest slope. You get the idea. For fun, as a thought exercise, go re-visit one of your favorite childhood haunts and see if you can remember how vast it once felt. Tap into that old feeling of wonder and challenge, when every day was an epic adventure, then see if you can capture some of that feeling in a bottle and bring it back into your current reality.)