Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Harris & Ewing,
[reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]
enormous project as the sole investor, entering into an
87-year lease agreement with Columbia. It was the largest
private building project ever undertaken in modern times.
More than 75,000 people worked on the construction of
the Center during those Depression years.
The name “Rockefeller Center” was fi rst suggested
for the complex in 1931 by Ivy Lee, public relations pioneer
and prominent adviser to the family. Junior initially did not
want the Rockefeller family name associated with the
commercial project, but was persuaded on the grounds
that the name would attract far more tenants.
Within its fi rst decade, the complex had
attracted exciting tenants such as the RKO Pictures, the
French bookstore Librairie de France and the brand new
publication News-Week (as it was originally called). The
Center’s western side was home to many show business
fi rms, but movie history was also made in one of the Fifth
Avenue. buildings, where John Hay Whitney and David O.
Selznick decided to produce Gone with the Wind.
John D Rockefeller, Jr.
3
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