Rainbow Room
The Rainbow Room is a private event space on the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Run by Tishman Speyer, it is among the highest venues in New York City. The Rainbow Room was designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison and interior designer Elena Bachman Schmidt. Opened in 1934, it was a focal point for the city's elite, as well as one of the United States' highest restaurants above ground. The restaurant's interior is designated as a New York City landmark.
After 30 Rockefeller Plaza opened in 1933, there were plans to use the space above the 64th floor as a public "amusement center"; this became the Rainbow Room. The restaurant closed in 1942 due to World War II and reopened in 1950. It received renovations in 1965 and 1985–1987, both of which sought to restore its original 1930s decor. Suffering from a decline in business after the 2008 financial crisis, the Rainbow Room closed in 2009. The restaurant reopened in 2014, following a renovation, serving classic and contemporary American cuisine. In 2017, the American Institute of Architects gave the Rainbow Room an award for outstanding interior architecture. The restaurant closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened for private events in 2021.
The Rainbow Room occupies the eastern part of 30 Rockefeller Plaza's 65th floor; the central part includes a private dining room and ancillary spaces such as restrooms, while the western part houses Bar SixtyFive and an outdoor terrace. The restaurant itself consists of a series of terraced spaces with high windows. The center of the room has a revolving circular dance floor with several concentric rings above it. When the Rainbow Room operated as a public restaurant, it served Modern American cuisine. The restaurant's dishes were expensive, a legacy from when it operated as a lunch club.
History
Development
During the 1920s, John D. Rockefeller Jr. had conceived the site of the current Rockefeller Center as a location for the Metropolitan Opera, but these plans were shelved and the plans eventually evolved into a mass media complex, leading to the construction of Rockefeller Center. The complex's flagship RCA Building opened in May 1933.Planning and creation
Shortly after the RCA Building's opening, there were plans to use the space above the 64th floor as a public "amusement center". That section of the building had several terraces, which could be used to construct a dance floor, observatory, restaurant, and landscaped terrace gardens. Frank W. Darling quit his job as head of Rye's Playland in order to direct the programming for the proposed amusement space.Many of New York City's buildings in the 1930s had restaurants or exclusive clubhouses on the top floors of their buildings. This stemmed from a tradition that started in the late 19th century, after the introduction of elevators. The specific idea for a restaurant atop the RCA Building may have been inspired by the Cloud Club, a lunch club in the Chrysler Building. On the 65th story of the RCA Building, the builders constructed a two-story space intended for a dining room with a high ceiling. The plans called for two restaurants on the 65th Floor. The Rainbow Grill, a small casual-style eatery, would occupy the western portion of the floor, while a larger restaurant for dancing and entertainment, comprising the future Rainbow Room, would be located in a larger space on the eastern part of the floor. There would also be private dining compartments on the floor below. The Rockefeller Center Luncheon Club, composed mostly of Rockefeller Center tenants, would eat lunch at the Rainbow Room from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. More established restaurateurs believed that the juxtaposition of the two eateries was an unwise business decision, but Rockefeller ignored them.
To transport visitors to the top floors, Westinghouse installed eight express elevators in the RCA Building. They moved at an average speed of and made up 13% of the building's entire construction cost. One elevator reached a top speed of and was dubbed "the fastest passenger elevator ride on record". These elevators cost about $17,000 a year to maintain by 1942. Rockefeller Center opened an observation deck atop the RCA Building's 67th, 69th, and 70th floors, above the future Rainbow Room, in July 1933. The only entrance to the observatory cut across the 65th floor, where the Rainbow Room would soon be located. The Rainbow Room was used as enticement for visitors to the observation deck, who were told that "if you behave and do your jobs right when you die you'll go way up to the Rainbow Room."
Naming
The director of the proposed restaurant did not want to "sound like an ordinary Eighth Avenue food joint", and he wanted to avoid using the word "restaurant" itself. For him, the optimal name would reflect the RCA Building's height and the eatery's exclusivity. At first, the restaurant was to be known as the "Stratosphere Room", whose name evoked the stratosphere, the second layer of atmosphere above the earth. In August 1934, the Stratosphere Room became the "Rainbow Room", which drew its name from a model of organ that changed colors based on the tone of the music. The indirect lighting of the Rainbow Room did just that. The lights originally accompanied the sounds of a Wurlitzer organ, but the organ was assailed for its "funereal" quality, and it was seldom used from 1935 to its removal in 1986.Initial operation
hired lawyer Francis Christy to be the Rainbow Room's owner in name only. This was because each nightclub owner had to be fingerprinted in order to comply with the state law at the time, and the true owner of Rainbow Room did not want his fingerprints on record. Because Christy had verified himself to the state as the owner of Rainbow Room, it was legal for the restaurant to operate. The Rainbow Room opened to the public on October 3, 1934, at a 300-guest party sponsored by the Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association. The opening celebrations were attended by a multitude of high-society individuals with "a dazzle of surnames that ran from Astors and Auchinclosses to Warburgs and Whitneys."The Rainbow Room was allowed to serve alcoholic drinks because the United States Constitution's 21st Amendment had repealed the United States' prohibition on alcoholic beverages in 1933. Rockefeller was not a drinker himself: on opening night, a critic for the New York Daily News had written, "throughout his life, whenever he has been asked 'Wot'll it be?', has always replied, 'milk'." However, Rockefeller reluctantly agreed to operate the Rainbow Room, since no one else would take the risk of operating the establishment. He told Arthur Woods, a close associate and the chairman of Rockefeller Center Inc, that he was not "sufficiently familiar with the usual method of dispensing alcoholic beverages in the average high grade club." Rockefeller was reportedly discomfited by the performance of Lucienne Boyer, a French diseuse and singer, at the Rainbow Room's opening. He avoided going to or even talking about the Rainbow Room after the opening night, instead leaving the task to others.
The media anticipated that "Jack Rockefeller's saloon and dance hall" would become a major draw for the elite and the famous. In the decade following its opening, the Rainbow Room hosted former Spanish queen Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg; Norwegian Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha; and Swedish Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf and Crown Princess Louise. The Rainbow Room became frequented by those who were both wealthy and worthy of society reporting. The author Daniel Okrent writes that the diners at the Rainbow Room were representative of the uncommon, separated from "the masses" by "a price structure that required a trust fund and a dress code that required white tie." Formal dress was required except on Sundays, each meal cost $3.50, and the restaurant even had an exclusive bank of elevators from the lobby. Dinners stretched from 6:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. the next day. In contrast, the Rainbow Grill across the hall had a "black tie" dress code with "white linen acceptable in the summer." The Rainbow Grill, which opened in 1935, was a somewhat less expensive restaurant with an à la carte menu and its own celebrations on major holidays.
The Luncheon Club was even more exclusive than the Rainbow Room, with 600 members and a board of nine governors. A prospective member had to be known to at least two governors to even be considered for the Luncheon Club. Women were banned from the club. Jewish membership was limited to 3.5 percent of all members at any given time, ostensibly because that was the ratio of the American Jewish population to the entire American population at the time. However, Jews in New York City numbered 30 percent of the city's population, so this was considered an anti-Semitic measure for some time.
In its early years, the Rainbow Room had a difficult time attracting just the right types of customers. Fortune magazine described the Rainbow Room's intended audience as "the nonflashy strata of the upper crust" who avoided such nightclubs as Stork Club or El Morocco. The restaurant attempted to draw the rich and famous by hiring unorthodox entertainers, including monologists and impressionists. There were many high expectations for the Rainbow Room, which was among the first restaurants with air conditioning, as well as one of the first clubs to open after the 21st Amendment's ratification. The restaurant had a net loss in 1936, but Rockefeller Center Inc. used the publicity from Rainbow Room to advertise the western half of Rockefeller Center. By the end of the decade, the Rainbow Room and Grill were described as being "two of the most successful clubs in the country". In summer 1941, the Rainbow Room recorded its largest-ever profits. The New York Sun described a typical Saturday as "almost like New Year's Eve": the Rainbow Room served 575 diners a night despite only having 350 seats, and the Rainbow Grill served another 312 diners per night.