NBC and 30 Rock: A View from Inside Book - Autographed

Note: This volume is available exclusively at theshopatnbcstudios.com.

In an early 1930s essay, O. B. Hanson, NBC’s chief engineer, said that NBC’s “new home in Radio City is quite as fabulous as any palace ever described by Grimm or Lang, quite as fantastic as any air-castle ever built in day-dreams. … Radio itself is as fabulous as Prince Housan’s magic carpet of Arabian Nights fame—more so as it can fly completely around the world seven times in one second.”

Nearly a century later, it’s hard to recreate the sense of wonder that surrounded Radio City in those early decades of broadcasting. My hope is that this book helps do that. For, to quote Hanson once more, “what takes place within these walls is heard round the world, is of interest to you and to me, to our neighbors, our fellow-countrymen and those in other lands, even to those inhabiting the ‘narrow corners’ of the earth!”

Think of this as a walk through these historic hallways. Our journey starts in 1933, when NBC and its parent company, RCA, move into a brand-new skyscraper in the middle of New York City’s Rockefeller Center. We end four decades later with the premiere in 1975 of Saturday Night Live, which continues today to be the definitive comedic commentary on American culture and politics.

NBC and 30 Rock. The histories of the company and the building it calls home are closely intertwined. No single edifice in the world has been the origin of more programming that is “heard round the world.” This volume—idiosyncratic for sure but meticulously researched and beautifully designed—takes you on a tour unlike any other.