Rockefeller Center was, to a large extent, the creation of entrepreneur and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr., who envisioned the "city within a city" as a massive, privately-funded, mixed-use urban renewal project designed. The Center, the first project of its scale and kind in the United States, was to be a fresh injection of culture and capitalism into a stagnating area.

The Center was constructed between 1932 and 1940, with the 70 story RCA Building (now the GE Building) as the centerpiece. During construction the Metropolitan Opera House, the core tenant around which the Center was to thrive, withdrew from the project and left a devastated John D. Rockefeller Jr. with a long-term land lease and no core tenant business - at the start of the Great Depression.

Rockefeller refused to be beaten. Raymond Hood, the principal Center architect, began changing designs and drafting several "superblock" plans, one of which would become the template for "30 Rock."

Hood's design may seem bulky and stocky at first glance, but it allowed plenty of light and air to reach each tower. And the density of rental space made the entire plan economically workable.