NEW YORK: Monument

A modern Kubla Khan, John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1930 a cluster of skyscrapers decreed. Never had such a cluster been decreed before. Between elegant Fifth Avenue and shoddy Sixth in the next nine years, 14 slab-sided tombstones uprose. Last week, wearing a pair of workman's white gloves, Mr. Rockefeller drove a silver rivet into the 14th and final building, to symbolize the completion of his $100,000,000 monument.

Back in its beginnings, a wit had cracked: "The only thing Rockefeller Center will be used for is a bird sanctuary."

Dominating the neighborhood, the Center has drawn in tenants like a sponge, emptied...

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