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Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and theater at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplace of the Nation", it is the headquarters for the Rockettes. Radio City Music Hall was designed by Edward Durell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style.

Radio City Music Hall was built on a plot of land that was originally intended for a Metropolitan Opera House, although plans for the opera house were canceled in 1929. It opened on December 27, 1932, as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center. The 5,960-seat Music Hall was the larger of two venues built for Rockefeller Center's "Radio City" section, the other being Center Theatre; the "Radio City" name came to apply only to the Music Hall. It was largely successful until the 1970s, when declining patronage nearly drove the theater to bankruptcy. Radio City was designated a New York City Landmark in May 1978, and it was restored and allowed to remain open. The theater was extensively renovated in 1999.

Radio City's four-tiered auditorium was the world's largest when it opened. The theater also contains a variety of art. Although Radio City was initially intended to host stage shows, within a year of its opening it was converted into a movie palace, hosting performances in a film-and-stage-spectacle format through the 1970s, and was the site of several movie premieres. By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it primarily hosted concerts, including by leading pop and rock musicians, and live stage shows such as the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. The Music Hall has also hosted televised events including the Grammy Awards, the Tony Awards, the Daytime Emmy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and the NFL Draft, as well as university graduation ceremonies.

Planning
The construction of Rockefeller Center occurred between 1932 and 1940. on land that John D. Rockefeller Jr. leased from Columbia University. The Rockefeller Center site was originally supposed to be occupied by a new opera house for the Metropolitan Opera. By 1928, Benjamin Wistar Morris and designer Joseph Urban were hired to come up with blueprints for the house. The new building was too expensive for the opera to fund by itself, and it needed an endowment; the project ultimately gained the support of John D. Rockefeller Jr. The planned opera house was canceled in December 1929 due to various issues, but Rockefeller made a deal with RCA to develop Rockefeller Center as a mass media complex with four theaters. This was later downsized to two theaters.

Samuel Roxy Rothafel, a successful theater operator who was renowned for his domination of the city's movie theater industry, joined the center's advisory board in 1930. He offered to build two theaters: a large vaudeville "International Music Hall" on the northernmost block, with more than 6,200 seats, and the smaller 3,500-seat "RKO Roxy" movie theater on the southernmost block. The idea for these theaters was inspired by Roxy's failed expansion of the 5,920-seat Roxy Theatre on 50th Street, one and a half blocks away. The Music Hall was to have a single admission price of $2 per person. Roxy also envisioned an elevated promenade between the two theaters, but this was never published in any of the official blueprints.

Design process
In September 1931, a group of NBC managers and architects toured Europe to find performers and look at theater designs. However, the group did not find any significant architectural details that they could use in the Radio City theaters. In any case, Roxy's friend Peter Clark turned out to have much more innovative designs for the proposed theaters than the Europeans did.

Roxy had a list of design requests for the Music Hall. First, he did not want the theater to have either a large balcony over the box seating or rows of box seating facing each other, as implemented in opera houses. One alternative called for "a rather deep balcony" and a shallower second balcony, but would have obstructed views from the rear orchestra. Consequently, the final plan used three tiers of balconies, cantilevered off the back wall. Second, Roxy specified that the stage contain a central section with three parts so the sets could be changed easily. Roxy wanted red seats because he believed it would make the theater successful, and he wished for the auditorium to be oval in shape because contemporary wisdom held that oval auditoriums had better acoustic qualities. Finally, he wanted to build at least 6,201 seats in the Music Hall so it would be larger than the Roxy Theatre. There were only 5,960 audience seats, but Roxy counted exactly 6,201 seats by including elevator stools, orchestra pit seats, and dressing-room chairs. Roxy also wanted the theater to have an "intimate" design as well. According to architect Henry Hofmeister, a single level of steeply raked stadium seating would likely have been used in a larger auditorium, quoting a theatrical proverb: "A house divided against the performer cannot stand."

Despite Roxy's specific requests for design features, the Music Hall's general design was determined by the Associated Architects, the architectural consortium that was designing the rest of Rockefeller Center. The Music Hall was to be at the northwest corner of the Rockefeller Center complex, at the base of the 1270 Sixth Avenue office building; the theater's rear wall would have to support the offices above. Radio City Music Hall was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and interior designer Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. Stone used Indiana Limestone for the facade, as with all the other buildings in Rockefeller Center, but he also included some distinguishing features. Three 90 ft signs with the theater's name were placed on the facade, while intricately ornamented fire escapes were installed on the walls facing 50th and 51st Streets. Inside, Stone designed 165 ft Grand Foyer with a large staircase, balconies, and mirrors and commissioned Ezra Winter for the grand foyer's 2400 ft2 mural, "Quest for the Fountain of Eternal Youth". Deskey, meanwhile, was selected as part of a competition for interior designers for the Music Hall. He had reportedly called Winter's painting "God-awful" and regarded the interior and exterior as not much better. To make the Music Hall presentable in his opinion, Deskey designed upholstery and furniture that was custom to the theater. Deskey's plan was regarded the best of 35 submissions, and he ultimately used the rococo style in his interior design.

Naming and construction
The International Music Hall evolved into a theater called Radio City Music Hall. The names "Radio City" and "Radio City Music Hall" derive from one of the complex's first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which planned a mass media complex called Radio City on the west side of Rockefeller Center. Over time, the appellation of "Radio City" devolved from describing the entire complex to just the complex's western section. Radio City Music Hall was the only part of the complex that retained the name by 1937, and the name "Radio City" became shorthand for the theater.

Construction on Radio City Music Hall started in December 1931, and the theater topped out in August 1932. Its construction set many records at the time, including the use of 15,000 mi of copper wire and 200 mi of brass pipe. In November 1932, Russell Markert's précision dance troupe the Roxyettes (later to be known as the Rockettes) left the Roxy Theatre and announced that they would be moving to Radio City. By then, Roxy was busy adding music acts in preparation for the theater's opening at the end of the year.

Opening
Radio City Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932, with a lavish stage show featuring numbers including Ray Bolger, Ronnie Mansfield, Doc Rockwell, Martha Graham, The Mirthquakers, The Tuskegee Choir and Patricia Bowman. The opening was meant to be a return to high-class variety entertainment. However, Radio City's opening program flopped because the program was very long, spanning from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. the next day, and a multitude of acts were crammed onto the world's largest stage, ensuring that individual acts were lost in the cavernous hall. As the premiere went on, audience members, including John Rockefeller Jr, waited in the lobby or simply left early. Some news reporters, tasked with writing reviews of the premiere, guessed the ending of the program because they left beforehand.

Reviews ranged from furious to commiserate. The film historian Terry Ramsaye wrote that "if the seating capacity of the Radio City Music Hall is precisely 6,200, then just exactly 6,199 persons must have been aware at the initial performance that they were eye witnesses to [...] the unveiling of the world's best 'bust'". Set designer Robert Edmond Jones resigned in disappointment, and Graham was fired. Despite the negative reviews of the performances, the theater's design was very well received. One reviewer stated: "It has been said of the new Music Hall that it needs no performers; that its beauty and comforts alone are sufficient to gratify the greediest of playgoers."

Conversion to movie house
Radio City's initial policy of live shows was so poorly received that, just two weeks after its opening, its managers announced that the theater would switch to showing feature films, accompanied by a spectacular stage show that Roxy had perfected. The announcement came amid false rumors that the theater would close. On January 11, 1933, after incurring a net operating loss of $180,000, Radio City became a movie and live-show house. The first film shown on the giant screen was Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen. One critic said the same year that the Music Hall "is alone in carrying on the tradition of bigger things which underlay the whole project at the beginning". William G. Van Schmus was hired as the theater's managing director that March, though he had never managed a theater before. The top admission in the theater's first year was 40 cents during the day and 88 cents at night.

Radio City became the premiere showcase for films from the RKO-Radio Studio, with Topaze being the first RKO film to play there in 1933. Some of the films that premiered at Radio City Music Hall included King Kong (1933), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Mary Poppins (1964), The Jungle Book (1967), and The Lion King (1994). The New York Daily News said that, in total, the theater hosted the premieres of over 650 movies. At the theater's peak, four complete performances were presented every day.

1930s to 1950s
In addition to its movie screenings, Radio City hosted a holy hour for Catholics, Protestants, and Jews starting in 1933. The theater started experimenting with operatic performances in May 1934. The performances were so popular that Van Schmus decided to produce more opera shows to be performed four times a day. Van Schmus subsequently hired Serge Sudeikin, Albert Johnson, and Boris Aronson as the theater's art directors, under senior producer Leon Leonidoff. Early films at Radio City included Becky Sharp (1935), the first feature film to use three-strip Technicolor production; a 1936 film version of the musical Show Boat; and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Walt Disney's first full-length feature film. The theater's non-cinematic events included a stage show about the history of lighting, as well as a fundraiser for the Red Cross. By January 1937, more than 25 million people had visited the theater over the previous four years, paying total admission of $17.5 million.

Radio City was used for Easter worship services starting in 1940. The next year, the theater hosted "the most elaborate benefit performance ever held in New York", a World War II fundraiser. After Van Schmus died in January 1942, G. S. Eysell took over as the managing director. During this time, Radio City hosted films such as The Philadelphia Story (1940), Sunny (1941), The Valley of Decision (1945), and The Late George Apley (1947). Lines for the theater's Christmas show frequently stretched around the block. Performances by the Rockettes and a 60-member orchestra accompanied many live shows. Ernö Rapée, who had headed Radio City's orchestra since its opening, continued to lead the theater's orchestra until he died in 1945. Radio City continued to operate every day, although it sometimes closed briefly for part of the day. For example, it partially closed after U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945 and again during a fuel shortage the next year.

Alexander Smallens became the theater's musical director in 1947, and Raymond Paige assumed that position three years later. The theater's sound system was upgraded in mid-1953, enabling the venue to show 3D films without intermission. Radio City disbanded its in-house male chorus in 1958, instead hiring choral acts from around the world. The theater also hosted benefit parties for Big Brothers Inc. from 1953 to at least 1959. Through the next decade, Radio City was successful regardless of the status of the city's economic, business, and entertainment sectors as a whole. It remained open even as other theaters such as the Paramount and the Roxy closed. A committee led by Radio City's director, Russell V. Dowling, selected the theater's live acts and other performances.

1960s and 1970s
Upon its 30th anniversary in 1962, Radio City had nearly 200 million total patrons to date, more than the entire U.S. population at the time. The theater had shown 532 feature films to date; the most frequent actor was Cary Grant, who had appeared in 25 such films. Even so, officials had intended to close down Radio City Music Hall in 1962, one of several such unheeded announcements. Radio City closed temporarily in 1963 due to fears of a power failure, and the first full-day closure in its history took place on November 26, 1963, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. By 1964, Radio City had an estimated 5.7 million annual visitors, who paid ticket prices of between 99 cents and $2.75 (equivalent to between $ and $ in ). The theater had evolved to show fewer adult-oriented films, instead choosing to show films for general audiences. However, Radio City's operating costs were almost twice as high as those of smaller performance venues. In addition, with the loosening of regulations on explicit content, Radio City's audience was mostly relegated to families.

Radio City was closed entirely for five days in March 1965 for its first full cleaning, which included changing the curtains and painting the ceiling. While the seating areas and floors had been cleaned regularly, the walls and ceilings had never been thoroughly cleaned and had accumulated a layer of dirt measuring almost 1/4 in thick. Two or three hundred workers cleaned the theater around the clock, and it reopened on March 8, 1965, with the film Dear Heart. Repairs were also performed on the theater's organs during the nighttime. Also in 1965, Will Irwin and Rayburn Wright replaced Raymond Paige as the theater's musical directors following the latter's death. Russell V. Downing retired as Radio City's president in 1966 and was replaced by James F. Gould. As president of the Music Hall, Gould expanded its programming to include events such as rock concerts and wrestling matches before he retired in 1973. Radio City had its 200 millionth visitor in January 1967, a little less than two years after its renovation.

Tourism to New York City started to decline by 1969, which affected the theater's attendance. Even in the early 1970s, Radio City had five million visitors a year, more than the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty combined. However, the proliferation of subtitled foreign movies had reduced attendance at Radio City. Changes in film distribution made it difficult to secure exclusive bookings of many films, forcing Radio City's managers to show reruns. Radio City preferred to show only family-friendly movies, which further limited their film choices. As a result, popular films such as Chinatown, Blazing Saddles, and The Godfather Part II failed Radio City's screening criteria. By 1972, Radio City had fired the performers' unions as well as six of the 36 Rockettes. The theater's management donated a painting by Stuart Davis to the Museum of Modern Art to reduce Radio City Music Hall's tax burden. That October, Radio City was closed temporarily after officials could not reach an employment agreement with the theater's musicians. Though the theater reopened a few days later, this was the first time it had ever been closed due to staffing issues.

Another labor dispute in 1973 forced Radio City to cut back its policy of mixed films and stage shows. A total shutdown was only avoided when the musicians' union agreed to a three-year contract in which musicians would be paid for 38 weeks per year, rather than 52. This allowed Radio City's managers to schedule other forms of live entertainment for the theater during the remaining 14 weeks. These live shows were split into two periods of seven weeks. Radio City's managers attempted to draw patrons by using the stage for rock concerts, pop festivals, and telecasts of boxing matches. Nonetheless, the Music Hall continued to lose $600,000 a year by early 1975. It cost $55,000 a week just to rent the theater, plus another $20,000 for employee salaries. There were just 3.5 million visitors annually, despite high attendance during Christmas, Easter, and the summer. Yet again, rumors spread that the venue would close, but Radio City's managers denied these claims. Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote that Radio City was still more popular than other visitor attractions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Bronx Zoo.

Bankruptcy and threat of closure
In 1977, annual attendance reached an all-time low of 1.5 million, a 70 percent decrease from the 5 million visitors reported in 1968. The theater needed about 4 million annual visitors to break even. By January 1978, Radio City was in debt, and officials stated that it could not remain open after April. Rockefeller Center president Alton Marshall announced that, due to a projected loss of $3.5 million for the upcoming year, Radio City Music Hall would close on April 12. This came after the theater had lost $2.3 million in 1977. Many of Radio City's regular patrons moved to the suburbs, and there was a lingering fear of crime in New York City. A lack of family-friendly movies was also a factor in the planned closure. One proposal included converting the theater into tennis courts, a shopping mall, an aquarium, a hotel, a theme park, or the American Stock Exchange. Despite the potential tax benefits of preserving the theater, Rockefeller Center's managers were uninterested in saving Radio City, as they were focused on the site's real-estate development potential. Huxtable claimed that the managers' approach was "singularly lacking in any creative or cultural sensitivities".

Radio City Music Hall Ballet Company dance captain Rosemary Novellino formed the Showpeople's Committee to Save Radio City Music Hall. Lieutenant governor Mary Anne Krupsak, who had once been a Rockette, was also involved in the preservation efforts. The alliance made hundreds of calls to Rockefeller Center's manager; The New York Times described that the callers "jammed the switchboards" there. The Rockettes also protested outside New York City Hall. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held public hearings on whether to designate the theater's interior as a city landmark in March 1978. Of more than 100 speakers, most argued in favor of landmark status, but Rockefeller Center president Alton G. Marshall said that "landmark designation may well be the last nail in the Music Hall's coffin." In total, more than 100,000 people supported designating Radio City as a landmark. The LPC designated the interior as a city landmark on March 28.

Rockefeller Center Inc. filed a lawsuit to try to reverse the landmark designation, claiming that landmark status would be unattractive to potential investors, but the lawsuit was unsuccessful. Rockefeller Center Inc. indicated that it would demolish the theater had it succeeded in overturning the landmark designation. In April, just a few days before the planned closing date, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) voted to create a nonprofit subsidiary to lease Radio City. Plans for a 20-story mixed-use tower above Radio City were announced the same month, with rents from the proposed tower providing the necessary funds to keep the theater open. An alternative involving transferring the theater's air rights to another building in the complex was also privately discussed. The UDC and Rockefeller Center Inc. agreed on April 12 to keep Radio City open, just hours before it had been set to close. On May 12, 1978, Radio City Music Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Radio City lost $2.3 million in the first ten months of 1978, despite the fact that a Frank Sinatra concert there had grossed more than $1.7 million. From April 13 to September 13, 1978, when the UDC operated the theater, losses totaled $1.2 million. The plans for an office building above the theater were recommended in a draft study that was published in February 1979. Davis Brody Associates had designed a 31-story office and hotel building that was to be cantilevered over the theater, with an entrance carved out of Radio City's Sixth Avenue lobby. The office building was ultimately not built. Robert F. Jani instead assumed control of Radio City's programming, with plans to restore the venue to its original condition. The film-plus-stage-spectacle format ended at the theater on April 25, 1979, with the screening of The Promise. The theater was closed immediately afterward for renovation. It reopened with a ceremony on May 31, 1979.

Late 20th century
After the theater reopened to the public, Radio City started creating its own music concerts. Previously, the theater had only hosted events created by external producers. Time slots were set aside for movie screenings, but Radio City had mostly turned to stage shows. By January 1980, Radio City was hosting shows such as the stage adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Rockettes Spectacular. However, the theatrical shows proved to be unpopular, so, in 1983, the Radio City Music Hall shifted to creating music concerts and participating in the production of films and TV shows. The parent company, Radio City Music Hall Productions (a subsidiary of Rockefeller Center Inc.), started creating or co-creating films and Broadway shows such as Legs and Brighton Beach Memoirs.

By the early 1980s, the LPC was considering designating the original Rockefeller Center complex as a city landmark, including the exterior of Radio City Music Hall. In 1983, the LPC held hearings to determine how much of Rockefeller Center should be protected as a landmark. The Rockefeller family and Columbia University acknowledged that the buildings were already symbolically landmarks, but their spokesman John E. Zuccotti recommended that only the block between 49th and 50th Streets be protected. By contrast, almost everyone else who supported Rockefeller Center's landmark status recommended that the entire complex be landmarked. The LPC granted landmark status to the exteriors of all of the original complex's buildings, including the previously unprotected exterior of Radio City Music Hall, on April 23, 1985. Rockefeller Center's original buildings also became a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

Radio City finally recorded a net gain of $2.5 million in 1985, its first profit in three decades. This was partly attributed to the addition of music concerts, which appealed toward younger viewers. Radio City also started hosting televised events including the Grammy Awards, the Tony Awards, the Daytime Emmy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and the NFL Draft. A new golden curtain was installed at the main stage in January 1987. The curtain was the third one to be installed since Radio City's opening in 1932; it had last been replaced in 1965. Because of Radio City's historic status, the curtain had to be the same style, texture, and color as the previous curtains.

In 1997, Radio City was leased to the Madison Square Garden Company (then known as Cablevision), providing funding to keep the Rockettes and the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City. In exchange, Cablevision would be able to renovate and manage the theater. Radio City was closed on February 16, 1999, for a comprehensive renovation. During the closure, many components were cleaned, modernized, or replaced, including the curtains, seats, carpets, doorknobs, and light fixtures. Workers installed a gold-silk curtain measuring 112 ft wide, as well as 5,901 seats upholstered in salmon-colored fabric. The ceiling was also restored by John Canning. The renovation was originally projected to cost $25 million, but the cost increased to $70 million due to various additional tasks that surfaced during the extensive refurbishment. Radio City received a $2.5 million tax break from the Empire State Development Corporation, which was meant to accommodate the expenditure of up to $66 million in renovation costs. The theater reopened with a gala concert on October 4, 1999.

Early 21st century
Radio City Music Hall announced a decision to remain open on March 12 and 13, 2020, amid a ban on gatherings of 500 or more in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. This decision initially stood in contrast to many other venues and public events in New York City, which had shut down. Radio City decided to remain closed after March 13, with no set reopening date, since other venues had also closed indefinitely. This affected events like the 74th Tony Awards, originally scheduled for June 7 but was then postponed after Radio City's closure. In early 2021, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced that Radio City would be able to open with limited capacity that April. Cuomo subsequently announced Radio City would reopen that June, without capacity limits or mask restrictions, but only to patrons who had received a COVID-19 vaccine.

Development firm Tishman Speyer submitted proposals to the LPC to construct a 24000 ft2 rooftop terrace on Radio City Music Hall, as well as a pedestrian bridge to 1270 Avenue of the Americas. These plans dated from an original proposal for the theater that was never carried out. The LPC approved the plans in March 2021. At the time, the terrace was scheduled to open in late 2021 and would only be usable by tenants of 1270 Avenue of the Americas and their guests. The garden opened in September 2021 and is formally known as Radio Park. Designed by the firm of HMWhite, Radio Park includes birch trees, a set of bleachers, and various pathways. The entirety of Radio Park is placed on a gradual slope because the connection to 50 Rockefeller Plaza is higher than Radio City Music Hall's roof.

Facade
Radio City Music Hall is on the east side of Sixth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. Located in a niche partially under 1270 Avenue of the Americas, the theater is housed under the building's first setback on the seventh floor. An entrance to the New York City Subway's 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station, served by the, is on Sixth Avenue directly adjacent to the north end of the marquee, within the same structure that houses Radio City Music Hall.

Its exterior has a long marquee sign that wraps around the corner of Sixth Avenue and 50th Street, as well as narrower, seven-story-high signs on the north and south ends of the marquee's Sixth Avenue side; both signs display the theater's name in neon letters. The main entrance to Radio City was placed at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 50th Street, underneath the marquee. Although the theater's main entrance could have been placed anywhere along the Sixth Avenue frontage, the architects chose to place the entrance near the intersection of 50th Street, rather than in the middle of the block, because it was highly visible from the Broadway theater district to the west. Additionally, a corner site allowed the architects to place more doorways on the facade than a midblock site would have.

The theater's exterior also has visual features signifying its purpose. Above the entrance, Hildreth Meiere created six small bronze plaques of musicians playing different instruments, as well as three larger metal and enamel plaques signifying dance, drama, and song; these plaques denote the theater's theme. At one point, a tennis court was located on the theater's rooftop garden.

Interior
The interior contains a grand foyer, a large main auditorium, and stairs and elevators that lead to several mezzanines. Designed by Edward Durell Stone, the theater had Art Deco decoration, whose sharp lines represented a break with the traditional ornate rococo ornament associated with movie palaces at the time. Donald Deskey coordinated the interior design process and designed some of the wallpaper, furniture, and other decor in Radio City. Deskey's geometric Art Deco designs incorporate glass, aluminum, chrome, bakelite, and leather; these materials are used in the theater's wall coverings, carpet, light fixtures, and furniture. All of the theater's staircases were fitted with brass railings, an aspect of the Art Deco style.

Deskey commissioned textile designers Marguerita Mergentime and Ruth Reeves to create carpet designs and designs for the fabrics covering the walls. Reeves designed a carpet that contained musical motifs in "shades of red, brown, gold, and black", but her design was replaced in 1999. Mergentime also produced geometric designs of nature and musicians for the walls and carpets, which still exist. Deskey also created his own carpet design consisting of "singing head" depictions, which still exists. Rene Chambellan produced six "playful" bronze plaques of vaudeville characters, which are located in the lobby just above the entrances to the theater. Henry Varnum Poor designed all of Radio City's ceramic fixtures, especially the lighting bases.

Lobbies and grand foyer

The entrance to Radio City is at its southwestern corner, where there are adjacent ticket and advance sales lobbies. Both lobbies contain terrazzo floors and marble walls. The ticket lobby, accessible from Sixth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets, is the larger of the two lobbies. There are four brass ticket booths: one each on the northern and southern walls and two booths in the center. Originally, six ticket booths were placed about 22 ft from the main doors, dividing the lobby into corridors measuring 16 ft wide. This permitted adequate traffic flow within the lobby while also making it difficult for crowds to congregate. Large black pillars support a low, slightly coffered ceiling. Circular light fixtures are set into the ceiling of the ticket lobby, within each of the slight indentations. The advance sales lobby, accessible from 50th Street just east of Sixth Avenue, contains a single ticket booth on the eastern wall. This location allowed the advance-sales booth to be distinguished from the general sales booths while also not blocking traffic flow.

To the ticket lobby's east and the advance sales lobby's northeast is the elliptical grand foyer, whose four-story-high ceiling and dramatic artwork contrast with the compactness of the lobby. The space is about 40 ft deep and extends the width of the auditorium. Two long, tubular chandeliers created by Edward F. Caldwell & Co. hang from the ceiling. The northern side of the grand foyer contains Ezra Winter's mural. A grand staircase, leading up to the first-mezzanine foyer, runs along the northern wall next to Winter's mural. Another set of stairs below the grand staircase descends from the northern side of the foyer to the main lounge one level below. A smaller staircase to the first-mezzanine lounge runs along the southern wall, connecting to a curved extension of that level's balcony. The southern and northern sides of the grand foyer, respectively leading to 50th and 51st Streets, contain shallow vestibules with red marble walls. The northern vestibule is used as the exit lobby, while the southern vestibule is an emergency exit. The grand foyer's eastern wall contains openings from the first, second, and third mezzanine levels, and the western wall contains 50 ft mirrors within gold frames. Eleven doors leading to the Music Hall's auditorium are also located on the grand foyer's eastern side. Chambellan commissioned several plaques on the auditorium doors' exteriors, which resemble the vaudeville representations in the lobby and depict the types of performances in the Music Hall.

The foyer connects to four elevators that serve the main lounge level through the third mezzanine level. At ground level, a marble lobby for these elevators is to the west of the northern exit vestibule. Chambellan also designed the elevator doors with reliefs of musicians in atypical representations. The maple circular roundels inside the cabs were designed by Edward Trumbull and represent wine, women, and song.

Each of the three mezzanine levels has a men's smoking room, a women's lounge, and men's and women's restrooms. No two restrooms or lounges have the same design. A 1932 New York Times article described the reasons for such varied designs: "Since the auditoriums, men's lobbies, smoking rooms and women's lounges are used for a few hours only, decorative schemes are appropriate in them that would be too dramatic for a home."

Auditorium
Architectural critic Douglas Haskell said of the auditorium: "The focus is the great proscenium arch, over 60 ft high and 100 ft feet wide, a huge semi-circular void. From that the energy disperses, like a firmament the arched structure rises outward and forward. The 'ceiling', uniting sides and top in its one great curve, proceeds by successive broad bands, like the bands of northern lights." In the theater's early years, the Federal Writers' Project noted that "nearly everything about the Music Hall is tremendous". At the time, Radio City had the world's largest orchestra; the most expansive theater screen; the heaviest proscenium arch in a theater; and the "finest precision dancers", the Rockettes.

Seating areas
The auditorium has around 5,960 seats. Around 3,500 of these seats are at the ground-level orchestra, while the remaining seats are distributed among the three mezzanines. The orchestra and mezzanine sections all contain reddish-brown plush seating throughout, as well as storage compartments under each seat, lights at the end of each row of seats, and more legroom space than in other theaters. Six aisles extend the length of the orchestra level, dividing each row into sections of up to 14 seats. The aisles measure 6 ft wide at the rear, tapering to 5 ft at the center and 3 ft at the front. A crossover aisle separates the front one-third of the orchestra from the rear two-thirds. Each row of seats was originally placed 2 ft apart, giving more legroom than in contemporary theaters.

Radio City contains three mezzanines within the back wall of the auditorium, as well as a main lounge in the basement. Each of the mezzanines is shallow, and all three mezzanine levels are stacked on top of the rear orchestra. Since the mezzanines are shallow, there is no need to have a crossover aisle, and only four aisles are provided. Ramps on either side of the stage lead to the first mezzanine level, creating the impression of a stage encircling the orchestra.

Other design features
The auditorium's ceiling contains eight telescoping bands, which Haskell described as the "northern lights". Each of the bands' edges contains a 2 ft overlap with the next band, placed at 30 ft intervals. In Joseph Urban's original plans, the ceiling was to be coffered but, after the cancellation of the Opera House, designers proposed many different designs for the proposed Music Hall's ceiling. The current design was put forth by Raymond Hood, who derived his band-system idea from a book that Urban had written. The arches are made of plaster and contain ridges every 6 ft. The original plans had been to build the arches themselves in a curved shape, but this would have concentrated the sound onto several small spots. The walls are covered by intricate fabric silhouette patterns of performers and horses, which were created by Reeves. The radiating arches of the proscenium unite the large auditorium, allowing a sense of intimacy and grandeur. The ceiling arches also contain grilles that camouflage the air-conditioning system, amplifying equipment, and organ pipes. The sound system could be controlled by a light organ in front of the orchestra pit.

The Great Stage, designed by Peter Clark, measures 66.5 by; it is placed within a proscenium arch that resembles a setting sun. Roxy reportedly envisioned the sunset design of the stage while traveling home from Europe on an ocean liner. There are two stage curtains; the main one is made of steel and asbestos, which can part horizontally, while the plush curtain behind it has several horizontal sections that can be raised or lowered independently of each other. The original curtain weighed three tons and measured 112 ft wide by 78 ft tall. The center of the stage contains a rotating floor measuring 50 ft across. The floor is divided into three sections that can be lowered and raised either separately or in sync. The orchestra pit, which could fit 75 musicians, was placed on a "bandwagon" that was lifted from the basement and could move vertically or longitudinally. The bandwagon could also be lifted to the central opening. From the stage, it could be lowered back into the basement or moved to the side.

There is a complex system of indirect cove lighting at the front of the stage, facing the audience. When Radio City first opened, it was equipped with all of the newest lighting innovations at the time, including lights that changed colors automatically and adjusted their own brightness based on different lighting levels in the theater.

Main lounge
The main lounge in the basement is about twice the size of the grand foyer above it. The walls are composed of black "permatex", which was a new material at the time of the Music Hall's construction. The ceiling has diamond-shaped light fixtures and is supported by six diamond-shaped piers, as well as three full-height piers of a similar shape that exist only for aesthetic purposes. The lounge is decorated with several artworks (see ). Deskey also designed the chrome furniture and the carpeting of the lounge. The lounge also contained a passageway to the "Forum", along Sixth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, where it linked with Rockefeller Center's other buildings.

The landing for Radio City's elevator bank is located on the northern side of the main lounge. A marble wall with three large columns comprises the western side of the lounge. A hallway extends off the eastern side of the lounge and leads to a men's smoking room and a women's lounge, which both connect to restrooms of their respective genders. The smoking room has a masculine theme with terrazzo floors, brown walls, and copper ceilings. The accompanying men's restroom has black-and-white tiles and simple geometric fixtures, which are duplicated in the men's restrooms on each mezzanine level. The women's lounge is mostly designed with the same soft colors as Witold Gordon's "History of Cosmetics Mural", located on the room's walls, although the wall area not covered by the mural is painted beige. The attached women's restroom is similar to the men's restroom on the same floor but contains vertical cylindrical lighting, stools, and circular mirrors above aqua sinks.

Offstage
The offstage area of Radio City contains many rooms that allow all productions to be prepared on-site. The offstage rooms include a carpenter's studio, a scene shop, sewing rooms, dressing rooms for 600 people, a green room for performers' guests, and a dormitory. Two elevators are placed on either side of the stage, as well as a circular staircase. The female performers' restrooms and dressing rooms are placed as close as possible to the stage, and the male performers' dressing rooms are placed on the opposite side of the stage. This was in conformance with Roxy's belief that "happy performers make successful shows". Above the auditorium were two studios for Roxy, as well as a broadcast studio, rehearsal room, and two preview rooms.

The elevator system was designed by Peter Clark and built by Otis Elevators. The elevator system was so advanced that the U.S. Navy incorporated identical hydraulics in constructing World War II aircraft carriers; according to Radio City lore, during the war, government agents guarded the basement to hide the U.S. Navy's technological advantage.

Art

The public areas of Radio City feature the work of many Depression-era artists, who were commissioned by Deskey as part of his general design scheme. The large 2400 ft2 mural in the grand foyer, "Quest for the Fountain of Eternal Youth", was painted by Ezra Winter and depicts a fable from a Native American tribe in Oregon. The murals on the wall of the grand lounge, which depict five eras of differing theater scenes, are collectively known as the "Phantasmagoria of the Theater" by Louis Bouche. Three female nudes cast in aluminum were commissioned for the theater, but Roxy thought that they were inappropriate for a family venue. Although the Rockefellers loved the sculptures, the only one that was displayed on opening night was "Goose Girl" by Robert Laurent, which is located on the first mezzanine and depicts a nude aluminum girl beside a slender aluminum goose. Since opening night the other two sculptures have been put on display at Radio City. "Eve" by Gwen Lux is displayed in the southwest corner of the grand foyer, and "Spirit of the Dance" by William Zorach is visible from the grand lounge.

Each of the public restrooms have adjoining lounges that display various works of art. The third-floor women's restroom contains the Panther Mural by Henry Billings, which is accompanied by Deskey's abstract wall coverings in the women's lounge. The women's lounge on the second mezzanine houses Yasuo Kuniyoshi's oil painting of "larger-than-life botanical designs" along the entire wall, which had originally been commissioned by Georgia O'Keeffe before she suffered a nervous breakdown and left the mural incomplete. Deskey created a wall covering for the men's lounge on the second mezzanine, containing masculine icons and nicotine motifs. He also designed the first-mezzanine women's lounge, a room full of mirrors with a blue-and-white carpet and frosted low-intensity lights. Witold Gordon painted a map with caricatures and stereotypical motifs in the men's lounge on the same floor, as well as a "History of Cosmetics Mural" in the women's lounge in the basement. Stuart Davis created Men Without Women, a mural of masculine stereotypical pastimes in the basement-level men's lounge; the work was donated to the Museum of Modern Art in 1975 and loaned back to the Music Hall in 1999. Finally, Edward Buk Ulreich created a "Wild West Mural" on the third-mezzanine men's lounge.

Organs
Radio City Music Hall has two Wurlitzer theatre organs. The organ in the main theatre is the largest instrument built by the Wurlitzer company. It consists of 58 ranks of pipes and 4,178 pipes, played from twin 4-manual consoles located to the left and right of the stage, which permits two organists to play the instrument simultaneously. The broadcast booth atop the theatre contains a smaller (3-manual, 14 rank) Wurlitzer organ, although it has been unplayable for some time. Richard Leibert was Radio City's chief organist from its opening on December 27, 1932, until his retirement in 1971, at which time Raymond Bohr succeeded him. Both organs have been recorded extensively by Ashley Miller, Dick Leibert, Raymond Bohr, and Eddie Layton, and Leibert presented a daily program of organ music broadcast from the theater on the NBC Radio Network in the 1930s and 1940s.

Concerts and shows
The Grateful Dead played eight shows over nine days in October 1980, culminating on Halloween; two of the shows from this run were released as the video Grateful Dead: Dead Ahead. In the 1980s, Liberace grossed $2.5 million from 14 performances with a combined audience of 82,000, setting a box-office record for Radio City Music Hall at the time. Adele performed a one-night-only concert at the Music Hall, which was recorded on November 17, 2015, and broadcast on NBC on December 14, 2015.

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is an annual Christmas stage musical produced by MSG Entertainment, which operates the theater. A New York Christmas tradition since 1933, it features the women's precision dance team known as the Rockettes. The Irish dance show Riverdance made its North American debut at the Music Hall in March 1996, breaking box-office records.

Television
Radio City Music Hall has been used for televised game shows such as Hollywood Squares, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!. For two weeks in November 1988, the theater hosted Wheel of Fortune, which was taking its first road trip. Saturday Night Live announcer Don Pardo announced during the two weeks. Radio City Music Hall was also the site for Jeopardy! four-thousandth episode in May 2002, at which time the show's Million Dollar Masters invitational tournament also occurred. The theater hosted the show again in November 2007 for the nighttime show's 25th anniversary. The Music Hall was used again in November 2006 for a 2-week Celebrity Jeopardy! event.

David Letterman hosted the Late Night with David Letterman Sixth Anniversary Special at Radio City Music Hall in 1988, and did so again for the show's Tenth Anniversary Special in 1992. The next year, Lyons Group (parent company of Barney & Friends at the time), taped a live stage show called Barney Live in New York City at the theater. In February 1998, Radio City Music Hall was a setting for the Sesame Street music special Elmopalooza, with Jon Stewart, David Alan Grier and others with the cast of Sesame Street and the Muppets.

In October 2001, the concert Come Together: A Night for John Lennon's Words and Music was simulcast live from the theater on The WB and TNT. The concert had been delayed following the September 11 attacks the month before.

In 2013, it was announced that America's Got Talent would hold its live shows from the Radio City Music Hall starting with its eighth season that summer; it had held its live shows at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center for its seventh season to accommodate new judge Howard Stern. The move was also intended to take advantage of New York tax credits. AGT would broadcast its live rounds from Radio City Music Hall until Stern's departure in 2016, after which the show moved to the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Sports
The first sports event at Radio City Music Hall was a boxing card headlined by Roy Jones Jr. and David Telesco that took place on January 15, 2000. On April 13, 2013, Nonito Donaire faced Guillermo Rigondeaux in a boxing card held at Radio City Music Hall.

In 2004, the WNBA's New York Liberty played six home games at Radio City while their then-regular home, Madison Square Garden, prepared to host the 2004 Republican National Convention. The Liberty played their first game in front of 5,945 fans against the Detroit Shock in July 2004. Courtside seats were stage left and stage right along the baseline and the Rockettes performed at halftime. The court from Madison Square Garden was moved to Radio City Music Hall during this time.

Radio City Music Hall was the site of the NFL Draft between 2006 and 2014. Prior to being held in the Music Hall, the NFL Draft had been hosted at other locations in New York City since 1965, but after the 2014 draft, the National Football League hosted the draft in a series of other cities nationwide.

Awards ceremonies
The Broadway League presented the Tony Awards, the annual ceremony for Broadway theatre, at Radio City Music Hall during most years from 1997 to 2019. The Music Hall has also hosted the Grammy Awards, the annual ceremony presented by the Recording Academy for music, six times. The theater's first Grammys was in 1980, and its last Grammys was in 1998. The MTV Video Music Awards have been hosted at the theater 12 times from 1984 to 2018.

title: Radio City Music Hall


text:
Talk:Federal Reserve

Attempt to add Fed ownership to article lead rejected as a "fringe POV"
I made the following edit below but it was rejected as "fringe POV" by @Ravensfire. The Fed itself names itself as an "independent government agency but still accountable to Congress". Come on folks, this is public domain knowledge that the Fed is literally owned by its member banks. There is no such thing as an "independent government agency" as all government agencies answer to one of the three branches of government.

Similarly, the Fed is not a reserve since the USA went off the gold standard. Again, public domain knowledge.

Rude accusations and capricious rejections of content that is applicable and public domain hurt Wiki, not help it. I'm not going to debate this with someone who rudely accused me of having a fringe POV but I hope some other admin will correct this. Thank you.

The Federal Reserve System is neither federal nor a reserve. It is not part of the federal government because it is privately owned and operated by its member banks for profit.(1)(2) It is not a reserve because it no longer holds reserves in gold since the United States went off the gold standard in 1933.(3)

1. "Who Owns the Federal Reserve Banks | In Plain English | St. Louis Fed". www.stlouisfed.org. Retrieved 2021-09-01. 2. "The Fed - Appendix B. Dividends". Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Retrieved 2021-09-01. 3. Editors, History com. "FDR takes United States off gold standard". HISTORY. Retrieved 2021-09-01. Wikiguy91311 (talk) 01:18, 3 September 2021 (UTC) — Wikiguy91311 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * This is fringe SYNTH and erroneous horsepucky. It will never stay in the article. Also, please move this thread to the bottom of the page. SPECIFICO talk 01:24, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

 * There's a couple of issues with the edit in question. First, there's a lot of original research.  Let's look at the first part - the Federal Reserve System being private.  There's a source (that's good!), but it's being misrepresented. Right at the start, it explicitly says "So is the Fed private or public? The answer is both."  It then goes on to talk about the Federal Reserve Banks as being organized like private corporations.  Not the entire system.  The Banks.  The part about the Banks earning profits is accurate but let's read that source you included where it says that after operating expenses are paid, the member banks for each federal reserve bank (again, note BANK, not system), are paid a fixed 6% dividend and the rest is handed to the US Treasury as a franchise tax.   has the balance sheet from FY2018 - Net income/loss is a pittance, exactly how the system is setup.
 * The second sentence also has WP:OR issues. Yes, the US left the gold standard which is supported by the source.  But the rest of the sentence, about the FRS not being a reserve, is not correct.  From the Reserve Bank article - "A reserve bank is a public institution that manages a state's currency, money supply, and interest rates."  The FRS does all of that through the public aspects of the system - the Board of Governors and the Open Market Committee mainly.  In addition, the Federal Reserve Banks maintain the federal funds which are the reserves from the member banks.  Reserves aren't measured by some arbitrary holdings of metal and haven't for quite some time world-wide.  It's measured by assets.  Assets of what kind?  Whatever is deemed appropriate by the central bank for each country.  Ravensfire  (talk) 01:43, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

 * @Ravensfire: Sir, why are you trying to pretend the issue is with whether or not the Fed is "public"? Not one word of the edit used the word "public", nor did the edit raise that topic. The edit simply corrected a very common misconception that the Federal Reserve is "owned" and run by the US Federal Government. It is literally indisputable and actual fact directly from the Fed (as cited) that the Federal Reserve banks are privately "owned" and run by the member banks (those that hold shares in the Federal Reserve), although still accountable to the US Congress. Is this something you still wish to deny? Would it help if we added in that Congressional oversight caveat? As for the issue you raised about the amount of profits the member banks take or whether that's a "pittance" or not, again Sir, the edit has absolutely nothing to do with that. The sentence is literally absolutely correct that the member banks take a profit. You admitted that in your reply, so again, what's the issue? Re your issue about the Fed not being a "Reserve Bank", you did it again. You pretended the issue was with the definition of what a "Reserve Bank" is. It was not. Once again, the edit says absolutely nothing about what a "Reserve Bank" is. The edit says nothing about "a state's currency, money supply, and interest rates", the definition of a Reserve Bank that you injected into your reply. The edit simply said the Fed is not a "reserve". Using the plain English language definition of a "reserve" in the context of banking, the Fed hasn't been a "reserve" since 1933, and intentionally so!

 * It is you sir who seems to be repeatedly injecting all sorts of WP:FRINGE theories into an edit that simply doesn't contain any. . I purposely made the edit right the start of the article (2nd paragraph) to help define what the Fed is. And I made it short and sweet to address the biggest misconception about the Fed in a simple manner that helps educate Wiki readers by giving them the basic facts right up front, and then letting the remainder of the article expand on the edit, which covers all of your concerns (both founded and injected). You may want to read the talk history of this page and see that this is a valid issue that has been raised but never settled.

 * @SPECIFICO: Your rude comments violate Wiki TOU and add nothing to the discussion. Considering that you are an admin, I would greatly appreciate if you could follow the very rules that you agreed to enforce! If you persist I will ask for impartial admin attention to your behavior. Thanks! Wikiguy91311 (talk) 05:21, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The sooner the better, please. SPECIFICO talk 13:33, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is clear WP:OR. Please provide WP:RS that state these claims together.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 05:41, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Wikiguy91311, the article already notes in the lead that the system as a whole is a mix of public and private entities. And I'm hoping you read the Bank reserve article you linked, reserves are the deposits held by the central bank, which is the US is the federal reserve.  Member banks are required to have a minimum amount under deposit with the FRB they are under.  So yes, the federal reserve is, in fact, the reserve bank for the United States.  Being on a gold standard (or silver standard) has nothing to do with being a reserve bank in the modern banking world.   Ravensfire  (talk) 13:39, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Income tax
No discussion on the history of the national income tax being paired with fed reserve creation? Also, no discussion on where some of citizens tax money goes, to interest payments on the national debt? 173.172.127.147 (talk) 02:26, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You are confusing disparate subjects. You would need to make specific proposals, backed by valid references in order to start a discussion. SPECIFICO talk 02:36, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

 * No, because it wasn't, and no, because it's irrelevant. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 00:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

CPI
Recently added to a section* pertaining to the CPI - however this was not deemed relevant. Any opinions that say it may be relevant / noteworthy to include? :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlockchainusMaximus (talk • contribs)
 * Please see WP:NOTNEWS and WP:WEIGHT. SPECIFICO talk 22:21, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

FAQ
I have rewritten the talk page FAQ to address questions / objections raised frequently on this talk page. A link to the Board of Governors' FAQ is included at the end. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 05:39, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Term Deposit Facility
User:A. C. Santacruz tagged this section for excessive use of quotations. The section is mostly quotations, one of which spans four paragraphs. I condensed and paraphrased it, and this was reverted by User:Beauty School Dropout who called it "unhelpful" and said that "disputed topics" should be discussed. First, I was acting on someone else's request, which is the definition of "helpful." Second, I don't see a content dispute here. No concern about the neutrality or factual accuracy of the section has been raised. If someone wants to make a case for keeping the section as it was, they can do that here. Otherwise there is no dispute, only obstruction. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 16:30, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

 * IP, please do not attribute your edits to me. I do agree that the section was over-quoted heavily, but I am not accountable or responsible for how you respond to a clean-up tag that I place. I'll take a look later to see if I agree or not with your edit, and if not I'll propose some alternative phrasing. Let's all try to resolve this constructively without engaging in an edit war. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 20:05, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
 * and, I believe IP's summary is more encyclopedic than the previous version. If there are any things you believe they shouldn't have removed, I suggest we build upon IP's version. Feel free to discuss below. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 20:39, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

It looked like page blanking to me. A. C. Santacruz I'm going to back out of this discussion and let more experienced and knowledgeable Wikipedians such as yourself decide the fate of this one. Beauty School Dropout (talk) 20:42, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

 * , that's fair. Your wikignoming is appreciated :) ! A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 20:50, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

 * Yes, I'm with on this one - I'm not a subject matter expert, just a pending changes reviewer, so I'll leave it to more knowledgeable people to resolve. I'll say this, though, to IP - I'm much more likely to revert anonymous changes than those done by registered users, so you might do yourself a favour and create an account. Cheers, Kiwipete (talk) 08:06, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Federal Reserve


text:
Ray Frenette

Joseph Raymond Frenette (April 16, 1935 – July 13, 2018) was a Canadian politician in New Brunswick. He was a Liberal representative for the riding of Moncton East in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick from 1974 until 1998 when he retired after a short term as the 28th premier of New Brunswick.

Life and career
Frenette was born on April 16, 1935 in Beresford, New Brunswick, the son of Berthilde Pitre and Samuel Frenette. He attended the Collège du Sacré-Coeur in Bathurst. Before his election to the legislature, he was a Councillor for the village of Lewisville and, after Lewisville was amalgamated with the city of Moncton, he was a Moncton city Councillor.

He twice ran for leader of the New Brunswick Liberals. He lost in 1982 to Doug Young, and in 1985 to Frank McKenna. He served as interim leader of the party from 1983 to 1985 and again from October 1997 to May 1998, also serving as Premier.

Frenette was Frank McKenna's right-hand man in the legislature, serving as his House Leader throughout his tenure as leader from 1985 to 1997. He resigned from the New Brunswick legislature in July 1998.

Following his political career, Frenette was appointed by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to be a director of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) for a three-year term from 1998 to 2001 following which he served as chair from 2001 to 2005.

On May 11, 2006, it was announced that he would be New Brunswick chair of Gerard Kennedy's campaign for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.

On July 13, 2018, Frenette died at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton, aged 83.

title: Ray Frenette


text:
Talk:Radio City Music Hall

Untitled
This is in fact verbatim from the Library of Congress site. Is this public-domain? (A lot of US govt. stuff is.) Even if so, it's rather puffish. Vicki Rosenzweig

 * Yes, this is public domain, written by the archivists at the Library of Congress. The copyright notice is careful to disclaim original authorship for all material; however, it is very clear that the "Today in History" features are all original material of the library, and thus public domain.  - RobLa 23:37 Jan 18, 2003 (UTC)

Popular culture
In general, Wiki dislikes these lists of random bits of information. I suggest writing these into the article where possible and deleting this section before it runs long and gets out of hand. The Attractions section is getting a bit unwieldy too. Markhh (talk) 00:06, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Missing information
This article is, basically, a stub with a laundry list attached. I'm not very familiar with the topic, but I'd expect at least a description of the hall and its history. Even the German Wikipedia article has an overview of its history. If you can read German, I would consider this the minimum requirements for this article. It would be nice if someone with knowledge about this landmark venue could add some wisdom to the article... -- megA (talk) 14:53, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

EDIT: Never mind, I just discovered the sections I missed were blanked by an IP two months ago. I re-installed them. -- megA (talk) 14:59, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

First use of ribbon microphone
When the Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932 it had a state of the art sound system including 40 RCA PB-31 Ribbon Microphones.

|The RCA Photophone Type PB-31

Robert.Harker (talk) 18:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

title: Talk:Radio City Music Hall


text:
Talk:John Jay

Chief Justice
I removed a parenthetical comment under Jay's time as Chief Justice. The comment asserted that the Judiciary Act of 1789 created the office of Chief Justice. That is incorrect, the Constitution presupposes a chief justice in Article I, Section 3 when it talks about how the chief justice will preside over the impeachment trials of the president. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.62.161.13 (talk) 17:05, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Entrance into Law and Politics
This section says "In 1768, after reading law and being admitted to the bar of New York, Jay, with the money from the government, established a legal practice and worked there until he created his own law office in 1771." What "money from the government"? Philgoetz (talk) 03:29, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Minister to Spain
I'll put this to the discussion before making official changes to the article. Is it really accurate to say that Jay was Minister to Spain? As the article says, his credentials were never accepted by the Spanish government, which is the official act that makes you an ambassador. Even the State Department Historian's website lists Jay as an "other nominee" instead of an official Chief of Mission. Something to think about. Thurgoodmarshallisbae (talk) 19:48, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs
That page says Jay served from mid-1783 while this page has a 1784 start-date. One is mistaken, anyone know? Maybe ? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:01, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The office of Secretary for foreign affairs had been established in 1781 and occupied by Chancellor Livingston until June of 1783 and then it remained vacant. Jay returned from Europe in July 1784 and found out that Congress had appointed him Secretary 2 months earlier. Jay wanted to decline the office but finally accepted the secretaryship on December 21 1784. He served to 1789. . His services are well covered in George Pellew John Jay (1900) pages 229-261, which is online free at https://archive.org/details/cu31924014703197  Rjensen (talk) 14:48, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the (as always) full information. So the US Sec. of Foreign Affairs page is/was wrong and should be changed to reflect it. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:49, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:John Jay


text:
Raymond Duchamp-Villon

Raymond Duchamp-Villon (5 November 1876 – 9 October 1918) was a French sculptor.

Life and art
Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Normandy region of France, the second son of Eugène and Lucie Duchamp (née Nicolle), the daughter of painter and engraver Émile Frédéric Nicolle. Of the six Duchamp children, four would become successful artists. He was the brother of Jacques Villon (1875–1963), painter, printmaker; Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), painter, sculptor and author; Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti (1889–1963), painter. Duchamp-Villon inherited his love for art from his mother.

From 1894 to 1898 Raymond Duchamp-Villon lived in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris with his brother Jacques and studied medicine at the Sorbonne. Rheumatic fever forced him to abandon his studies in 1898 and it left him partially incapacitated for a time. This unforeseen event altered the course of his life as he began to pursue an interest in sculpture. He started by creating small statuettes and essentially became self-taught, achieving a high level of mastery and acumen. In 1902 and 1903, he exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts but to distinguish himself from his artist brother, he began to use the Duchamp-Villon designation on all his works.

In 1905 Duchamp-Villon had his first exhibition at the Salon d'Automne and a show at the Galerie Legrip in Rouen with his brother Jacques. Two years later they moved to the village of Puteaux at the outskirts of Paris where the three Duchamp brothers were part of the regular meetings of what became known as the Section d'Or, involving artists, poets and critics. Raymond's reputation was such that he was made a member of the jury of the sculpture section of the Salon d'Automne in 1907 and was later instrumental in promoting the Cubist movement.

In 1911 he exhibited at the Galerie de l’Art Contemporain in Paris and the following year his work was included in a show organized by the Duchamp brothers at the Salon de la Section d’Or at the Galerie de la Boétie. All three of the Duchamp brothers then showed their work at the 1913 Armory Show in New York City that helped introduce modern art to United States.

In 1913 he took part in exhibitions at the Galerie André Groult in Paris, the Galerie S. V. U. Mánes in Prague, and in 1914 at Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin. During World War I Raymond Duchamp-Villon served in the French army in a medical capacity, but still worked on his major cubist sculpture, The Large Horse.

In late 1916, Raymond Duchamp-Villon contracted typhoid fever while stationed at the military quarters in Champagne. As a result, he was taken to the military hospital at Cannes where he died.

In 1967, in Rouen, his last surviving artist brother Marcel helped organize an exhibition called Les Duchamp: Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp. Some of this family exhibition was later shown at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris.

Publications

 * Tomkins, Calvin, Duchamp: A Biography. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0-8050-5789-7

title: Raymond Duchamp-Villon


text:
Boll weevil

The boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) is a species of beetle in the family Curculionidae. The boll weevil feeds on cotton buds and flowers. Thought to be native to Central Mexico, it migrated into the United States from Mexico in the late 19th century and had infested all U.S. cotton-growing areas by the 1920s, devastating the industry and the people working in the American South. During the late 20th century, it became a serious pest in South America as well. Since 1978, the Boll Weevil Eradication Program in the U.S. allowed full-scale cultivation to resume in many regions.

Description
The adult insect has a long snout, a grayish color, and is usually less than 6 mm in length.

Life cycle
Adult weevils overwinter in well-drained areas in or near cotton fields, and farms after diapause. They emerge and enter cotton fields from early spring through midsummer, with peak emergence in late spring, and feed on immature cotton bolls.

The boll weevil lays its eggs inside buds and ripening bolls (fruits) of the cotton plants. The female can lay up to 200 eggs over a 10- to 12-day period. The oviposition leaves wounds on the exterior of the flower bud. The eggs hatch in 3 to 5 days within the cotton squares (larger buds before flowering), feed for 8 to 10 days, and then pupate. The pupal stage lasts another 5 to 7 days. The lifecycle from egg to adult spans about three weeks during the summer. Under optimal conditions, 8 to 10 generations per season may occur.

Boll weevils begin to die at temperatures at or below -5 °C. Research at the University of Missouri indicates they cannot survive more than an hour at -15 °C. The insulation offered by leaf litter, crop residues, and snow may enable the beetle to survive when air temperatures drop to these levels.

Other limitations on boll weevil populations include extreme heat and drought. The weevil's natural predators include fire ants, other insects, spiders, birds, and a parasitoid wasp, Catolaccus grandis. The weevils sometimes emerge from diapause before cotton buds are available.

Infestation
The insect crossed the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas, to enter the United States from Mexico in 1892 and reached southeastern Alabama in 1909. By the mid-1920s, it had entered all cotton-growing regions in the U.S., traveling 40 to 160 miles per year. It remains the most destructive cotton pest in North America. Since the boll weevil entered the United States, it has cost U.S. cotton producers about $13 billion, and in recent times about $300 million per year.

The boll weevil contributed to Southern farmers' economic woes during the 1920s, a situation exacerbated by the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The boll weevil appeared in Venezuela in 1949 and Colombia in 1950. The Amazon Rainforest was thought to present a barrier to the insect's further spread, until it was detected in Brazil in 1983. An estimated 90% of the cotton farms in Brazil are now infested. During the 1990s, the weevil spread to Paraguay and Argentina. The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) has proposed a control program similar to that used in the U.S.

Control
During early years of the weevil's presence, growers sought relatively warm soils and early-ripening cultivars. Following World War II, the development of new pesticides such as DDT enabled U.S. farmers again to grow cotton as an economic crop. DDT was initially extremely effective, but U.S. weevil populations developed resistance by the mid-1950s. Methyl parathion, malathion, and pyrethroids were subsequently used, but environmental and resistance concerns arose as they had with DDT, and control strategies changed.

While many control methods have been investigated since the boll weevil entered the United States, insecticides have always remained the main control methods. In the 1980s, entomologists at Texas A&M University pointed to the spread of another invasive pest, the red imported fire ant, as a factor in the weevils' population decline in some areas.

Other avenues of control that have been explored include weevil-resistant strains of cotton, the parasitoid wasp Catolaccus grandis, the fungus Beauveria bassiana, and the Chilo iridescent virus. Genetically engineered Bt cotton is not protected from the boll weevil.

Although it was possible to control the boll weevil, the necessary insecticide was costly. The goal of many cotton entomologists was to eventually eradicate the pest from U.S. cotton. In 1978, a large-scale test was begun in eastern North Carolina and in adjacent Southampton County, Virginia, to determine the feasibility of eradication. Based on the success of this test, area-wide programs were begun in the 1980s to eradicate the insect from whole regions. These are based on cooperative effort by all growers together with the assistance of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Research methods were developed. The ability to distinguish between individuals which had eaten certain substances and those which had not was needed, to determine effectiveness of the active ingredients used. Lindig et al. 1980 studied several dietary dyes as markers. They find Calco Oil Red N-1700 to persist from larval feeding to adulthood, and for females to their eggs, although the resulting first instar was too faintly pink to be distinguishable.

The program has been successful in eradicating boll weevils from all cotton-growing states with the exception of Texas, and most of this state is free of boll weevils. Problems along the southern border with Mexico have delayed eradication in the extreme southern portions of this state. Follow-up programs are in place in all cotton-growing states to prevent the reintroduction of the pest. These monitoring programs rely on pheromone-baited traps for detection. The boll weevil eradication program, although slow and costly, has paid off for cotton growers in reduced pesticide costs. This program and the screwworm program of the 1950s are among the biggest and most successful insect control programs in history.

Impact
The Library of Congress American Memory Project contains a number of oral history materials on the boll weevil's impact.

It devastated black Americans disproportionately because most were directly financially dependent on cotton as a cash crop. Because they were more likely to labor as tenant farmers or sharecroppers on cotton plantations in the Southern United States - the epicenter of the Boll Weevil infestation, Black Farmers, suffered disproportionately. Additionally, Government intervention such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, resulted in the abandonment and loss of cropland for Black Farmers.

By 1922 it was taking 8% of the cotton in the country annually. This failure of the south's primary crop became a major impetus for the Great Migration of the time, although not the only one. Thereby it was one of the factors in the birth of the Harlem Renaissance - including the culture of the Cotton Club. A 2009 study found "that as the weevil traversed the American South [in the period 1892-1932], it seriously disrupted local economies, significantly reduced the value of land (at this time still the most important asset in the American South), and triggered substantial intraregional population movements." A 2020 Journal of Economic History study found that the boll weevil spread between 1892 and 1922 had a beneficial impact on educational outcomes, as children were less likely to work on cultivating cotton. A 2020 NBER paper found that the boll weevil spread contributed to fewer lynchings, less Confederate monument construction, less KKK activity, and higher non-white voter registration.

The boll weevil infestation has been credited with bringing about economic diversification in the Southern US, including the expansion of peanut cropping. The citizens of Enterprise, Alabama, erected the Boll Weevil Monument in 1919, perceiving that their economy had been overly dependent on cotton, and that mixed farming and manufacturing were better alternatives.

In popular culture
Music
 * "Boll Weevil" is a traditional blues song covered by artists including Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, Buster “Bus” Ezel, Woody Guthrie. It reached #2 on the Billboard chart in 1961 in a recording by Brook Benton.
 * In their self-titled debut album, The Presidents of the United States of America made reference to a wide range of animals including on the track, Boll Weevil. Music critic Michael Sun wrote, "By the time track five, ‘Boll Weevil’, rolls around, there's been enough cameos from birds, spiders, monkeys, fish, frogs, pigs, and beetles to fill a zoo, all referenced without agenda or coded meaning — just fun, plain and simple."
 * The Bollweevils are a Chicago based punk band

Sports
 * The boll weevil is the mascot for the University of Arkansas at Monticello and is listed on several "silliest" or "weirdest" mascots of all time. It was also the mascot of a short-lived minor league baseball team, the Temple Boll Weevils, which were alternatively called the "Cotton Bugs".

title: Boll weevil


text:
Frank McKenna

Francis Joseph McKenna (born January 19, 1948) is a Canadian businessman and former politician and diplomat. He is currently Deputy Chairman of the Toronto-Dominion Bank. He served as Canadian Ambassador to the United States from 2005 to 2006. He served as the 27th premier of New Brunswick from 1987 to 1997, winning every seat in the province in his first election.

Early life
McKenna was born one of eight children of Olive and Joseph McKenna in Apohaqui, New Brunswick. McKenna was raised in his grandparents' home. They lived adjacent to his parents as his large family could not be wholly housed in his parents' home.

Raised Catholic, after completing Sussex High School (in Sussex, New Brunswick), he completed a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Economics at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He began graduate studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, but after working for a stint with Allan MacEachen, he took MacEachen's advice that most politicians are lawyers and enrolled in law school at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton).

After earning a law degree, he moved to Chatham and began practicing law. He garnered a place in contemporary Acadian folklore as the defence lawyer in the high-profile widely publicized murder case of famous New Brunswick boxing champion, Yvon Durelle.

New Brunswick politics
A few years later, he entered provincial politics and won a seat in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick in the 1982 election to represent Chatham, New Brunswick. He became leader of the provincial Liberals in 1985, and won one of the largest electoral victories in Canadian history in the 1987 election when his party won every seat in the legislature.

McKenna's term in office was viewed mostly as a success. His key priority throughout his term was job creation and he was known to say that the "best social program we have is a job." He encouraged small business growth and tried to entice large companies to invest in the province with tax incentives, often directly calling individual professionals to urge them to bring their talents to New Brunswick. Another of his strategies was to raise the collective self-confidence of New Brunswickers, which he believed would increase productivity. He introduced a sophisticated public relations operation which included the use of controversial video news releases.

McKenna's time as premier, however, also saw some controversy. In his first move as premier, McKenna dismissed several senior public servants in an effort to gain greater control over the province's public service, which some observers perceived as a drastic step away from the integrity of the province's impartial and professional public service.

McKenna was also criticized for increasing the number of communications personnel on the government payroll but countered this complaint by pointing out that the primary government communications agency, Communications New Brunswick, had been depoliticized.

He was also criticized for creating a toll free telephone number to the premier's office which had the number 1-800-MCKENNA, the number was functional throughout North America and was used for both New Brunswick constituents and business interests that were considering moving to the province.

Believing ten years was long enough for a premier to hold office, and having pledged to serve such a term when first elected, McKenna resigned in 1997 – 10 years to the day of the 1987 election.

Business career
After leaving office, McKenna moved to Cap-Pélé, New Brunswick, near Moncton, and returned to the practice of law and sat on numerous corporate boards. He also purchased (with his son, James McKenna), Glenwood Kitchen Ltd., a manufacturer of high-end custom cabinetry in Shediac, New Brunswick. His membership on the Canadian advisory board of the Carlyle Group drew adverse media attention; the media ceased pursuing the issue when McKenna explained that the board was established to advise on a Canadian investment fund that the group never created and that the board had never become active.

Following the announcement of his appointment as Canadian ambassador to Washington, he resigned his position as counsel at law firms including McInnes Cooper and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, as well as all positions on corporate boards including his role as interim chairman of the board of CanWest Global Communications, a post he assumed upon the death of its founder and chairman Israel Asper.

Ambassador

McKenna was mentioned as a possible Ambassador to the US to succeed Michael Kergin after Paul Martin took power. Speculation increased after John Manley turned down Prime Minister Martin's offer. Many in the press commented on McKenna's business connections being an asset, notably as a member of the Carlyle Group and his friendship with former President George H. W. Bush.

On January 5, 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin's office confirmed that McKenna would be the 21st Ambassador to the United States. On January 14, the posting was formally announced and would be effective on March 1. McKenna became the Ambassador on March 8 when U.S. President George W. Bush accepted his credentials.

On February 22, 2005, McKenna told reporters Canada was already a part of the U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) (or Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)) program through an amendment to the NORAD agreement made on August 5, 2004, which granted U.S. access to NORAD's missile warning systems explicitly for use in NMD. However, Martin contradicted this two days later when he announced that Canada would not formally participate in the NMD program but focus on other items of shared defence/security interest. While Canadian defence minister Bill Graham said McKenna was simply misunderstood (as the NORAD agreement and missile defence are separate), this initial contradiction was interpreted by others as evidence of characteristic indecision by the Martin government and was seen to somewhat hamper McKenna's credibility.

As Ambassador, McKenna attracted more media attention than most of his recent predecessors on both sides of the border. In the U.S., his message was one of dispelling common urban legends and misconceptions about Canada, while in Canada he urged Canadians to be more understanding of the American people and culture, particularly following what he argued is their understandable sensitivity after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

McKenna generated controversy after giving a luncheon speech on September 29, 2005, to a Toronto business club. McKenna blasted the U.S. bureaucracy and Congressional system of government saying "the government of the United States is in large measure dysfunctional." He contrasted it with Canada's government, and praised Canada's strong parliamentary party discipline as being much more "efficient" though sometimes less preferable.

On January 25, 2006, McKenna offered his resignation as Ambassador, writing to Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper that he wished to be relieved of his duties, but offering to stay on until his successor is chosen. He was succeeded as ambassador by Michael Wilson on March 13, 2006.

Prospective career in federal politics
Since leaving politics in 1997, McKenna served for a brief time on the Security Intelligence Review Committee. He has been touted several times as a potential Atlantic Canadian minister in the cabinets of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. He expressed some interest in running in the 2004 federal election but announced he would not do so because of the lack of an available riding in the Moncton, New Brunswick, area. He did not want to push aside any incumbent Liberal member of Parliament.

After resigning the premiership of New Brunswick, McKenna was identified as a potential future leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Prime Minister of Canada. A poll released on August 23, 2005, commissioned by the Toronto Star, showed that McKenna was the top choice of the public to succeed Prime Minister Paul Martin. Among the general public, McKenna beat former New Democratic Party Ontario Premier Bob Rae by a margin of 23 to 11 while among self-identified Liberals, McKenna beat former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada John Manley by a margin of 28 to 13. The October 2005 issue of Saturday Night magazine had pollster Darrell Bricker and Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella create odds for potential Liberal leadership candidates. They made McKenna the favourite with 7 to 2 odds beating Scott Brison (8 to 1), Martin Cauchon (10 to 1), Michael Ignatieff and John Manley (each 15 to 1) among others.

On January 30, 2006, McKenna confirmed earlier reports that he was not running for the Liberal leadership to replace Paul Martin, who announced his resignation as party leader on the January 23, 2006 election night. McKenna acknowledged the strength of the Liberal brand stating: "You've got pretty good odds of being the prime minister if you're the leader of the Liberal party" – every leader of the Liberal party since Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1896 had become prime minister. However, he put an end to his involvement in the 2006 Liberal Party leadership race, explaining his decision by saying that he did not want "his life to become consumed by politics." and that: "I reminded myself of my vow upon leaving office that, having escaped the trap, I wouldn’t go back for the cheese."

Following Stéphane Dion's resignation as federal Liberal leader after the 2008 election, McKenna was once again touted as a possibility to take the helm of the federal Liberal Party. However, on October 28, 2008, McKenna said that he would not be seeking the leadership, saying "Although I have been deeply moved by expressions of support for me from across the country, I have not been persuaded to change my long-standing resolve to exit public life for good," and "My only regret is that I cannot honour the expectations of friends and supporters who have shown enormous loyalty to me."

Banking
McKenna was appointed as Deputy Chair, TD Bank Financial Group effective May 1, 2006. McKenna was appointed to the board of Brookfield Asset Management effective August 2006, and subsequently Chair of the Board since August 2010.

McKenna is referenced in the book Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer. The majority of the reference is regarding the Keystone Pipeline decision-making process. Hillary Clinton serving as secretary of State in the United States, and the monetary involvement with TD Bank in Canada is described in depth. The book describes TD Bank, with McKenna as vice chairman, as having "paid Bill more than any other financial institution for Lectures. More than Goldman Sachs, UBS, JPMorgan, or anyone on Wall Street." Quoting from the book, "TD Bank paid Bill $1.8 million for ten speeches over a roughly two-and-half-year period from late 2008 to mid-2011. ... At several of the speeches, (Bill) Clinton was introduced or interviewed by TD Bank vice chairman Frank McKenna. Frank McKenna is described as a 'good friend of both Bill and Hillary Clinton.'"

Distinctions

 * Queen's Privy Council for Canada (1999)

title: Frank McKenna