Work on the steel structure of the RCA Building started in March 1932.

[284] Meanwhile, the British and

French governments had already agreed to occupy the first two internationally themed buildings, and
John Rockefeller Jr. started signing tenants from the respective countries. [285] The cornerstone of the
British Empire Building was laid in June, when Francis Hopwood, 1st Baron Southborough, placed
the symbolic first stone in a ceremony.[286][287] Significant progress on the theaters had been made by
then: RKO Roxy's brickwork had been completed and the limestone-and-granite facade was almost
ready to be installed, while the Music Hall's steelwork was complete. [194] By September, both theaters
were almost finished, as was the RCA Building, whose structural steel was up to the 64th floor.
[288]
 That month also saw the opening of the RKO Building, the first structure in the complex to be
opened.[289] The British Empire Building's structural steel started construction in October. [290]
The Music Hall was the second site to open, on December 27, 1932, [291][292][293] although it had topped
out in August.[294] This was followed by the RKO Roxy's opening two days later. [295][296] Roxy originally
intended to use the Music Hall as a vaudeville theater, [297][298] but the opening of the Music Hall was
widely regarded as a flop,[295][299] and both theaters ended up being used for films and performing arts.
[297][298][300]
 Radio City's Roxy Theatre had to be renamed the Center Theatre in May 1933 after a lawsuit
by William Fox, who owned the original Roxy Theatre on 50th Street. [301] The failure of the vaudeville
theater ended up ruining Roxy's enterprise, and he was forced to resign from the center's
management in January 1934.[300][302][303]
The cornerstone of La Maison Francaise was laid on April 29, 1933, by former French prime
minister Édouard Herriot.[304] The British Empire Building was open less than a week later. [305] The
RCA Building was slated to be open by May 1,[306] but was delayed because of controversy over
the Man at the Crossroads mural in the lobby.[307] In July 1933, the managers opened a 70th-story
observation deck atop the RCA Building, [308] It was a great success: the 40-cents-per-head
observation deck saw 1,300 daily visitors by late 1935. [309]
Work on the rooftop gardens started in October 1933, [310] and La Maison Francaise opened the same
month.[311] In December 1933, workers erected the complex's famed Christmas tree in the center of
the plaza for the first time.[312] Since then, it has been a yearly tradition to display a large Christmas
tree at the plaza between November and January. [313]
Simultaneously, the city built the part of the canceled "Metropolitan Avenue" that ran through
Rockefeller Center. The new street, called "Rockefeller Plaza", was projected to carry an estimated
7,000 vehicles per day upon opening.[314] The first segment, between 49th and 50th streets, opened
in 1933,[315] and a northern extension opened in 1934. [314] The new street measured over 60 feet
(18 m) wide and ran 722 feet (220 m) through the complex, with four vehicular levels.[315]

Advertising and leasing efforts[edit]

From 1931 until 1944, Rockefeller Center Inc. employed Merle Crowell, the former editor
of American Magazine, as the complex's publicist.[316] His first press release, published on July 25,
1931, extolled Rockefeller Center as "the largest building project ever undertaken by private capital".
Thereafter, Crowell supplanted Ivy Lee as the complex's official publicity manager, and his
subsequent releases employed a variety of superlatives, massive amounts of statistics and
calculations, and the occasional bit of hyperbole. [317] Crowell published many new press releases
every day, and by the midpoint of the complex's construction in 1935, he also started staging
celebrity appearances, news stories, and exhibitions at Rockefeller Center. [318] The goal was for
Rockefeller Center to accommodate 34,500 workers and 180,700 daily visitors once it was
completed.[319]
Rockefeller hired Hugh Sterling Robertson to solicit tenants and secure lease agreements.[320] It was
hard to lease the complex in the wake of the Great Depression, but Robertson managed to identify
1,700 potential tenants, and had held meetings with 1,200 of them by the end of 1933. [309] Rockefeller
and his partners were also able to entice some prominent tenants to the center. [321] The Rockefeller
family's Standard Oil Company moved into the RCA Building in 1934.[322] Over the next two years,
several other major oil companies followed suit and took up leases in Midtown buildings,
[323]
 including Sinclair Oil and Royal Dutch Shell, which moved into Rockefeller Center. [100] The United
States Post Office Department opened a facility in the complex in early 1934, and would later rent
space in the as-yet-incomplete International Building. The New York Museum of Science and
Industry leased some of the less-sought-after space on the RCA Building's lower floors after Nelson
Rockefeller became a trustee of the museum in late 1935. [324] Westinghouse moved into the 14th
through 17th floors of the RCA Building. [325]
However, Rockefeller Center's managers had a hard time leasing the buildings past 60% occupancy
during the earliest years of its existence, which coincided with the middle of the Depression. [326] The
Rockefeller family moved into various floors and suites throughout the same building in order to give
potential tenants the impression of occupancy.[325] In particular, the family's office took up the entire
56th floor,[327] while the family's Rockefeller Foundation took up the entire floor below, and two other
organizations supported by the Rockefellers also moved into the building. [328][327] Because the sunken
central plaza was mostly leased by luxury stores, the complex's managers opened an outdoor
restaurant in the plaza in early 1934 to attract other customers. [129] The complex's willingness to gain
leases at almost any cost had repercussions of its own. [329] In January 1934, August Heckscher filed a
$10,000,000 lawsuit against Rockefeller Center Inc. for convincing tenants to abandon their ongoing
leases within his properties in order to take up cheaper leases at Rockefeller Center. [330] The lawsuit
stalled in courts until Heckscher's death in 1941, when it was dismissed. [331][100]

The 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station, built by the Independent Subway System (IND) at Sixth

Avenue
The managers of Rockefeller Center Inc. also wanted the complex to have convenient, nearby mass
transit to attract potential lessees.[332] The city-operated Independent Subway System (IND) had
opened a subway station at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street in 1933, drawing workers from Queens.[333]
[334]
 The managers, seeing the success of the business districts around Penn Station and Grand
Central, proposed a large rail terminal for trains from Bergen County, New Jersey, so workers from
northern New Jersey would be drawn to the complex. Although the managers did decide on a
possible location for the terminal on 50th Street, this plan did not work because the IND subway still
did not have any stops at the complex itself.[332] The consultants then offered a subway shuttle under
50th Street that would connect to the IND subway station at Eighth Avenue, or a rail line connecting
to Penn Station and Grand Central. This plan did not work because the city was uninterested in
building the new rail line.[332] The plan was formally dropped in 1934, but proposals for similar ideas
persisted until 1939.[335] The city also had plans to construct a line under Sixth Avenue to supplant the
elevated railway there,[336] but did not start construction on the Sixth Avenue subway until 1936.
[337]
 Since the IND would be constructing a station at 47th–50th Streets, near the complex, Rockefeller
Center's managers also wished to build their own connections to Penn Station and Grand Central
using the subway tunnels that were being constructed. However, this proposal was declined
because it would require extensive rezoning of the surrounding residential area. [335]
An extension of Rockefeller Plaza northward to the Rockefeller Apartments at 54th Street was also
envisioned in early 1934, with Rockefeller Center's managers, between October 1934 and late 1937,
acquiring land for the proposed street.[338] Rockefeller legally condemned some of the buildings
he acquired for the planned street expansion.[339] The street was never extended for various reasons.
[338][e]

1934–1936[edit]
By July 1934, the complex had leased 80% of the available space in the six buildings that were
already opened.[342][343] The lower plaza's large Prometheus statue had been installed in January that
year.[153][155] The complex's underground delivery ramps, located on 50th Street under the present-day
Associated Press Building,[344] were completed in May.[197] The ramps, a vestige of the tunnels
originally planned for 49th and 50th streets, traveled 34 feet (10 m) underground and stretched for
450 feet (140 m).[197][198] By the end of the year, Wallace Harrison was the lead architect; Andrew
Reinhard was in charge of floor plans for tenants; and Henry Hofmeister was tasked with planning
the locations of the remaining unbuilt buildings' utilities and structural framework. [324][345] Raymond
Hood had died, while Harvey Corbett had moved on to other projects. Frederick A. Godley and J.
André Fouilhoux of Hood, Godley & Fouilhoux, as well as William H. MacMurray of Corbett, Harrison
& MacMurray, never had much to do with Rockefeller Center's development. [56][345]
In May 1934, plans were officially filed for the remaining two International-themed buildings, as well
as the larger 38-story, 512-foot (156 m) International Building at 45 Rockefeller Center. Work on the
buildings started in September 1934. [346] The more southerly of the retail buildings was dubbed
"Palazzo d'Italia" and was to serve Italian interests. The Italian government later reneged on its
sponsorship of the building, and the task of finding tenants went to Italian-American businesses. [347][348]
[349]
 The more northerly small building was originally proposed for German occupation under the name
"Deutsches Haus" before Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1932.[347][350] Rockefeller ruled this out in
September 1933, after being advised of Hitler's Nazi march toward totalitarianism.[66][167][351][352] Russia
had also entered into negotiations to lease the final building in 1934; [346][353] but by 1935, the Russians
were no longer actively seeking a lease. [354] With no definite tenant for the other building, the
Rockefeller Center's managers reduced the proposed nine-story buildings to six stories, [347]
[355]
 enlarged and realigned the main building from a north–south to a west–east axis, [356][357] and
replaced the proposed galleria between the two retail buildings with an expansion of the International
Building's lobby.[348][347] The empty office site thus became "International Building North", rented by
various international tenants.[355][358] In April 1935, developers opened the International Building and its
two wings, which had been built in a record 136 days, from groundbreaking to completion. [66][354][359]
[360]
 Aside from the averted controversy with the potential German tenants, the internationally themed
complex was seen as a symbol of solidarity during the interwar period, when the United States' entry
in the League of Nations was obstructed by American isolationists.[361][362]
Aerial view of lower plaza

Ice rink in lower plaza

By late April 1935, the "Gardens of the Nations" on the RCA Building's 11th-story roof was complete.
[363]
 Upon opening, its collection of exotic flora attracted many visitors,[364] and it became the most
popular garden in Rockefeller Center.[365] However, this novelty soon faded, and the gardens started
running a $45,000-per-year deficit by 1937 ($672,000 in 2020 dollars [14]) due to the massive expense
involved in hoisting plants, trees, and water to the roofs, as well as a lack of interest among tourists.
[366]
 Gardens on the roofs of the two theaters would also be installed in 1937, but they were not open
to the public.[367]
The underground pedestrian mall and ramp system, connecting the three blocks between 48th and
51st streets, was finished in early May.[368] At the time of the mall's opening, 22 of the 25 retail spaces
had been leased,[342] and three more buildings were ready for occupancy that month. [368] The
underground concourse contained a post office, payphones, and several public restrooms.[369] The
complex was starting to attract large crowds of visitors, especially to Radio City Music Hall or one of
the other exhibition and performance spaces.[370] Despite this seeming success in the face of the
Depression, construction was considered to be behind schedule: all the buildings had originally been
set for completion by mid-1935, yet the central parts of the northern and southern blocks were still
undeveloped.[342]
Around