This video should start just before a visitor walks into the studio via the sixth floor doors, which is our way of identifying the location. This 1947 ‘Bell Telephone Hour’ radio rehearsal gives us one of the earliest looks at 6B as that we have ever had. Here’s the backstory.

Yes, I said new, but wasn’t 30 Rockefeller Plaza built in 1933? Yes, but it was not completed then. Surprisingly, the 6th and 7th floors sat unfinished and unused for nearly a decade…the elevators didn’t stop there and it was just a big empty space with only load bearing walls and support columns visible from a few work lights.

The short explanation for why it sat empty for so long is, television and war. In 1933, RCA and NBC were experimenting with television and wanted to reserve some space inside their new home for the medium, but progress came slowly and then came the eve of World War II. By 1939, things in Europe were already heated and fighting had started. Although we in the US didn’t enter the war till December of 1941, RCA was busy making radio and radar equipment for the British, and had been since 1939. RCA’s attention was fully focused on military hardware and not so much television.

Reporting war news on radio and producing entertainment shows for distraction had pushed the limits of NBC’s facilities and in 1940, plans were being discussed for the 6th and 7th floor. With an eye to the future, NBC wanted to make sure the big audience studios they needed for radio could be also be used for television.

Both studios were completed in early November of 1941, just weeks before Pearl Harbor. At the link is the NBC story on the building of these two studios. https://eyesofageneration.com/building-studios-6a-and-6b/

By the way, the text with this video is quite good and gives us some details of the show in rehearsal. This was filmed for exhibition in movie theaters as a way to introduce the public to this show which endured for many years on radio and later television. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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