Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building (originally the 600 Fifth Avenue Building)

History and architecture

The Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building (originally the 600 Fifth Avenue Building), built in 1950-52, was the last addition to the Rockefeller Center complex, east of Sixth Avenue, replacing the building of the Collegiate Reformed Church of St. Nicholas. Designed by the firm of Carson & Lundin to complement the original Center Buildings, the building takes the form of a 28-story tower set in an L-shaped seven-story base. In its scale, use of materials, major design details, and setbacks, the architects created a design which is integral with the Rockefeller Center complex. The first major tenant was the Sinclair Oil Co, and the building was known for many years as the Sinclair Building.

Rockefeller Center- is one of the most important architectural projects ever undertaken in America. It was unprecedented in scope, near visionary in its urban planning, and unequaled for its harmonious integration of architecture, art, and landscaping. The complex grew out of an ill-fated plan to build new midtown quarters for the Metropolitan Opera Company. When the original scheme collapsed, the project was transformed into the private commercial enterprise of Jahn D. Rockefeller, Jr. Construction of the original complex began in 1931 and ended with the completion of the fourteenth building in 1939.

When Rockefeller drove home the last rivet in the Rubber Company Building on November 1, 1939, he marked the official completion of the fourteen-unit complex. The structural form of the self-contained city had emerged. Said master of ceremonies, Nelson Rockefeller, "The Center really begins." Actually, it had already begun wee years prior. Early ridiculed as "Rockefeller's folly," the Center was now celebrated in a Broadway show tune by hundreds of locals and tourists, as well as by increasingly more appreciative architectural critics. It was' the "world of tomorrow, " — one which by 1938 had begun to show its first return on investment.

Unlike the 14 units in the original complex, the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building was privately constructed in 1950-52 and purchased by Rockefeller interests only in 1963. It was, however, linked to the Center from the start.