November 25, 1950…Center Theater, World’s Largest New TV Studio

The Center Theater was Radio City Music Hall’s little sister and when it was converted by NBC for television was “the world’s largest television studio”. It’s big sister seated 6,000, and while the Center seated 3,000, it was just as opulent and a block away at 1230 Sixth Avenue. It is the only original Rockefeller Plaza structure ever demolished, which happened in 1954 to make way for an office tower, built for U S Rubber.

There is some interesting information In the attached 3 page NBC press release from August of 1950 that announces NBC’s lease.

The first television shows were actually done here in the late ’40s when NBC did remote broadcasts of several of the ice shows which were performed on the Center’s specially constructed “Sonja Henie Ice Stage” . November 25, 1950 is the theater’s debut as a television studio (with it’s own control room) and the first show was a Radio/TV simulcast of ‘The Voice Of Firestone’.

I think ‘The Colgate Comedy Hour’ also moved here at the first of December, and in the last photo before the NBC Press release, you see occasional host, Broadway dancing star Wayne Lamb on stage with the Center’s large turntable in views. At this link is a 1954 episode of ‘The Colgate Comedy Hour’ live from The Center and notice the famous freezable ice stage is still intact and in use for an appearance of none other than Sonja Henie.

By 1952, ‘You Show Of Shows’, which began in the International Theater, moved to The Center for it’s last two seasons.

The first photo says it all about the location…a block up is Radio City Music Hall and between them is NBC’s 30 Rock headquarters. Just to the left of the Center’s marquee is the famous Hurley’s Bar, nestled against NBC at the corner of 6th Avenue and 49th Street. Radio City is at 50th Street. In that photo, the construction is the demolition of the elevated train tracks that once ran up 6th Avenue. -Bobby Ellerbee

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