Rockefeller Scheme

Esthetic as well as prodigious sounded the scheme announed over a year ago by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to include a new home for the Metropolitan Opera in a huge commercial-cultural centre envisioned by him for midtown Manhattan (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, 48th and 51st Streets). He succeeded in leasing the land from Columbia University for a long period at some $3,000,000 per year (TIME, Dec. 16 et ante). But the Metropolitan Opera's backers had other plans in mind. The Rockefeller scheme languished. Last week Manhattan heard that Mr. Rockefeller had been persuaded that his grand opera ideal was "too aristocratic," that he was now planning four centres of mass entertainment on his site, four theatres to house respectively Legitimate Drama, Vaudeville, Cinema and Television. A $200,000,000 group of buildings was described, centering around three skyscrapers. Manhattan's masses awaited confirmation from Mr. Rockefeller's reputed collaborators--Radio- Keith-Orpheum, National Broadcasting Co.. Radio Corporation of America.

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