Free previewStop 5 of Rockefeller Center Christmas Walk: The Tree, the Windows and Fifth Avenue
Sixteen Kicks, and Why Not Fifteen
You're on Sixth Avenue, which the signs call Avenue of the Americas, at the corner of 50th Street. Look up at the tall vertical sign spelling out Radio City Music Hall in red neon down the limestone. Each of the three signs on the facade is about 90 feet tall. Behind them is the home of the Rockettes, and the story of the Rockettes is the story of one man's belief that a line of dancers should look like a single machine.
His name was Russell Markert. In 1922 he watched a British troupe called the Tiller Rockets dance in the Ziegfeld Follies, and he thought American dancers could do it better. In 1925 he put his line together in St. Louis, at the Missouri Theatre. They were the Missouri Rockets.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 5 of Rockefeller Center Christmas Walk: The Tree, the Windows and Fifth Avenue (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
