Goodby Center Theater…Hello US Rubber Building

In 1950, The Center Theater became an NBC television theater and was heavily used till it closed and was demolished in 1954 to allow US Rubber to expand their Rockefeller Center offices. Thanks to Jodie Peeler, here are couple of interesting photos from 1959 that show the new 19 story US Rubber headquarters.

In the lower left of the wide shot, you can see the sign for New Yorks famous Hurley’s Bar. At the corner on the other side of 49th street is where the Center Theater was. It was about half the size of it’s sister Radio City Music Hall which is a block north on 50th Street. The Center Theatre was located at 1230 Sixth Avenue, the northeast corner of West 49th Street in Rockefeller Center.

In the close up, you can look down 49th street and see where the ‘Today’ show started in 1952. The space just over the Hurley’s sign was the RCA Exhibition Hall where the show originated. The show now comes from the space just behind that TV antenna in Studio 1A.

Seating 3500, The Center opened as an RKO theater in 1932 and later achieved fame as a showcase for live musical ice-skating spectacles. After only twenty one years, The Center Theatre became only building in the original Rockefeller Center complex to have been torn down.

Bob Jones University purchased the stage lifts and turntables from the Center Theatre and reassembled them in its Rodeheaver Auditorium, where the mechanisms are still in use today.

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