NBC 3rd Floor 1933 Configuration
EXCLUSIVE ULTRA RARITY! NBC 3rd Floor 1933 Configuration
For once and for all, this will put to rest any doubts on the history of the conversion of NBC Studio 3H to 3K. Until yesterday, when I received this drawing of the original 1933 radio studio configuration, there had never been a reliable floor plan available anywhere earlier than one from around 2000, and that one only had tiny amounts of this information. Studio 3K was created in the fall of 1955 by combining Studio 3H and 3F and transforming it from black and white to color. Unfortunately, previous reports have stated that 3H was adjacent to 3C and the two were combined to make 3K, but as you can clearly see, that would be impossible.
If you remember, 3H was the first radio studio converted to television in 1935 and served as the home of RCA/NBC’s experimental broadcasts with the Iconoscope cameras and in 1951, the RCA color “coffin cameras” began their tests in 3H. At the time of their combining, 3F was still a radio studio.
Ed Reitan and I have had several conversations about this and with the people we have talked to that were there at the time, we have never doubted this history, but neither of us had never seen this floor plan before which is a great help. You can see Ed’s account of this at his great site, which is now under the care of the Early Television Foundation http://www.earlytelevision.org/Reitan/
I’m not positive, but I think this would be the first operational color studio inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza. NBC began live color operations at the Colonial Theater in 1953 with RCA TK40s. Like in Studio 6B where columns were recently removed for the return of ‘Tonight’, columns were a problem in creating 3K as well and two large columns had to be removed from the wall between 3H and 3F.
We all owe a huge Thank You to our new friend Joel Spector for sharing this drawing, and other floor plans to come, and to Gady Reinhold for introducing me to his childhood friend. Joel started with NBC in 1965 and Gady with CBS in 1966, but as kids and teens, they went to hundreds of live broadcasts all over the city. Joel is now semi retired but still plays all the music on the great Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade annually and works with the legendary Milton Delugg, who at 95, is still the parade’s musical director. Joel was also on the original SNL crew and still does audio occasionally on ‘Nightly News’, ‘Today’ and other shows when needed. More on Joel and Gady soon!
When I started at NBC in circa 1985, Studio 3A was open from, using the floor plan above, the Music Library, 3A, 3C to 3E, all one studio. 3G being the scene dock. The doors in the “Music Library” gave access to the freight car. It had been home to “The Doctors”. After renovation, 3A became “Nightly News”. 3B was “Today”. 3K was “Sports”.
Here is the original plan as published in the Proceedings of the IRE, August 1932, by O.B. Hanson. They obviously changed the floor numbering pattern.
Joel Spector, great guy.
Here’s a version with the 1933 plan superimposed on top of the “modern” plan.
Now I know what to look for when watching folks on MSNBC!
For someone who’s never been there. Can you give us an idea on sizes of these studios and control rooms? So very cool!
Always like the old pix that show the mysterious “staff elevators” famously used by Arturo Toscanini and many others. Good plan that kept staff away from the main studio elevators, full of audience members and visitors. Just try and get an elevator during audience load-in time for Fallon, Myers, SNL ….
Before now, this was the only floorplan available of the 3rd floor studios, circa 2000. See how few details there are of the original layout?