Channel Garden, Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center is the symbol of midtown Manhattan.  A complex of 19 buildings and plazas, located between Fifth and Seventh Avenues and 48th and 51st  Streets, Rockefeller Center was built to be a “city within a city.”
 A narrow promenade separates tow building  in Rockefeller center - the British Empire Building and the Maison Française   in the way the English Channel separates the two countries in whose honor the buildings were named.   This promenade is named Channel Garden.

Two hundred years ago this place was the site of the first  botanical garden in New York State.  In 1801 Dr. Hosack,  a noted physician, botanist, and educator purchased just over 19 acres of land in the vicinity of today’s Rockefeller Center for $4,807 in order to create the  Elgin Botanic Gardens-  one of the earliest in the United States.  At that time it was a wooded area about 3.5 miles north of the city’s development.

At his own expense, Hosack landscaped the garden. He planted variety of indigenous and exotic plants.  The garden  opened in 1804. The grounds included a conservatory and two hothouses and were surrounded by a stone wall seven feet high and 2.5 feet thick.
 Six years later the garden was sold to New York State,   later was placed  in the hands of the Regents of the University (now known as SUNY Board of Regents), and was eventually abandoned, fell into decay and was later sold to raise funds for Columbia College.

In modern times, Rockefeller Center retains its own botanical appeal with its beautiful Channel Gardens. The Channel Gardens has six pools  each with a large fountainhead sculpture, designed by Rene Paul Chambellan, at its eastern end. The female figures are Nereids and the male figures are Tritons.
These  granite pools and fountains  are surrounded by seasonal floral displays. 


 By far, the most famous display is the annual Christmas Angels.  
But every season  It's always worth visit to see which plants  have been placed on display or to see the flowers in full bloom.
I had been working near Rockefeller center for last ten years and I made a lot of pictures of this beautiful place.

Radio City Spectacular

New York City's favorite holiday tradition 'Radio City Christmas Spectacular'  in  Radio City Music Hall   is 81 this year. The show includes  3D ride with Santa, from the streets of New York City to the North Pole, as well as ice skaters, dancing teddy bears , living Nativity and of course the Rockettes dancing in perfect unison. 

The first Christmas show was produced December 21, 1933, and ran for two weeks. Radio City Music Hall   opened  one year earlier,  in December 1932.  The show was created by the Music Hall's stage producer Leon Leonidoff and designer Vincente Minnelli  the farther of Liza Minnelli).
Leon  Leonidoff  was burn in the little village of  Bendery. It was the part of  Rumania at that time . After the World War 2 Bendery  was the part of the USSR. He studied  at the University of Geneva, but  when a Russian acting company, passing through, invited him to join, he left school. Later, he became a founder of the Isba Russe ballet company, which made its way to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 1920.  Leon  started working  at the Radio City Music Hall   in December    1932, and two years later became senior producer.
Russell Markert, the founder and longtime director of the Rockettes  began his professional career on Broadway. I n 1925, in St. Louis  he founded a women's precision troupe called the Missouri Rockets. While playing in Manhattan, the group was spotted by the impresario S. L. (Roxy) Rothafel, who headlined them at the Roxy Theater as "The Roxyettes".   They moved to the Music Hall for its 1932 opening  and   were an instant sensation.  

Starting with just 16 women, the numbers grew over the years to what is now a 36-member Rockette kick line.  Everything - the height, the costumes and steps - was kept completely identical. The illusion of uniform height is maintained to this day by putting the tallest dancers in the center, and gradually decreasing the height with the shortest women at either end.
 Rockettes appear Macy's Thanksgiving Day and are the inspiration for their own Rockette doll. Since 1932, more than 3,000 women have danced as Rockettes. Each year, in cities across America, hundreds of young women audition to be members of the internationally known troupe. Radio City Rockettes must be between 5'5" and 5'10" and must demonstrate proficiency in tap, jazz, ballet and modern dance.
Rehearsals start in September and are everyday Monday through Friday, from 10 am to 6 pm.  Each Rockette goes through eight costume changes a show.  One of the quickest one is the soldier dance into the double decker bus – New York at Christmas and that change is 78 seconds.
Microphones in their shoes magnify the taps during the "12 Days of Christmas" routine.
.

Atlas - a bronze statue on 5th Avenue and “Atlas shrugged” by Ayn Rand

     There were two famous brothers in Greek mythology – Prometheus and Atlas and both were punished -   first Atlas and later Prometheus.  There are two sculptures of the two brothers  near Rockefeller Center in New York.  You can find more details in my old post about Prometheus. 

     Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan is a very crowded street and only in the early morning you can make the picture of the statue of Atlas as if you are alone on one of the famous streets in the world. The monument sits in in front of Rockefeller building across from St. Patrick's Cathedral.
It is the largest sculpture at Rockefeller Center.

     This huge bronze figure was created by sculptor Lee Lawrie with the help of Rene Paul Chambellan in 1937. Chambellan also created small Nereids and Dolphins on the fountain near Rockefeller center. 

    In Greek mythology Atlas is the titan of astronomy and navigation. He was a leader in the war between the Olympian Gods and the Titans.   After the war was lost, Atlas received the harshest punishment by King Zeus:  he had to hold up the heavens with bare hands and bear their weight on his shoulders forever. Atlas instructed the mankind in the art of astronomy.  A lost traveler can use the statue as a compass -the North-South axis of the sphere on Atlas' shoulders points towards  the North Star as seen from New York City.

  You can see this statue on the cover page of one of the most published books in the world, “Atlas Shrugged”  by Ayn Rand.  The theme of the novel, as Rand described it, is "the role of man's mind in existence".  "If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders--what would you tell him to do?" Rand wrote, answering, "To shrug."  

  The book, describing a dystopian United States, was first published in 1957. John Galt is one of the main characters of the book. He is the leader of the of society's most productive citizens believing that world, where individual is not free to create and have a profit, where every person is a slave to society and government, will end in the chaos and disaster.  John Galt believes that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society. Galt was an engineer and invented a  new type of motor for the company he had been working for.

     Forced by his employer, for the "social good," to share his part of profit  with his fellow workers, who contributed nothing to the motor's development, Galt walks out of his job, determined to "stop the motor of the world." 

   Ayn Rand   (Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum) was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1905. At the age of nine, she decided to make fiction writing her career.

  She supported Kerensky Revolution ( February 1917) and criticized the Bolshevik Revolution ( October 1917). She graduated from University of Petrograd in 1924 and in 1925, after obtaining permission for visiting relatives in the United States, Ayn came to USA. Her first novel "We are living" was semi-autobiographical and was set in Soviet Russia.

Ayn was so impressed with the skyline of Manhattan upon her arrival  in New York Harbor that she cried what she later called "tears of splendor”. Later she wrote about New York: "I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline”. Rand wrote much of the book in New York and based many of the novel's fictional sites on real places in the city.

The story of Atlas Shrugged expresses Rand's philosophy rational self-interest. She wrote:

“For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors(…)And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it."  “"Only a ghost can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that 'human rights' are superior to 'property rights' simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others”

    “Atlas Shrugged” debuted on The New York Times Bestseller List at #13 three days after its publication - and was on the list for 22 consecutive weeks. Objectivism movement originally started out as an informal gathering of friends, who met with Rand on weekends at her apartment on East 36th Street in New York City to discuss philosophy. Later Rand   promoted her Objectivist philosophy, lecturing students in Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and MIT.

     Rand died of heart failure in 1982, at her home in New York City. Rand's funeral was attended by some of her followers, including Alan Greenspan (the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006). A six-foot floral arrangement in  the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket. Ayn Rand always wore a gold dollar sign as a brooch on her lapel.

     The “Ayn Rand Institute” began operations on February 1, 1985, three years after Rand's death. More than 50 years after publication, sales are booming. According to a press release from this Institute, over 7 million copies had been sold by the US publishers as of January 2010, with sales in 2009 along being over 500,000 copies.  The numbers do not include sales from other countries. Very few novels have had an impact as continuing as "Atlas Shrugged".

The Wall Street Journal published  statistics about  "Atlas Shrugged" sales:
1980s -- 74,300 copies per year 
1990s -- 95,300 copies per year 
2000s -- 167,028 copies per year 
2010s -- 303,523 copies per year 

2012- -- 359,105 copies per year

    On the 22nd of April, 1999, the United States Postal Service has issued a stamp dedicated to  Ayn Rand.

     Part I of the American film adaptation of the   novel Atlas Shrugged was released in 2011, part 2- in 2012, and Part  will hit theaters on Summer 2014.


Learn more:

Forbes: Who is John Galt?
Ayn Rand Institute
Ayn Rand Quotes

“Human Nature” installation at Rockefeller Center

     The Rockefeller Center plaza between  49th and 50th Streets in winter is a place where Christmas tree stands, in summer there is a Farmer Market . Spring is the exhibition time. For seven weeks from April 23 through June 7, 2013 nine huge 16-to 20-foot human-shaped stone figures will inhabit the plaza.  Each statue weighs more than 17 tons.

 

 

     “It’s really amazing,” Bloomberg marveled. “It’s just rock, except it’s not just rock." Bloomberg predicted the exhibit will be thought-provoking to both New Yorkers and tourists. “People are going to say, ‘Look at the one, I like that, I don’t like that, what does this one mean?’" he said. “That’s exactly what art should do — it should get you thinking and exercising your brain. ”

 

     Swiss born, New York-based artist  Ugo Rondinone made the sculptures of bluestone  and  left the surfaces rough.  The artist  made 50 miniature statues and named them (“Joy”, “Glad” ,“Uplifting”...) before deciding which to choose for the full-scale version. Bluestone is a commercial name for Field Spathic sandstone, which is produced in hundreds of small quarries in Pennsylvania.   Interesting to know that  Bluestone is also the name for the  dolerite of the famous Stonehenge in Britain.

 

    For more than 20 years, Ugo Rondinone  has produced  remarkably diverse body of work  including mandala paintings, figurative sculptures, large-scale landscape drawings, and immersive multi-channel video installations.

 

     A new exhibition of  Ugo Rondinone  “Soul” will be open  from  May 7 till July 3 in  Gladstone Gallery located on West 21 in Manhattan. This year the artist  will have exhibitions at Museum Leuven, Brussels, Belgium, and at the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Prometheus at Rockefeller Center

     The Prometheus Statue at Rockefeller Center in New York City is one of the most famous sculptures in the world. After the Statue of Liberty, it is perhaps the most celebrated piece of artwork in America.

     Prometheus was the wisest Titan. His name means "forethought" and he was able to foretell the future. Prometheus is known as the protector and benefactor of man. He gave mankind a number of gifts including fire.

     For this Zeus punished Prometheus by having him chained to a rock with an eagle tearing at his liver. He was to be left there for all eternity or until he agreed to disclose to Zeus which of Zeus children would try to replace him. He was eventually rescued by Hercules without giving in to Zeus. 

     In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving, particularly the quest for scientific knowledge.

 

Egg hunting for giants

    To celebrate Easter, the traditional Easter bunny topiary is displayed in the middle of the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center.

     The Easter Bunny actually started in pre-Christian fertility lore. The word Easter came from the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, who was associated with Spring and fertility.

     The hare and the rabbit were the most fertile animals and served as new life during the Spring months.

     Bunny becoming a Christian symbol came out of Germany during the 1500′s in celebration of “Oschter Haws” (the rabbit) and was brought to America by German settlers in the 1700′s.

    The settlers built nests for the rabbit out of their bonnets and caps and put them in the garden, barn or private room in their homes .

   In return the rabbit left colored eggs in payment - at least kids believe in it. The tradition is that the Easter bunny leaves Easter eggs on Easter Sunday. Parents hide eggs in the garden and the children go on an egg hunt to find them