[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Eveningsong

They will not succeed in ruining a NYC landmark.

Dear City Council,

please stop the destruction of (more) landmarks in the city.

I don't think the "GE" was landmark worthy. It only replaced the "RCA" that was there much longer.

Just be grateful that it isn't Donald Trump who bought NBC...



http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/ny...t-30-rock.html

Comcast Seeking to Replace G.E.’s Initials Atop 30 Rock






___


By SAM ROBERTS
JUNE 13, 2014

Comcast is known for its low-key corporate culture. At its 58-story headquarters, the tallest building in Philadelphia, a boxy glass crown gleams conspicuously but anonymously.

Yet now, as the mass media behemoth lobbies aggressively backstage for federal regulatory approval of its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, Comcast is seeking to raise its
public profile in New York in vivid fashion.

The out-of-towner wants to plant its name atop one of the city’s signature skyscrapers.

Comcast, which last year bought General Electric’s remaining 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal, applied for a “certificate of appropriateness” from the city’s Landmarks Preservation
Commission to replace G.E.’s 24-foot-high initials on 30 Rockefeller Plaza. G.E., now based in Fairfield, Conn., has long had a presence in New York.

Whether another name change will be embraced by the public is arguable. It’s been a quarter-century since the two glowing red letters were installed, yet many New Yorkers still refer
to it as the RCA Building, after the company that founded the NBC network. The RCA name had capped the 70-story Manhattan landmark, which at 850 feet amounts to the city’s tallest
billboard (the MetLife Building is considered second), for more than 50 years. When the original letters were first illuminated in 1937, they were hailed as the loftiest neon sign on the planet.

“The idea of changing it now to the Comcast Building,” said Carol H. Krinsky, a New York University art history professor and the author of “Rockefeller Center,” “strikes me the same way
that the change to the G.E. Building name did: ‘I’m the new guy on the block and you are nothing anymore.’ ”

As proposed, more modest 12-foot-high light-emitting diode signs that spell Comcast in white uppercase letters would be installed on the broader north and south limestone exteriors,
crowned by 10-foot-high NBC peacock logos. A 17-foot-high peacock would appear by itself on the western facade more or less facing Philadelphia. Measured in overall square feet, the
new signs would be slightly more compact than the existing G.E. signs.

A new entrance and marquee would also be installed on Avenue of the Americas to promote “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” (Among the other shows produced there
is “Saturday Night Live,” one of whose alumni, Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, opposes Comcast’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable.)