December 27, 1932: Radio City Music Hall Opens

December 27, 1932: Radio City Music Hall opens, at 1260 Sixth Avenue (renamed "Avenue of the Americas" in 1945, but everybody still calls it "6th Avenue") and West 49th Street in Midtown Manhattan, at the northern end of "The Theater District."

It was built as part of the Rockefeller Center complex -- which, at the time, because it housed the headquarters of Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), was nicknamed "Radio City." For most of the Music Hall's history, the Radio City name has applied to it, alone. This should not be confused with "Radio Row," the series of appliance stores on the Lower West Side of Manhattan that were among the buildings demolished in the mid-1960s to make way for the original World Trade Center.

At 5,960 seats, it was the largest movie theater in the world. While it is still in operation, it rarely shows films anymore, sticking to stage shows, like the annual Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Most of its shows feature its famous high-kicking lady dancers, the Rockettes.

It has hosted the Grammy Awards, the Tony Awards, the Daytime Emmy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs); and, in sports, the NFL Draft and, with a temporary court put on its stage, 6 home games of the WNBA's New York Liberty, a setup done so that the 2004 Republican National Convention could be held at Madison Square Garden.

Notable rock concerts at Radio City include Pink Floyd in 1973, The Grateful Dead in 1980, Devo in 1981, A-ha in 1986, the WCBS-FM 15th Anniversary Concert headlined by Dion in 1987, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett in 2015, Adele in 2015, Britney Spears in 2018, Christina Aguilera in 2018, and Mariah Carey in 2019.

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December 27, 1932 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball was strictly minor-league at this point. There were 4 games played in the NHL that night:

* The New York Americans lost to the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at what would come to be called "the old Madison Square Garden." The New York Rangers were not scheduled for the day. The Americans went out of business in 1942.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 1-0 at the Boston Garden.

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Maroons, 3-0 at the Ottawa Auditorium. The Senators went out of business in 1934, the Maroons in 1938.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-3 at the Chicago Stadium.