30 Rockefeller Plaza

30 Rockefeller Plaza (officially the Comcast Building; formerly RCA Building and GE Building) is a skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York. Completed in 1933, the 66-story, 850 ft (260 m) building was designed in the Art Deco style by Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center's lead architect. 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 owner Comcast. The building also houses the headquarters and New York studios of television network NBC; the headquarters is sometimes called 30 Rock, a nickname that inspired the NBC sitcom of the same name. The tallest structure in Rockefeller Center, the building is the 28th tallest in New York City and the 65th tallest in the United States, and was the third tallest building in the world when it opened.

30 Rockefeller Plaza's massing consists of three parts: the main 66-story tower to the east, a windowless section at the center, and a 16-story annex to the west. The building's design conforms with the 1916 Zoning Resolution; it is shaped mostly as a slab with setbacks primarily for aesthetic value. The facade is made of limestone, with granite at the base, as well as about 6,000 windows separated by aluminum spandrels. In addition to its offices and studios, 30 Rockefeller Plaza contains the Rainbow Room restaurant and an observation deck called Top of the Rock. 30 Rockefeller Plaza also includes numerous artworks and formerly contained the mural Man at the Crossroads by Diego Rivera. The entire Rockefeller Center complex is a New York City designated landmark and a National Historic Landmark, and parts of 30 Rockefeller Plaza's interior are also New York City landmarks.

30 Rockefeller Plaza was developed as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center, and work on its superstructure started in March 1932. The first tenant moved into the building on April 22, 1933, but its official opening was delayed due to controversy over Man at the Crossroads. The Rainbow Room and the observation deck opened in the mid-1930s, and retail space was added to the ground floor in the 1950s. The building remained almost fully occupied through the 20th century and was renamed for GE in 1988. Since the late 1990s, NBC has owned most of the lower floors, while Tishman Speyer has operated the rest of the building. 30 Rockefeller Plaza was extensively renovated in 2014 and was renamed for Comcast in 2015.

30 Rockefeller Plaza is part of the Rockefeller Center complex in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. It was intended as the central structure of Rockefeller Center, both physically and symbolically. The land lot is nearly rectangular and covers 107,766 sq ft (10,011.8 m²), bounded by Sixth Avenue (officially Avenue of the Americas) to the west, 50th Street to the north, Rockefeller Plaza to the east, and 49th Street to the south. The site has a frontage of 545 ft (166 m) on 49th and 50th Streets and a frontage of 175.46 ft (53 m) on Sixth Avenue. The main entrance is on Rockefeller Plaza, a private pedestrian street running through the complex, parallel to Fifth and Sixth Avenues. In front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza's main entrance, below ground level, is the Lower Plaza. The building is assigned its own ZIP Code, 10112; it was one of 41 buildings in Manhattan that had their own ZIP Codes as of 2019^[update].

Across Sixth Avenue, the building faces 1221 Avenue of the Americas to the southwest, 1251 Avenue of the Americas to the west, and 1271 Avenue of the Americas to the northwest. Radio City Music Hall, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, and 50 Rockefeller Plaza are directly to the north. Across Rockefeller Plaza are the International Building to the northeast, La Maison Francaise and the British Empire Building to the east, and 1 Rockefeller Plaza and 608 Fifth Avenue to the southeast. In addition, 10 Rockefeller Plaza is to the south. The site was previously part of the campus of Columbia University, which retained ownership of most of the land well after the complex was built.

The northwest and southwest corners of 30 Rockefeller Plaza were built around two holdout structures on Sixth Avenue. 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. The holdout building had contained Hurley's restaurant, which had opened around the 1890s and subsequently became a popular meeting place for NBC performers and executives. The restaurant was later connected by a direct passageway to 30 Rockefeller Plaza's studios. Rockefeller Center acquired the building in the mid-20th century and ended the restaurant's lease in 1975, but the new lessees continued to run Hurley's until 1999. As of March 2022^[update], the holdout building contains Pebble Bar.

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. The grocer John F. Maxwell would only sell his property at 50th Street if he received $1 million. Because of a miscommunication, the Rockefeller family was told that Maxwell would never sell, and Maxwell himself said that he had never been approached by the Rockefellers. Consequently, Maxwell kept his property until his death in 1962, upon which Columbia bought the building; Rockefeller Center purchased the Maxwell family's lease in 1970.

30 Rockefeller Plaza was designed by the Associated Architects of Rockefeller Center, composed of the firms of Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray; Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux; and Reinhard & Hofmeister. Raymond Hood was the complex's lead architect. The Associated Architects designed all of Rockefeller Center's buildings in the Art Deco style. Developed as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center, 30 Rockefeller Plaza opened in 1933 as the RCA Building. 30 Rockefeller Plaza is 872 ft (266 m) tall and was built as a single structure occupying the entire block between Sixth Avenue and Rockefeller Plaza. As of December 2023^[update], the building is the 31st tallest in New York City and the 65th tallest in the United States.