Radio City Music Hall

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. held a $91 million 24-year lease on a strip of midtown land known as "Speakeasy Belt" and planned to build a new Metropolitan Opera House. When the market crashed in 1929, that seemed implausible, so he drafted new plans for a massive theatre to offer high quality entertainment at ordinary prices. Radio City Music Hall became the place to stage movie premieres. The annual Christmas Spectacular has been a sell-out success since debuting in 1933.