2023-12-20 10:46:16
Traffic jam on 50th Street in Manhattan – pedestrian traffic jam. The cars have long since given up between 5th and 6th Avenue, or maybe the street is closed for safety reasons, you can’t see it anymore because of all the people. If you choose Midtown Manhattan for your Christmas shopping, you’ll need better nerves than ever – and nowhere is the weekend crowd as dense as between the towering decorations at Saks department store and the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center.
If you want to get on your ice skates here, you should reserve online. This also applies to the latest attraction that the real estate conglomerate Tishman Speyer has come up with for the building complex from the 1930s. On the 69th floor of “30 Rock,” visitors can now not only look down on Manhattan, but also recreate a mythical photo that hangs in hundreds of thousands of teenagers’ bedrooms, doctor’s waiting rooms and mall restaurants, and to which Chinese media agency Visual China Group holds the rights : “Lunch atop a Skyscraper.” In 1932, eleven construction workers posed for “lunch break on a skyscraper,” sitting on a steel beam hanging 260 meters above the ground. The picture was taken on the 69th floor of what was then the RCA building, as a promotional photo for the skyscraper and Rockefeller Center.
Legendary photo: Cozy lunch in 1932 : Image: Picture Alliance
It is not entirely clear who took the photo because several photographers were present – Charles Ebbets is most often mentioned. Now visitors can have themselves photographed in the same pose, sitting on a steel beam, lifted into the air – “The Beam” costs $74 including admission at the most expensive time to visit in the afternoon. In line on 50th Street are Alexei Silver from Michigan and his girlfriend Kate, both 26. They’ve seen photos of today’s beam sitters that look like they’re quite high. “I don’t know yet whether I really want to sit on it at the end,” says the student, but he has paid. The elevator takes less than a minute to go to the 69th floor, and there you have to wait in line again. Like the workers in 1932, visitors today sit more than 250 meters above the ground, the Rockefeller Center advertises.
But of course the “beam” is just high enough so that you can look north over the windshields of the rear viewing terrace – just over three and a half meters. There is space for eight people per steel beam, two are in use today because it is a sunny and mild December day. Eating like the one in the historical photo is not allowed, says a steward, and you shouldn’t hold cell phones either.
A woman lets out a scream
A tight seat belt snaps, then the hydraulic base slowly pushes out of the ground, a woman with red hair lets out a small scream, but it doesn’t sound serious. Next to her, two boys are holding their baseball caps. There is some vibration under the butt, but the movement that starts at the highest point is slow: the bar swings once to the other side. There is a little bit more wind, but that doesn’t bother you in the afternoon sun.
The beam stops for a very short time, the view goes to the north. In the past, nothing here blocked the view of Central Park and the bright blue of its water reservoir named after Jackie Kennedy Onassis. A few tall, particularly slim apartment towers have now been added. When the weather is clear, you can see the George Washington Bridge in the far north of Manhattan, the mountains slowly rising behind it, where the Hudson River Valley begins. Before you can begin to identify the individual buildings – which Art Deco lace is glittering in the sun and which was the Dakota Building on Central Park – the beam under the butt turns towards the exit again. The view to the south, to the Empire State Building, is blocked here, but there is the south terrace. You can later go up a few steps to where there are no more windbreaks and the platform is open in both directions. On the beam, however, there is a last short break, a few seconds for the photo that the visitors will get later. The camera is at the top, the panes of the platform are covered by the steel beam – it looks much higher in the photo than it actually is. Then the hydraulic base lowers back into the ground. The whole “Beam” experience took a minute and a half.
Alex Westhoff Published/Updated: Recommendations: 2 Helmut Luther Published/Updated: Recommendations: 11 Sibylle Zehle Published/Updated: Recommendations: 3
Student Alexei Silver was also on top of the beam. It was a bit cold, but the extra $25 was worth it. Midtown has been going through a crisis since the pandemic, with office vacancies at a record 22 percent in the summer. What the office rents no longer provide should be made up with new attractions. The “Beam” is part of the area’s transformation into a “theme park,” New York Magazine recently said. Real estate companies like Extell want to build Ferris wheels and a “drop,” a free-fall tower, on new roof terraces. Compared to such plans, the seating beam on the 69th floor looks nostalgic and playful again.
Information at: www.rockefellercenter.com
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