Lego rockefeller center - 21007 User Guide

enormous project as the sole investor, entering into an

87-year lease agreement with Columbia. It was the largest
private building project ever undertaken in modern times. 
More than 75,000 people worked on the construction of 
the Center during those Depression years.

 

The name “Rockefeller Center” was fi rst suggested

for the complex in 1931 by Ivy Lee, public relations pioneer 

and prominent adviser to the family. Junior initially did not 
want the Rockefeller family name associated with the 
commercial project, but was persuaded on the grounds 
that the name would attract far more tenants.

 

Within its fi 

rst decade, the complex had 

attracted exciting tenants such as the RKO Pictures, the 
French bookstore Librairie de France and the brand new 
publication 

News-Week (as it was originally called). The 

Center’s western side was home to many show business 
fi rms, but movie history was also made in one of the Fifth 

Avenue. buildings, where John Hay Whitney and David O. 

Selznick decided to produce 

Gone with the Wind. 

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