30 Rock

Here’s the best joke 30 Rock ever told: the show named after 30 Rockefeller Plaza wasn’t filmed there. Tina Fey’s 30 Rock (2006–2013) — seven seasons, 138 episodes, and a shelf of Emmys — shot at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, miles from the address in its title. But the building needs no sitcom to be legendary: 30 Rockefeller Plaza is the most famous address in television — home of Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, and ninety years of broadcasting — and the hunt starts at its front door.

The Scene

NBC has been at 30 Rock since 1933, when its Radio City studios were the largest broadcasting facility in the world. The crown jewel is Studio 8H: built as the world’s largest radio studio, it became the broadcast home of Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1937, was converted for television around 1950, and has housed Saturday Night Live continuously since the show’s 1975 debut. Next door in the lineup: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon tapes in Studio 6B, and Late Night with Seth Meyers comes from Studio 8G — plus TODAY, Nightly News, and the MSNBC studios, all under the same roof.

The show’s opening collage and transition shots lean on the plaza’s statues to say “you are in midtown” — and Atlas, the complex’s largest sculpture, turns up frequently, looming like a very buff continuity device.

The Backstory

30 Rockefeller Plaza is the 70-story Art Deco centerpiece of Rockefeller Center, the 19-building, 22-acre complex John D. Rockefeller Jr. built between 1932 and 1939 in the teeth of the Depression. It was completed in 1933 — the same year the famous “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photograph was taken during its construction. The building’s name has changed with its corporate owners: the RCA Building, then the GE Building in 1988, then officially the Comcast Building on July 1, 2015. Everyone still calls it 30 Rock.

The Atlas statue deserves its own paragraph. Sculpted by Lee Lawrie with Rene Paul Chambellan and installed in January 1937, it’s a 15-foot bronze Titan holding an armillary sphere — 45 feet tall, 14,000 pounds, the largest sculpture at Rockefeller Center. It stands in the International Building courtyard at 630 Fifth Avenue, its sphere aligned to the North Star as seen from New York.

What to Look For

Start at the Atlas courtyard on Fifth Avenue — the statue is the show’s unofficial mascot and the single most recognizable hunk of bronze in midtown. Then walk the half-block to 30 Rockefeller Plaza itself (Sixth Avenue between 49th and 50th): the lobby, the NBC peacock, the marquee. The Lower Plaza’s ice rink opened in 1936 and anchors the whole complex in winter. The Top of the Rock observation deck (67th/69th/70th floors, ~850 feet) has a straight-on Empire State view; its “Beam” attraction recreates the 1932 beam photo.

The real hunt, though, is The Tour at NBC Studios: a 75–90 minute guided walk through the working studios, led by NBC Pages, starting at The Shop at NBC Studios on the ground floor. Public studio tours here date back to 1933; the current tour relaunched on November 3, 2023. Book ahead at thetouratnbcstudios.com and check current days and hours before you go.

Getting There

30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112 — Sixth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, Manhattan.

Subway: take the B, D, F, or M to 47–50 Sts–Rockefeller Ctr — the station exits put you practically in the lobby.

Trivia

• 30 Rock the show filmed at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City. The address in the title was aspirational.
• Studio 8H’s two live 30 Rock episodes (“Live Show” and “Live from Studio 6H”) were performed in front of a real studio audience in the actual SNL studio.
• The building was the RCA Building, then the GE Building (1988), then the Comcast Building (2015). The sitcom premiered in 2006, mid-GE era, and nobody called it “30 GE.”

The Hunt Clue

Where the peacock’s perched on Sixth Ave’s beat,

And Atlas holds the sky on Fifth Avenue — sweet,

Where SNL’s been live since ’75,

And the tour still keeps the dream alive —

Thirty Rock, the name, the game, the view —

Dear hunter, the plaza’s waiting for you.

Photo by Eric Kilby via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0