Overview & visitor information
Rockefeller Plaza forms the principal public axis of Rockefeller Center between Fifth and Sixth avenues. Channel Gardens leads west from Fifth Avenue through six narrow pools and seasonal planting, framing a descending view toward the Lower Plaza and the limestone tower of 30 Rockefeller Plaza beyond.
Paul Manship's gilded bronze Prometheus dominates the sunken space beneath a ring of zodiac signs. The Lower Plaza changes seasonally from open seating and events to the famous skating rink, while flagpoles, stairs and terraces maintain the enclosure of an outdoor room below street level.
Reliefs, murals, sculpture and inscriptions are integrated across surrounding façades and passages, expressing the center's coordinated 1930s art program. Office workers, broadcast studios, shops, performances and crowds all cross the same compact sequence, making the plaza both a formal architectural composition and an intensively used Midtown concourse.
