title: Rockefeller Center

text: A "New York Times" report in 1982 stated that Rockefeller Center had been popular among tenants from its inception, being almost fully rented for much of the first half-century of its existence. The major exception was in the 1970s, when it was only 85 percent rented. However, Rockefeller Center was not popular as an entertainment complex, having been used for mainly commercial purposes through its history. The LPC held hearings in 1983 to determine how much of Rockefeller Center should be protected as a landmark. The Rockefeller family and Columbia University acknowledged that the buildings were already symbolically landmarks, but their spokesman John E. Zuccotti recommended that only a small section (including the RCA Building, Lower Plaza, and Channel Gardens) should be protected. By contrast, almost everyone else who supported Rockefeller Center's landmark status recommended that the entire complex be landmarked. The LPC granted landmark status to the exteriors of all of the original complex's buildings, as well as the interiors of the International Building's and 30 Rockefeller Plaza's lobbies, on April 23, 1985. In its approval of the complex's landmark status, the commission wrote, "Rockefeller Center ranks among the grandest architectural projects ever undertaken in the United States". The buildings became a National Historic Landmark two years later. The United States Department of the Interior wrote in its report that the center was "one of the most successful urban planning projects in the history of American architecture".


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Columbia University was not making enough money from Rockefeller Center leases by the 1970s, since a series of negotiations with Rockefeller Center Inc. (now Rockefeller Group) had effectively reduced the annual lease payment to $11 million. The university's funds had dwindled so much that by 1972, their expenses were paid for by their endowment fund. In 1983, Columbia University started looking to sell the land beneath Rockefeller Center. Two years later, Columbia agreed to sell the land to the Rockefeller Group for $400 million. The Rockefeller Group immediately set out to modernize many aspects of the complex. The Rainbow Room was closed for a $20 million restoration and expansion that brought the restaurant's floor area to , and it reopened in December 1987. The RCA Building's observation deck was subsequently closed because the Rainbow Room's expansion eliminated the only passageway to the observatory's elevator bank. In mid-1988, the RCA Building was renamed the GE Building. Mitsubishi Estate, a real estate company of the Mitsubishi Group, purchased the Rockefeller Group in 1989.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The Rockefeller Group filed for bankruptcy protection in May 1995 after missing several mortgage payments. That November, John Rockefeller Jr.'s son David and a consortium led by Goldman Sachs agreed to buy Rockefeller Center's buildings for $1.1 billion, beating out Sam Zell and other bidders. The consortium, which also included Gianni Agnelli and Stavros Niarchos, finalized its acquisition in July 1996. Before the sale was even completed, the consortium sold of space in 30 Rockefeller Plaza to NBC, who had rented that space in the tower since the beginning. A preservation dispute arose in May 1998, when the owners announced plans to enlarge shop windows on the center's Fifth Avenue buildings to two stories. These windows were reduced in size upon the LPC's request, and the modifications were approved in September 1998. Due to the decline of the newsreel theater industry, the Guild was shuttered in late 1999 after Tishman Speyer decided not to renew its lease.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Tishman Speyer, led by David Rockefeller's close friend Jerry Speyer and the Lester Crown family of Chicago, bought the original 14 buildings and land in 2000 for $1.85 billion. With the sale, the Rockefeller family gave up its remaining interest in Rockefeller Center's operation. Tishman Speyer also decided to renovate the complex's retail spaces and underground concourse. The Rainbow Room closed in 2009 in preparation for an extensive renovation that started in 2011. The restaurant reopened in October 2014. The Rockefeller family moved out of their offices in the GE Building in 2014 due to rising rents. They re-settled in less expensive offices on 49th Street, near their old headquarters. The next year, in July 2015, the GE Building was renamed after Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal. Future Green installed temporary artwork in the Channel Gardens in 2019 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of David Hosack's birth.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: In January 2020, Tishman Speyer hired Gabellini Sheppard Associates to design a renovation for Channel Gardens, Rockefeller Plaza, and the Lower Plaza. These plans included modifications to lighting, planting, pathways, and facades. The plans were approved that April. Gabellini Sheppard also proposed renovating the International Building's lobby. A rooftop garden above Radio City Music Hall opened in September 2021. Starting in 2022, a roller rink called Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace was set up in the Lower Plaza from April to October. In addition, 19 eateries opened within Rockefeller Center during the early 2020s, including 12 sit-down restaurants.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The current complex is a combination of two building complexes and a standalone building: the original 14 Art Deco office buildings from the 1930s, one building across 51st Street built in 1947, and a set of four International-style towers built along the west side of Avenue of the Americas during the 1960s and 1970s. The center spans in total, with some in office space.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The landmarked buildings comprise in Midtown, bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues between 48th and 51st streets. Built as a cohesive unit, the buildings have been owned by Tishman Speyer since 2000. The buildings are spread along six blocks, with three blocks facing each avenue. These six blocks are the size of three standard blocks. One of the landmark buildings' defining features is the Indiana limestone facade possessed by all 14 structures, as specified in the original plans. All of the structures were designed by Associated Architects, with Raymond Hood as the principal architect, and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The east side of Sixth Avenue, officially known as Avenue of the Americas, contains most of the buildings that were built specifically for the proposed radio complex. These buildings, which comprise "Radio City", are 1230 Avenue of the Americas, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Radio City Music Hall and 1270 Avenue of the Americas. The idea for an integrated media complex somewhere came in 1920, when Owen D. Young, the chairman of RCA parent General Electric, suggested that RCA combine its then-disparate offices into one location.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The western half of the southernmost block of the complex along Sixth Avenue, between 48th and 49th streets, contains the former U.S. Rubber Company Building (now Simon & Schuster Building) at 1230 Avenue of the Americas. The last structure in the original complex to be built, it was topped out in November 1939. The 23-story building contains two 7-story wings on its north and south sides. It was renamed after Uniroyal in 1967, and again after Simon & Schuster in 1976. 1230 Avenue of the Americas was expanded to the east in 1954 after the Center Theatre adjacent to it was demolished. The 19-story annex, designed by Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz, had a glass facade on the lowest two stories—reflecting the design of the former American Airlines Building across Sixth Avenue—and a limestone facade above the second story. It is aligned with the axis of 10 Rockefeller Plaza on the eastern side of the block, and its northern and southern elevations contain five setbacks. The exterior also houses an abstract bas-relief created by Naum Gabo.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The Center Theatre, at 1236 Sixth Avenue, was the only structure in the original Rockefeller Center to be demolished. Originally the "RKO Roxy Theatre", it was renamed after Fox Theatres sued Roxy Rothafel over the naming rights to the nearby Roxy Theatre, which Rothafel had originally managed. The 3,700-seat Center Theatre had a short massing (general shape) in place due to height restrictions at the time, which prohibited construction above theater auditoriums. The theater's stage was enlarged for musicals in 1936, and four years later, 380 seats were removed in order to make way for an ice rink for skating spectaculars. It showed film, musicals, ice-skating competitions, and television through its 21-year existence. Due to its duplication of the larger Radio City Music Hall's activities, it was deemed uneconomical almost from its opening, and was considered redundant by the 1950s. In 1954, it was replaced by the expansion of 1230 Avenue of the Americas.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The block immediately to the north, on Sixth Avenue between 49th and 50th streets, is occupied by 30 Rockefeller Plaza and its western annex at 1250 Sixth Avenue. The 70-floor, building anchors the entire complex, and is located on the eastern side of the block. Opened in 1933 as the RCA Building, the building has been renamed multiple times, first to the GE Building in 1988, after General Electric bought RCA, and then to the Comcast Building in 2014 after Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal. 30 Rockefeller Plaza was built as a single structure occupying the entire block between Sixth Avenue and Rockefeller Plaza, and its design was influenced by John Todd's desire for the building to use its air rights to their maximum potential. It has three main segments: the 66-story tower rising from the eastern part of the base with the famous Rainbow Room restaurant on the 65th floor, and, formerly, the Rockefeller family office; a windowless segment in the middle of the base that houses NBC Studios; and a shorter 16-story tower on the western part of the base at 1250 Avenue of the Americas. As an icon of the complex, 30 Rockefeller Plaza's architecture influenced the design of the rest of the complex, with its limestone facade and Gothic-inspired four-leafed spandrels.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Radio City Music Hall at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, occupying the southwestern portion of the block between 50th and 51st streets. The only remaining theater in the complex, it was similar in style to the Center Theatre, but at a larger scale. Construction started in December 1931, and the hall opened in December 1932. The Music Hall seats 6,000 people, and since opening has seen over 300 million visitors. Located in a niche adjacent to the neighboring 1270 Avenue of the Americas, the Music Hall is housed under the building's seventh-floor setback.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The other building on the block between 50th and 51st streets is 1270 Avenue of the Americas, a 31-story structure with a setback on the sixth floor. Originally named the RKO Building for RKO Pictures, it was built over the Music Hall, and shares many of the same exterior architectural details. Construction of the building started in 1931, and the building was complete by September 1932. Henry Hofmeister designed the building, as well as several other office buildings in the city that were built over theaters. The building's entrance design, blending in with that of the other buildings in the Radio City section, is marked by three sculptural bas-reliefs created by Robert Garrison for each of the building's three bays, signifying muses of Contemporary Thought, Morning, and Evening. In 1990, Robert Kushner created three bronze sculptures of winged spirits for the lobby. The RKO Building served as headquarters for its namesake company in the 1930s, and was renamed for the American Metal Climax Company (AMAX), its new owners, in the early 1960s.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The International Complex is along Fifth Avenue, with the 41-story International Building and four smaller country-themed structures with retail outlets. The tower and the two southern retail buildings—were planned after the cancellation of the incongruously designed oval retail building in 1931, while the two retail wings east of the International Building were designed later. The low rectangular structures that replaced the oval building were seen as a more suitable design for the avenue. The current international theme was decided on due to a lack of American tenants willing to rent there; eventually, the structures were occupied by British, French, and Italian interests, although the Italian interests ultimately were the only foreign tenants who rented for the long term.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: All four retail the structures have identical limestone facades, roof gardens, and ground-floor storefronts, but differ in the artworks with which they were decorated. Contemporary advertisements for shopping on Fifth Avenue touted the complex's proximity to the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store and St. Patrick's Cathedral. When viewed from Fifth Avenue, the buildings provide a foreground for the taller 30 Rockefeller Plaza building behind them. The Channel Gardens separate the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The southernmost of the four retail buildings is La Maison Francaise (literally "the French House") at 610 Fifth Avenue, which opened in October 1933. It is a six-story standalone building with a limestone facade with a sixth-story setback, as well as a partial -story penthouse on the west half of the seventh story and a garden on the east side of the seventh-story roof. Immediately across the Channel Gardens to the north of La Maison Francaise is its twin, the British Empire Building at 620 Fifth Avenue, which opened in April 1933. It is also a standalone building, with exactly the same massing asLa Maison Francaise, down to the setback, rooftop garden, and half-penthouse.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The International Building has the address 630 Fifth Avenue to its east, or 45 Rockefeller Plaza to its west. The tower stands at 41 stories high, including mechanical floors. One of two skyscrapers that opened in Manhattan in 1935, it was noted for its short 136-day duration of construction, as well as the construction quality, overall design, and materials used. The building, located in the middle of the block between Rockefeller Plaza and Fifth Avenue, contains a central plaza on its east, facing the Fifth Avenue entrance, which contains the famous statue of Atlas. The Palazzo d'Italia and International Building North serve as six-story retail wings of the International Building. The Palazzo d'Italia is at 626 Fifth Avenue, on the south side of the plaza, while International Building North is at 636 Fifth Avenue, north of the plaza.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The 36-story tower at 1 Rockefeller Plaza, on the east side of the plaza between 48th and 49th streets, is the original Time & Life Building that was opened in April 1937. Time Inc. itself did not move into the building for another year after its completion. In 1960, the building was renamed for General Dynamics after Time Inc. had moved into 1271 Avenue of the Americas, the new Time-Life Building located three blocks away. The tower was renamed for its street address after General Dynamics moved to St. Louis in 1971.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: 10 Rockefeller Plaza is located opposite 1 Rockefeller, on the west side of the plaza. Its planning name was the Holland House, but the Dutch government did not sign on, so the building became the Eastern Air Lines Building instead. 10 Rockefeller was built as a 16-story slab, basically a miniature version of 1 Rockefeller. 10 Rockefeller's six-story parking garage was the first in Rockefeller Center. Notable modern tenants include the "Today Show" studios, and since 2005, the Nintendo New York store.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: 50 Rockefeller Plaza, formerly the Associated Press Building, is located on the west side of Rockefeller Plaza between 50th and 51st streets. It was constructed in the spring of 1938. The only building in the Center built to the outer limits of its lot line, the 15-story building took its shape from Associated Press's need for a single, undivided, loft-like newsroom as large as the lot could accommodate—namely, a blocky structure with no setbacks.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: 600 Fifth Avenue is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 48th Street and was built after the other buildings in the main complex, opening in 1952. The 28-story tower was once also known as the Sinclair Oil Building and the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company Building. Its L-shaped footprint surrounds another building at the corner of 49th Street and Fifth Avenue, such that it fronts on 48th Street, on Fifth Avenue, but only midblock on 49th Street. Carson and Lundin designed 600 Fifth Avenue, along with 666 Fifth Avenue three blocks north, to complement the Rockefeller complex between the two towers. 600 Fifth Avenue contains a limestone facade, consistent with that of the original complex, as well as a seventh-story setback on its Fifth Avenue side and rooftop gardens on its setbacks. The building contains a main lobby at 48th Street, a service entrance to the same street, and a connection to 1 Rockefeller Plaza at its west end. Unlike other buildings in the complex, 600 Fifth Avenue's ground level only contained one public entrance to maximize the ground-floor retail space, which was originally leased by Swiss interests and Pan Am Airlines.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The buildings subsequently added are separately owned by multiple owners. The first subsequent building to be built was 75 Rockefeller Plaza, at 51st Street on the north end of the complex, was built in 1947. The building contains a low base that is level with the rooftops of the low-rise buildings on 51st and 52nd Street, as well as a tall slab rising from the base, aligned in a north–south direction. It was originally built privately, but ownership was transferred to Rockefeller Center in February 1947. The 33-story, building was originally called the Esso Building. It was the headquarters of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Exxon) until the early 1970s. The Esso Building was later renamed after Warner Communications, Time Warner and AOL Time Warner. It is now owned by Mohamed Al Fayed and managed by RXR Realty.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The other four buildings were built as part of a single project on the west side of Sixth Avenue between 47th and 51st streets. Erected from 1958 through 1974, they were all built by the same firm, Harrison, Abramovitz & Harris. The $300 million project was part of a drive to get large companies such as Celanese Corporation, McGraw-Hill, Exxon, and Time Inc. to invest in the center. The new project added a combined of space to the existing center when it was completed, and was attractive to potential tenants because of this. Four buildings are part of the newer Sixth Avenue expansion:


title: Rockefeller Center

text: At the front of 30 Rock is the Lower Plaza, located in the very center of the complex and below ground level. The center plaza was part of the plans for the canceled Metropolitan Opera House. Although the opera house was canceled in 1929, the plaza was retained in subsequent plans. Originally, the plaza would have been located at ground level with a promenade called Channel Gardens, which led westward from Fifth Avenue to the plaza. In the March 1931 revision to the complex's blueprint, the center plaza was enhanced and sunken. The sunken plaza was originally supposed to be oval-shaped, but the plaza was later changed to a rectangular shape. The sunken rectangular plaza, planted with shrubs, provided a sense of privacy and enclosure when it was originally built.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The plaza's main entrance is through the Channel Gardens, a , planted pedestrian esplanade running westward from Fifth Avenue between the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise. The steeply sloping promenade was originally furnished with six narrow pools in the center of the space, each surrounded by hedges. The pools are topped with fountain heads designed by Rene Chambellan, each representing a different attribute: leadership, will, thought, imagination, energy, and alertness. Chambellan also designed the fountains' drain covers with various bronze depictions of sea creatures such as turtles and crabs. During the winter, the Channel Gardens' fountains were shut off and decorated with Valerie Clarebout's sculptures of angels. The twelve sculptures, each measuring tall, have been placed in the gardens every winter since 1954. At the western end of the promenade is a plaque commemorating the original Elgin Gardens, as well as a bronze monumental plaque to John D. Rockefeller Jr (see below). From there, a flight of the steps descends toward the rink, then splits into two different stairs heading both north and south.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The western end of the plaza contains Paul Manship's 1934 masterwork, "Prometheus". The statue stands in a fountain basin in front of a grey rectangular wall. The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is placed above the statue from November to January every year; it is usually put in place and lit the week after Thanksgiving, and taken down the week after New Year's Day. The first tree was erected in 1934, and as successive trees received more lavish decorations, the tradition gradually became known worldwide.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Much of the plaza's outdoor section is occupied by an ice rink. Installed in 1936, it replaced unprofitable retail space that had been constructed as part of the original center. Originally intended as a "temporary" measure, the rink became an immediate tourist attraction upon opening, becoming one of the world's most famous skating rinks in later years. In 1939, a permanent rink was installed, which necessitated the replacement of the center staircase from Channel Gardens. Its popularity inspired the construction of a skating rink in the former Center Theatre, and for a short time, there were also proposals to convert the lower plaza's ice rink to a roller skating rink during the springtime.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The northern, southern, and eastern sides of the plaza are surrounded by a walkway that is several steps below street level, with staircases at either western end as well as at the plaza's Channel Gardens entrance. Some 200 flagpoles surround the plaza's perimeter at ground level, installed at regular intervals along the walkway and Rockefeller Plaza. The poles were installed in 1942 and were originally intended to be temporary. The flags later became permanent installations, fitting in with the nearby International Complex. The poles originally displayed the flags of the United Nations' member countries, although in later years they also carried flags of the U.S. states and territories, or decorative and seasonal motifs. Originally, there were 26 flags for each of the members of the United Nations, but as more countries became UN members, additional rows of poles were added on the north and south sides of the plaza. During national and state holidays, every pole carries the flag of the United States. The flags' ropes are secured with locks to prevent people from tampering with the flags.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: In July 1962, two years after John Rockefeller Jr.'s death, the center's management placed a plaque at the plaza, containing a list of ten principles in which he believed. The creed was first expressed in 1941. Rockefeller's beliefs include "the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (the first principle) and "truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order" (the sixth principle).


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The architect I. M. Pei praised Rockefeller Center's lower plaza as being "perhaps the most successful open space in the United States, perhaps in the world", due to its success in drawing visitors. The plaza has also inspired similar developments around the world.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Rockefeller Plaza is a pedestrian street running through the complex, parallel to Fifth and Sixth avenues. This street was also part of the original plans for the Metropolitan Opera, and Benjamin Morris originally intended for the road to stretch from 42nd to 59th streets. Only the section between 48th and 51st streets was built, and the road was open in its entirety by 1937. The road was given the name "Rockefeller Plaza" in 1933, despite the potential confusion with the Lower Plaza, because it was believed that the "Plaza" in the road's name would emphasize its "spatial unity" with the Lower Plaza and Channel Gardens. The original intention of the street's construction was to enhance the shopping district of Fifth Avenue, to its east, but this never happened, and Rockefeller Plaza now primarily serves as a pedestrian passage that connects all of Rockefeller Center's separate components.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: As with most numbered crosstown streets in Manhattan, Rockefeller Plaza is wide with curbs on either side of an asphalt surface. However, the sidewalks are much wider than on typical streets. In addition, Rockefeller Plaza is supported by a multi-level steel skeleton underneath, which houses the underground mall, storage rooms, and the complex's shipping and loading center. As such, it contains a layer of waterproofing. The surface of Rockefeller Plaza outside Radio City Music Hall, between 50th and 51st Street, contains small bronze circles for theatergoers to stand on while waiting to enter the hall. Until the 1980s, the plaza contained plaques that affirmed Columbia University's ownership of Rockefeller Center, but these were removed with the 1985 sale of the complex to the Rockefeller Group. Since Rockefeller Plaza is technically a purely private property to which the public is welcome, the plaza is closed for part of one day every year.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The gardens atop Rockefeller Center's roofs were designed by Ralph Hancock and Raymond Hood. They came about because both Hood and Todd believed that rooftop gardens would enhance the complex's beauty; in particular, Hood compared the presence of rooftop gardens to the plants around a house. Originally, the gardens were supposed to be all interconnected via bridges between the roofs of each building. However, after Hood's death in 1935, the garden plan fell apart, as most of the complex's final buildings were built without provisions for gardens. The Associated Press Building's 15th-story roof, as well as the isolated location of the International Building and the high cost of these gardens, made this system infeasible. Ultimately, gardens were installed on 10 Rockefeller Plaza; 30 Rockefeller Plaza; the four International-themed retail buildings; the Center Theatre; and Radio City Music Hall. The gardens started running a $45,000-per-year deficit by 1937 due to various expenses as well as a lack of interest among tourists.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The largest and most grand of the gardens was the "Garden of the Nations" (alternatively "Gardens of the Nations"), which was installed on the eleventh-floor roof of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and opened in April 1935. The construction effort involved of soil; of rock from as far as England; 100,000 bricks; 2,000 trees and shrubs; 4,000 small plants; and 20,000 bulbs for flowers. They were originally composed of thirteen nation-specific gardens whose layouts were inspired by the gardens in the respective countries they represented. Each of the nation-themed gardens were separated by barriers. There was an "International Garden", a rock garden, in the center of the thirteen nation-themed gardens, which featured a meandering stream and 2,000 plant varieties. The Garden of the Nations also contained a children's garden, a modern-style garden, and a shrub-and-vegetable patch. Upon opening, the Garden of the Nations attracted many visitors because of its collection of exotic flora, and it became the most popular garden in Rockefeller Center. In its heyday, the Center charged admission fees for the Garden of the Nations. However, all of the nation-themed gardens were eventually removed, and the rock garden was left to dry up, supplanted by flower beds that were no longer open to the public.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The International complex's gardens fared better. Hancock developed the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise's gardens, while A.M. van den Hoek designed the gardens atop the other two buildings. The British and French gardens both contain a lawn and pool surrounded by hedges, while the other two gardens atop the International Building's wings include ivy lawns surrounded by hedges. The Italian garden also contained a cobblestone walkway and two plaques from the Roman Forum, while International Building North's garden has a paved walkway with steps. The roof gardens of the International Building's wings were restored in 1986 for $48,000 each, followed by the gardens on the British and French buildings, which were restored the next year.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: A series of shop- and restaurant-filled pedestrian passages stretch underground from 47th to 51st streets between Fifth and Seventh avenues. The pedestrian tunnel system was part of the updated 1931 plan for the center, and formal proposals for the system were submitted in 1933. It was supposed to comprise a system that stretched over , all air-conditioned and lined with shops. Meanwhile, the pair of four-lane roadways was supposed to be located underneath the pedestrian mall, with delivery ramps leading to a central loading area below ground. Later plans also included a people mover.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Ultimately, the people mover was not built, but the 25-space mall opened in May 1935. The complex's owner Tishman Speyer renovated the concourse in 1999 in an effort to make the underground retail space more noticeable and attract more upscale tenants. The original bronze ornaments and lighting were replaced, air-conditioning was installed, two passageways were demolished, and both ground-level and underground retail spaces were refurbished as part of the renovation.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The concourse is the uppermost level of the complex's four basement levels, as well as the only basement level open to the public. The lower three levels are home to storage rooms and the complex's shipping center, the latter of which is accessed by a delivery ramp at 50th Street. Access is via lobby stairways in the six landmark buildings, through restaurants surrounding the concourse-level skating rink, and via elevators to the north and south of the rink. There is also a connection to the New York City Subway's 47th–50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station, serving the . , the largest retailer in the concourse is Banana Republic.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Two small buildings abut the north and south corners of the 30 Rockefeller Plaza annex. These buildings exist as a result of two tenants who refused to sell their rights to Rockefeller during construction. The grocer John F. Maxwell would only sell his property at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street if he received $1 million in return. However, Rockefeller's assistant Charles O. Heydt mistakenly said that Maxwell would never sell, and Maxwell himself said that he had never been approached by the Rockefellers. Consequently, Rockefeller Center did not purchase Maxwell's property until 1970. Maxwell's demand paled to that of Daniel Hurley and Patrick Daly, owners of a speakeasy who, since 1892, had leased a property at 49th Street. They would sell for $250 million, roughly the cost of the entire complex. They initially gained a lease extension until 1942, but ended up leasing their property until 1975, and was built around Maxwell's and Hurley and Daly's properties.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: On the southeast corner of the complex, on Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th streets, there were also two pre-existing buildings. Robert Walton Goelet owned a lot at 2–6 West 49th Street and wished to develop it; the lot was developed as 608 Fifth Avenue, which was completed in 1932. The St. Nicholas Church, located on 48th Street behind Goelet's land, also refused to sell the property despite an offer of up to $7 million for the property. The church was razed in 1949 to make way for 600 Fifth Avenue.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: In November 1931, John Todd suggested the creation of a program for placing distinctive artworks within each of the buildings. Hartley Burr Alexander, a noted mythology and symbology professor, was tasked with planning the complex's arts installations. Alexander submitted his plan for the site's artwork in December 1932. As part of the proposal, the complex would have a variety of sculptures, statues, murals, friezes, decorative fountains, and mosaics. In an expansion of Hood's setback-garden plan, Alexander's proposal also included rooftop gardens atop all the buildings, which would create a "Babylonian garden" when viewed from above.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: At first, Alexander suggested "Homo Fabor, Man the Builder" as the complex's overarching theme, representing satisfaction with one's occupation rather than with the wage. However, that theme was not particularly well received by the architects, so Alexander proposed another theme, the "New Frontiers"; this theme dealt with social and scientific innovations and represented the challenges that humanity faced "after the conquest of the physical world". In theory, this was considered a fitting theme, but Alexander had been so specific about the details of the necessary artworks that it limited the creative license for any artists who would be commissioned for such works, so he was fired. It took several tries to agree on the current theme, "The March of Civilization", at which point some of the art had already been commissioned, including those which Alexander had proposed.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The art that currently exists within Rockefeller Center was inspired by Professor Alexander's arts program. Sculptor Lee Lawrie contributed the largest number of individual pieces – twelve, including the "Atlas" statue facing Fifth Avenue and the conspicuous friezes of Wisdom above the main entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Edward Trumbull coordinated the colors of the works located inside the buildings, and Léon-Victor Solon did the same job for the exterior pieces. Isamu Noguchi's gleaming stainless steel bas-relief, "News", over the main entrance to 50 Rockefeller Plaza (the Associated Press Building) was, at the time of commissioning, the largest metal bas-relief in the world. The complex's other sculptors included Rene Chambellan, Leo Friedlander, Robert Garrison, Alfred Janniot, Carl Paul Jennewein, Gaston Lachaise, Leo Lentelli, Paul Manship, Giacomo Manzù, Hildreth Meiere, and Attilio Piccirilli. Other artists included Carl Milles, Margaret Bourke-White, and Dean Cornwell. Radio City Music Hall architect Donald Deskey commissioned many Depression-era artists to design works for the interior of the hall, including Stuart Davis's 1932 mural "Men Without Women", named after the short story collection by Ernest Hemingway that had been published the same year. One of the center's more controversial works was "Man at the Crossroads", created by Diego Rivera, which was originally commissioned for 30 Rockefeller Plaza's lobby but was demolished before it could be completed.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Commissioned in 1936 and executed by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan, the "Atlas" statue is located in the International Building's courtyard. It faces eastward toward St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. The statue depicts Atlas the titan, with exaggerated muscles, supporting the celestial vault on his shoulders.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: Paul Manship's highly recognizable bronze gilded "Prometheus" statue, commissioned in 1934, is located at the western end of the sunken plaza. It stands high and weighs . The statue depicts the Greek legend of the Titan Prometheus recumbent, bringing fire to mankind. The statue is flanked by two smaller gilded representations of Youth and Maiden, which were relocated to Palazzo d'Italia from 1939 to 1984 because Manship thought the representations did not fit visually. The model for Prometheus was Leonardo (Leon) Nole, and the inscription, a paraphrase from Aeschylus, on the granite wall behind, reads: "Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends."


title: Rockefeller Center

text: In 1932, the Mexican socialist artist Diego Rivera (whose sponsor was the Museum of Modern Art and whose patron at the time was Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.), was commissioned by their son Nelson to create a color fresco for the wall in the lobby of the then-RCA Building. This came after Nelson had been unable to secure the commissioning of either Matisse or Picasso. Previously Rivera had painted a controversial fresco in Detroit titled "Detroit Industry", commissioned by Abby and John's friend, Edsel Ford, who later became a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: As expected, his "Man at the Crossroads" became controversial, as it contained Moscow May Day scenes and a clear portrait of Lenin, which had not been apparent in initial sketches. After Nelson issued a written warning to Rivera to replace the offending figure with an anonymous face, Rivera refused (after offering to counterbalance Lenin with a portrait of Lincoln). As per Nelson's orders, Rivera was paid for his commission and the mural was papered over. Nine months later, after all attempts to save the fresco were explored—including relocating it to Abby's Museum of Modern Art—it was destroyed as a last option. (Rivera would later partially recreate the work as "Man, Controller of the Universe", using photographs taken by an assistant, Lucienne Bloch.) Rivera's fresco in the center was replaced with a larger mural by the Catalan artist Josep Maria Sert, titled "American Progress", depicting a vast allegorical scene of men constructing modern America. Containing figures of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, it wraps around the west wall of 30 Rockefeller Plaza's Grand Lobby.


title: Rockefeller Center

text: In its earliest years, Rockefeller Center received largely negative and pessimistic reviews from architectural critics. The most cynical opinion came from architectural scholar Lewis Mumford, who so hated the "weakly conceived, reckless, romantic chaos" of the March 1931 plans for Rockefeller Center that he reportedly went into exile in upstate New York. He blamed John Rockefeller Jr. for the complex's "inability to consider a new type of problem in any form except the skyscraper stereotype". Mumford's view of the complex was only marginally less negative when he revisited the issue in December 1933: he said that it could be "large, exciting, [and] romantic" at night, but that "a mountain or ash heap of the same size would do the trick almost as well, if the lights were cleverly arranged". Ralph Adams Cram, who adhered to a more classical architectural style, also had a pessimistic view of the plans unveiled in March 1931. He called the plan for Rockefeller Center "an apotheosis of megalomania, a defiant egotism" arising from an ostentatious display of wealth, and said that "the sooner we accomplish the destiny it so perfectly foreshadows, the sooner we shall be able to clear the ground and begin again". Douglas Haskell, who formerly edited "Architectural Forum" magazine, wrote that Rockefeller Center's ambiance was "gray, unreal, baleful".


title: Rockefeller Center

text: The urban planner Le Corbusier had a more optimistic view of the complex, expressing that Rockefeller Center was "rational, logically conceived, biologically normal, [and] harmonious". He wrote that although Rockefeller Center would inevitably be disorganized in its earliest years, it would eventually adhere to a certain "order", and he also praised the complex for being a paragon of "noble" and "efficient" construction. The writer Frederick Lewis Allen took a more moderate viewpoint, saying that negative critics had "hoped for too much" precisely because Rockefeller Center had been planned during an economically prosperous time, but was constructed during the Depression. Even though Allen thought that the art was mediocre and the opportunities for a less lively complex were wasted, he stated that Rockefeller Center had an aura of "festivity" around it, unlike most other office buildings in America. Sigfried Giedion wrote in his book "Space, Time and Architecture" that Rockefeller Center's design was akin to a "civic center" whose design represented the 1930s version of the future. Henry Luce, the founder of Time Inc., said in 1941 that Rockefeller Center represented "the true world of tomorrow", as opposed to the 1939 New York World's Fair, whose "World of Tomorrow" representations "are today junk piles under the winter snow". Novelist Gertrude Stein said in 1935, "The view of Rockefeller Center from Fifth Avenue is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."


title: Rockefeller Center

text: By the 1940s, most critics had positive views of Rockefeller Center. Even Mumford praised the complex, lamenting in 1947 that the new headquarters of the United Nations on First Avenue had no "human scale" or "transition from the intimate to the monumental", whereas Rockefeller Center's buildings "produce an aesthetic effect out of all proportion to their size". Haskell wrote in 1966 that Rockefeller Center's designers "seemed to have regarded urban life as an enhanceable romance". In 1969, the art historian Vincent Scully wrote, "Rockefeller Center is one of the few surviving public spaces that look as if they were designed and used by people who knew what stable wealth was and were not ashamed to enjoy it." The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation commissioned a report in 1974 entitled "Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center: A Historic-Critical Estimate of Their Significance", in which they concluded that Rockefeller Center, along with Central Park and Grand Central Terminal, were the only three developments that could slow down Manhattan's "remorseless process of expansion and decay". In 1976, "New York Times" architectural critic Paul Goldberger wrote, "What makes Rockefeller Center work is that it is at once a formal Beaux‐Arts‐influenced complex of dignified towers and a lively, utterly contemporary amalgam of shops, plazas and street life. It is as natural a home for a 1970's street festival as for a 1930's movie about cafe society: few designs can join such disparate worlds so comfortably."


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is a large Old World monkey native to west central Africa. It is one of the most colorful mammals in the world, with red and blue skin on its face and posterior. The species is sexually dimorphic, as males have a larger body, longer canine teeth and brighter coloring. Its closest living relative is the drill with which it shares the genus "Mandrillus". Both species were traditionally thought to be baboons, but further evidence has shown that they are more closely related to white-eyelid mangabeys.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills mainly live in tropical rainforests but will also travel across savannas. They are active during the day and spend most of their time on the ground. Their preferred foods are fruit and seeds, but mandrills will consume leaves, piths, mushrooms, and animals from insects to juvenile antelope. Mandrills live in large, stable groups known as "hordes" which can number in the hundreds. Females form the core of these groups, while adult males are solitary and only reunite with the larger groups during the breeding season. Dominant males have the most vibrant colors and fattest flanks and rumps, and have the most success siring young.


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill is classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Its biggest threats are habitat destruction and hunting for bushmeat. Gabon is considered the stronghold for the species. Its habitat has declined in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, while its range in the Republic of the Congo is limited.


title: Mandrill

text: The word "mandrill" is derived from the English words "man" and "drill"—the latter meaning or and being West African in origin—and dated to 1744. The name appears to have originally referred to chimpanzees. The first scholar to record the name for the colorful monkey was Georges-Louis Buffon in 1766. It was called the "tufted ape", "great baboon" and "ribbernosed baboon" by Thomas Pennant in "A Synopsis of Quadrupeds" (1771) and "A History of Quadrupeds" (1781).


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill was first scientifically depicted in "Historia animalium" (1551–1558) by Conrad Gessner, who considered it a kind of hyena. The species was formally classified by Carl Linnaeus as "Simia sphinx" in 1758. Its current generic name "Mandrillus" was coined by Ferdinand Ritgen in 1824.


title: Mandrill

text: Historically, some scientists placed the mandrill and the closely related drill ("M. leucophaeus") in the baboon genus "Papio". Morphological and genetic studies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries found a closer relationship to white-eyelid mangabeys of the genus "Cercocebus". Some have even proposed that the mandrill and drill belong to "Cercocebus". Two genetic studies in 2011 clarified "Mandrillus" and "Cercocebus" as separate sister lineages. The two genera split around 4.5 million years ago (mya) while the mandrill and drill split approximately 3.17 mya. Fossils of "Mandrillus" have not been found.


title: Mandrill

text: Some authorities have divided mandrill populations into subspecies: the northern mandrill ("M. s. sphinx") and the southern mandrill ("M. s. madarogaster"). A proposed third subspecies, "M. s. insularis", was based on the mistaken belief that mandrills are present on Bioko Island. The consensus is that mandrills belong to one subspecies ("M. s. sphinx").


title: Mandrill

text: Cytochrome-b sequences suggest that mandrill populations north and south of the Ogooué River split 800,000 years ago and belong to distinct haplogroups. This divergence appears to have also led to the splitting of the mandrill strain of the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). The draft (incomplete) genome of the mandrill was published in 2020, with a reported genome size of 2.90 giga–base-pairs and high levels of heterozygosity.


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill has a stocky body with a large head and muzzle, as well as a short and stumpy tail. The limbs are evenly sized and the fingers and toes are more elongated than those in baboons, with a more opposable big toe on the feet. The mandrill is the most sexually dimorphic primate, and the adult male is considered to be the largest monkey. Females are less stocky and have shorter, flatter snouts. Males have a head-body length and weigh while females have a head-body length and weigh . Most of the teeth are larger in males and the canine teeth reach up to and long for males and females respectively. Both sexes have long tails.


title: Mandrill

text: The coat of the mandrill is primarily grizzled or banded olive-brown with a yellow-orange beard and sparse, light hairs on its underside. The lips are surrounded by stiff white whiskers, and white bare skin exists behind the ears. Male mandrills have a "crest" of long hairs on the head and neck, while both sexes have chest glands which are covered by long hairs. The face, rump and genitals have less hair.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills have a red line running down the middle of their face which connects to their red nose. On either side of the line, the skin is blue and grooved. In males, the blue skin is supported by ridged bone swellings. Females have more subdued facial coloring, but this can vary between individuals with some having stronger red and blue hues and others being darker or almost black. In males, the rump and areas around the genitals are multi-colored, consisting of red, pink, blue and purple skin, with a red penis shaft and violet scrotum. The genital and anal areas of the female are red.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills are noted for being among the most colorful mammals. Charles Darwin wrote in "The Descent of Man": "no other member of the whole class of mammals is coloured in so extraordinary a manner as the adult male mandrill". The red coloration is created by blood vessels near the surface of the skin, while the blue is a form of structural coloration caused by parallel arrangements of collagen fibers. The blue ridges on males contrast with both the red facial hues and the green foliage of their environment, helping them stand out to other individuals. The darker and more subdued coloring of female faces is caused by melanin.


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill lives in west-central Africa, including southern Cameroon, mainland Equatorial Guinea (Río Muni), Gabon and parts of the Republic of the Congo. Its range is bounded by the Sanaga River to the north and the Ogooué and Ivindo Rivers to the east. It does not appear to share habitat with the drill, as the two species are separated by the Sanaga River. Mandrills live in tropical rainforests, generally preferring primary forests over secondary forests. They also live in patchy gallery forests surrounded by savanna and travel across grass areas within their forest habitats. They have also been recorded in mountainous areas, near rivers and in cultivated fields.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills prefer thick bush dominated by perennial plants like gingers and plants of the genera "Brillantaisia" and "Phaulopsis". They mainly dwell on the ground, but feed as high as the canopy. Both mandrills and drills are more arboreal than baboons. Mandrills may aggregate or compete with other primates such as talapoins, guenons, mangabeys, black-and-white colobuses, chimpanzees and gorillas.


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill is an omnivore. The core of its diet consists of plants, of which it eats over a hundred species. One study found the mandrill's diet was composed of fruit (50.7%), seeds (26.0%), leaves (8.2%), pith (6.8%), flowers (2.7%), and animal matter (4.1%), with other foods making up the remaining 1.4%. During the wet season, mandrills forage in continuous forest, when fruit is most available, while during the dry season they feed in gallery forests and at the borders of savannas and forests.


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill's preferred fruits include those of the cashew species "Pseudospondias microcarpa", the coffee species "Nauclea diderrichii" and the wort species "Psorospermum febrifugum". Mandrills consume more seeds than many other primate species. Adult male mandrills are one of the few primates capable of biting through the hard shell of "Detarium microcarpum" seeds. For vegetation, they mostly eat the young leaves, shoots and piths of monocot plants. In particular, mandrills consume leaves from the arrowroots "Haumania liebrechtsiana" and "Trachyphrynium braunianum", as well as the piths of ginger plants like "Renealmia macrocolia" and species in the genus "Aframomum". They are also known to consume mushrooms.


title: Mandrill

text: The rest of a mandrill's diet is largely made up of invertebrates, particularly ants, termites, crickets, spiders, snails, and scorpions. They also eat birds and their eggs, frogs and rodents. Mandrills have been recorded preying on larger vertebrates such as juvenile bay duikers. Such prey is killed with a bite to the head followed by pulling off the hind limbs and tearing open the belly. Individuals may cooperate during hunting and share kills.


title: Mandrill

text: Leopards may prey on mandrills, as traces of mandrill have been found in their feces. Other potential predators include African rock pythons, crowned eagles and chimpanzees. Leopards are a threat to all individuals, while eagles are only threats to the young. In a study where a mandrill group was exposed to models of leopards and crown eagles, the leopard models tended to cause the mandrills to flee up trees while the eagles were more likely to drive them to take cover. The dominant male did not flee from either model types; in the case of the leopards, he paced around while looking in their direction. Alarm calls were more commonly heard in response to leopards than eagles.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills can become infected with gastrointestinal parasites, such as nematodes and protozoa. Tumbu fly larvae may live under the skin and individuals that walk though grassland can get infested with ticks. Blood parasites include the malaria-causing "Plasmodium" and the nematode "Loa loa", which is transmitted by bites from deer flies. Wild mandrills have tested positive for SIV, enteroviruses of the species EV-J and astroviruses, including a human variant.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills are mostly diurnal and are awake around 10 hours per day from morning to dusk. They often pick a new tree to sleep in every night. Mandrills have been observed using tools; in captivity, they use sticks to clean themselves. In the wild, mandrills appear to live 12–14 years, but captive individuals can live 30–40 years.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills live in large "supergroups" or "hordes" that can contain hundreds of individuals. These large groups are fairly stable and do not appear to be gatherings of smaller ones. At Lopé National Park, Gabon, mandrill hordes were found to have an average of 620 individuals, and some groups were as large as 845, making them possibly the largest cohesive groups of wild primates. Another study in Lopé found that a horde of 625 mandrills consisted of 21 dominant males, 71 less dominant and subadult males, 247 adult and adolescent females, 200 juveniles, and 86 dependent infants. A mandrill horde of around 700 individuals in northern Lopé had a total home range of , of which was suitable habitat. The supergroup would occasionally diverge into two to four subgroups before reuniting. Another 15-month long study of a 120 member group found a home range of with an average traveling distance of per day.


title: Mandrill

text: Hordes consist of matrilineal family groups, and females are important for maintaining social cohesion. Strong connections with their relatives may lead to support during conflicts, higher survival rate of offspring and a longer lifespan for females. Dominant females are at the center of the group network and their removal leads to fewer social connections in the group. The social rank of a mother mandrill can contribute to the social rank of both her female and male offspring. Mature males are not permanent members of hordes but join as females become sexually receptive and leave as their sexual cycle ends. As a result, the coloration of the male mandrill may be intended to attract attention in a social structure with no long-term relationships between mates. Higher ranking males are found in the center of a social group while lower ranking males are more likely to occupy the periphery. Females have some control over the males and coalitions can expel an unwanted male from a group. Outside the breeding season, males are believed to lead a solitary life and all-male bachelor groups are not known to exist.


title: Mandrill

text: Both male and female mandrills rub and mark trees and branches with secretions from their chest glands, though males (and especially dominant males) mark more than females. The chemicals in the secretions signal the individual's sex, age and rank. Scent-marking may also serve a territorial function, captive alpha males will mark enclosure boundaries. Mandrills will groom one another, even when there is no benefit to be gained from doing so. During grooming, subordinates prefer to pick at other mandrills from behind, in order to minimize eye contact and give them more time to flee if the more dominant individual attacks. The recipients of grooming will try to maneuver the groomer to pick at more "risky" areas.


title: Mandrill

text: Dominant or alpha male mandrills have the most mating success. Upon gaining alpha status, males develop larger testicles, redder faces and posteriors, more secretion from the chest glands and fatter sides and rumps. When a male loses dominance, these physiological changes are at least partially reversed. The blue facial skin is more consistent in brightness. Higher ranking males tend to have more contrast between red and blue facial coloring. Due to their distribution of fat, dominant males are also known as "fatted" males while subordinate males are known as "non-fatted" males. Canine length also correlates with dominance, and males are less likely to sire offspring when their canines are under . Some individuals suppress the development of secondary sexual characteristics in response to competition from other males. Male mandrills prefer to establish dominance with vocalizations and facial expressions since fighting is dangerous due to the long canines.


title: Mandrill

text: Mating occurs mostly during the dry season, with female ovulation peaking between June and September. Receptive females have sexual swellings on their posterior, and the red facial coloration can communicate age and fertility. Males also appear to detect a female's reproductive state using the vomeronasal organ (known as the flehmen response). Dominant males try to monopolize access to females by mate guarding, which involves the male tending to and copulating with a female for days. Dominant males tend to sire most of the offspring, but they are less able to monopolize access to the females when many females reach estrus at the same time. A subordinate male is also more likely to have reproductive success if he is closely related to an alpha male. An ovulating female tends to allow the brightest colored males to come near her and touch her perineum, and is more likely to groom and solicit them. The female signals her willingness to mate by positioning her posterior towards the male. Intercourse lasts no more than 60 seconds, with the male mounting the female and making pelvic thrusts.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrill gestation lasts an average of 175 days with most births taking place between January and March, during the wet season. Gaps in between births range from 184 to 1,159 days with an average of 405 days. and tend to be shorter in higher ranking females. Infants are born at an average weight of , and mostly bare-skinned with some white hair and a tuft of dark hair on the head and along the spine. Over the next two or three months, they develop their adult hair color on the body, limbs and head while the flesh-colored face and snout darken. Dependent infants are carried on their mothers' bellies. Young are typically weaned at around 230 days old. Males become more sexually dimorphic between four and eight years old, at which point females are already beginning to give birth. Males start leaving their horde after they reach six years old. Females reach their adult size around seven years while males do so at ten years.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills communicate with various facial expressions and postures. Threat displays involve open mouth staring, usually in combination with head bobbing, ground slapping and raised hair. These gestures are usually performed by dominant individuals towards subordinates, who respond with bared teeth grimaces, signaling fear and aggression. Both young and low-ranking females show submission and anxiety with a pouting "duck face". Playful intentions are communicated with a relaxed open-mouth face. Males approaching females display a "grin" or silent bared-teeth face and make lip-smacks. This display may also occur with teeth-chattering. Mandrills can develop and pass on new gestures; captive individuals at the Colchester Zoo, England facepalm to discourage being disturbed, particularly while resting.


title: Mandrill

text: Mandrills also produce several vocalizations, for both long and short distances. During group movements, adult males produce two-phase grunts and one-syllable roars, both of which are equivalent to the "wahoo" bark of baboons. Other group members produce "crowings", which last almost two seconds and start as a vibration and transition into a longer harmonic sound. Short distance vocals include the "yak", a sharp, repeating, pulse-like call produced by all individuals except for adult males and made in tense situations. Mandrills may also grunt during aggressive encounters. Growls are used to express mild alarm while intense alarms come in the form of a short, two-syllable sharp call known as the "k-alarm". A sharp, loud "K-sound" is produced for unknown reasons. Screaming is a signal of fear and made by individuals fleeing, while the girney, a type of moan or purr, is made as a form of appeasement or frustration among females and young. Individual voices are more similar among related animals, but unrelated mandrills can have similar voices if they regularly interact.


title: Mandrill

text: As of 2019, the IUCN Red List lists the mandrill as vulnerable. Its total population is unknown but is suspected to have decreased by more than 30 percent over the last 24 years. Its main threats are habitat destruction and hunting for bushmeat. The mandrill appears to have suffered massive habitat loss in Equatorial Guinea and southern Cameroon, while its range in the Republic of the Congo is limited and its status is unknown. In addition, while mandrills live in groups numbering in the hundreds, hunting in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea appears to have led to smaller group sizes. Gabon is seen as the most important remaining refuge for the species, and the country's low population density and vast rainforests make it a good candidate for mandrill conservation. Surveys have shown high population numbers for other primate species like chimpanzees and gorillas. A semi-wild population exists at the International Centre of Medical Research of Franceville.


title: Mandrill

text: The mandrill is listed under Appendix I by CITES, banning commercial trade in wild-caught specimens, and under Class B by the African Convention, which provides them protection but allows special authorization for their killing, capturing or collecting. There is at least one protected area for mandrills within each of the countries they inhabit. In Gabon, most of the rainforests have been leased to timber companies but around 10 percent is part of a national parks system, 13 of which were established in 2002.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Mykelti Williamson (born March 4, 1957) is an American actor best known for his roles in the films "Forrest Gump", "Con Air" and "Ali", and the television shows "Boomtown", "24", and "Justified". In 2016, he portrayed Gabriel Maxson in Denzel Washington's acclaimed film adaptation of August Wilson's play "Fences", reprising his role from the 2010 Broadway revival.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: His other notable roles include "Free Willy", "Heat", "Lucky Number Slevin", "Three Kings", "Black Dynamite", "The Final Destination", "ATL", "Species II", and "".


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Williamson was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the son of Elaine, a certified public accountant, and a father who was an Air Force Non-Commissioned Officer. He is of African American and Black Foot Indian ancestry. His first name means "spirit" in the Blackfoot language.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Williamson began performing at the age of nine. Along with acting, he also danced as an alternate member of The Lockers troupe on "Soul Train" along with Fred Berry (star of TV sitcom "What's Happening!!"). At age nine, Williamson relocated to Los Angeles with his family. He studied television and film at Los Angeles City College. He audited acting classes at USC under the tutelage of Dr. Frank X. Ford Williamson, and was later transferred to Gene Evans Motion Picture School in San Jose, earning his certificate in Cinematography/Film Production.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Williamson began acting professionally as a child. His first TV appearances include "Starsky and Hutch", "Father Murphy", "Hill Street Blues", "Miami Vice", "China Beach", and "Midnight Caller". Perhaps his best-known television role was as program director Donovan Aderhold in the syndicated series "The New WKRP in Cincinnati". Williamson also starred in PBS's TV series "The Righteous Apples". The show focuses on the activities of The Righteous Apples, five Boston-area high school musicians, who in a troubled world, seek to help people in distress. Williamson was the lead singer of the group in the show in which he was just a teenager at that time.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: His film debut was in "Streets of Fire" (1984). His credits include "Wildcats" (1986) with Goldie Hawn, "Miracle Mile" (1989), "The First Power" (1990) with Lou Diamond Phillips, "Free Willy" (1993), "Forrest Gump" (1994) with Tom Hanks, "Waiting to Exhale" (1995), "Heat" (1995), "Soul of the Game" (1996) with Delroy Lindo, "Con Air" (1997), "Truth or Consequences, N.M." (1997), William Friedkin's TV version of "12 Angry Men" (1997), "Three Kings" (1999), "" (1999), "Holiday Heart" (2000), "Black Dynamite" (2009), "The Final Destination" (2009), and "" (2016).


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Williamson is best known as Private Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue in the Academy Award–winning 1994 film "Forrest Gump". He also received favorable reviews when he played Negro league baseball player Josh Gibson in the HBO film "Soul of the Game" (1996).


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Williamson has made many guest appearances in TV and film. His most recent film appearances have included "Ali" (2001),"The Assassination of Richard Nixon" (2004), "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" (2005), "ATL" (2006), "Lucky Number Slevin" (2006), "August Rush" (2007), "High School" (2010), "Convergence" (2015), and "Fences" (2016). He was Juror #10 in the 1997 TV movie remake of "12 Angry Men" (picking up the Ed Begley role). He also appeared in a short-lived TV series remake "The Fugitive" (CBS, 2000–2001). CBS cancelled the series after one season with a total of 22 episodes.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: In 2002, he co-starred as Detective Bobby "Fearless" Smith in the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful crime drama "Boomtown".


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Between 2007 and 2009, he appeared in seven episodes of "" as Chief Sinclair, reuniting him with his "Forrest Gump" co-star Gary Sinise. He was a main character in season 8 of "24" starring as Brian Hastings, the special agent in charge of the New York CTU.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: He had a recurring role as Ellstin Limehouse on the FX drama "Justified". He was also cast as a homeless man named Terry in the third season of the ABC drama "Nashville". Since October 2016, Williamson has had a recurring role as Admiral Chernow in "Designated Survivor". In 2017, he began appearing on "Chicago P.D.".


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Williamson was married to "Miami Vice" star Olivia Brown from July 2, 1983 until they divorced in 1985. He later married Cheryl Chisholm in 1989 with whom he had his first child, Phoenix.


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: He has been married to Sondra Spriggs since April 26, 1997; together they have two daughters, Nicole and Maya. The two were married during the filming of TNT's production of "Buffalo Soldiers".


title: Mykelti Williamson

text: Williamson was charged with attempted murder in 1998 after he stabbed his ex-wife's boyfriend. He was acquitted of the charge.


title: Poppy seed

text: Poppy seed is an oilseed obtained from the opium poppy ("Papaver somniferum"). The tiny, kidney-shaped seeds have been harvested from dried seed pods by various civilizations for thousands of years. It is still widely used in many countries, especially in Central Europe and South Asia, where it is legally grown and sold in shops. The seeds are used whole or ground into meal as an ingredient in many foods – especially in pastry and bread – and they are pressed to yield poppyseed oil.


title: Poppy seed

text: The poppy seed is mentioned in ancient medical text from many civilizations. For instance, the Egyptian papyrus scroll named Ebers Papyrus, written c. 1550 BC, lists poppy seed as a sedative. The Minoan civilization (approximately 2700 to 1450 BC), a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete, cultivated poppies for their seed, and used a milk, opium and honey mixture to calm crying babies. The Sumerians are another civilization that are known to have grown poppy seeds.


title: Poppy seed

text: Poppy seeds are less than a millimeter in length, kidney-shaped, and have a pitted surface. It takes about 3,300 poppy seeds to make up a gram, and between 1 and 2 million seeds to make up a pound. The primary flavor compound is 2-pentylfuran.


title: Poppy seed

text: The seeds of other poppy types are not eaten, but they are cultivated for the flowers they produce. Annual and biennial poppies are considered a good choice to cultivate from seed as they are not difficult to propagate by this method, and can be put directly in the ground during January. The California poppy ("Eschscholzia californica"), for example, is a striking orange wildflower that grows in the Western and Northwestern United States.


title: Poppy seed

text: In 2018, world production of poppy seeds was 76,240 tonnes, led by Turkey with 35% of the world total, followed by the Czech Republic and Spain as other major producers (table).


title: Poppy seed

text: The poppy seeds harvest can be a by-product of cultivation of Papaver somniferum for opium, poppy straw, or both opium and poppy straw. However, harvesting for poppy seeds of superior quality is in conflict with harvesting for opium as poppy seeds should be harvested when they are ripe, after the seed pod has dried. Traditionally, opium is harvested while the seed pods are green and the seeds have just begun to grow and their latex is abundant. Poppy straw can be a by-product of cultivation of poppy seeds. Compared to the seed pod and straw, the seeds contain very low levels of opiates. The seeds may be washed to obtain poppy tea but a large amount is needed, around 300–400 g depending on the levels of opiates.


title: Poppy seed

text: Since poppy seeds are relatively expensive, they are sometimes mixed with the seeds of "Amaranthus paniculatus", which closely resemble poppy seeds.


title: Poppy seed

text: In a 100 gram amount, poppy seeds provide 525 calories and are a rich source of thiamin, folate, and several essential minerals, including calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus and zinc (table). Poppy seeds are composed of 6% water, 28% carbohydrates, 42% fat, and 21% protein (table).


title: Poppy seed

text: Whole poppy seeds are widely used as a spice and decoration in and on top of many baked goods and pastries. In North America they are used in and on many food items such as poppyseed muffins, rusk, bagels (like the Montreal-style bagel), bialys, and cakes such as sponge cake. Poppy seeds can also be used like sesame seeds, added to hamburger buns or to make a bar of candy. The bars are made from boiled seeds mixed with sugar or with honey. This is especially common in the Balkans, Greece and even in the cuisines of former Austro-Hungarian countries.


title: Poppy seed

text: The color of poppy seeds is important in some uses. According to "The Joy of Cooking", "the most desirable come from Holland and are a slate-blue color." When used as a thickener in some dishes, white poppy seeds are preferred, having less impact on the color of the food. In other dishes, black poppy seeds are preferred, for maximum impact. Blue poppy seeds are used in various German breads and desserts as well as in Polish cuisine.


title: Poppy seed

text: Poppy seeds can be ground using a generic tool such as a mortar and pestle or a small domestic type electric blade grinder, or a special purpose poppy seed grinder. A poppy seed grinder (mill) is a type of burr grinder with a set aperture that is too narrow for intact poppy seeds to pass through. A burr grinder produces a more uniform and less oily paste than these other tools.


title: Poppy seed

text: The poppy seed paste is used for fillings in pastries, sometimes mixed with butter or milk and sugar. The ground filling is used in poppy seed rolls and some croissants and may be flavored with lemon or orange zest, rum and vanilla with raisins, heavy cream, cinnamon, and chopped blanched almonds or walnuts added. For sweet baked goods, sometimes instead of sugar a tablespoon of jam, or other sweet binding agent, like syrup is substituted. The poppy seed for fillings are best when they are finely and freshly ground because this will make a big difference in the pastry filling's texture and taste.


title: Poppy seed

text: Poppy seed paste is available commercially, in cans. Poppy seeds are very high in oil, so commercial pastes normally contain sugar, water, and an emulsifier such as soy lecithin to keep the paste from separating. Commercial pastes also contain food preservatives to keep them from becoming rancid.


title: Poppy seed

text: In the United States, commercial pastes are marketed under brand names including Solo and American Almond. Per 30 gram serving, the American Almond poppy seed paste has 120 calories, 4.5 grams fat, and 2 grams protein.


title: Poppy seed

text: Poppy seeds are pressed to form poppyseed oil, a valuable commercial oil that has multiple culinary and industrial uses.


title: Poppy seed

text: Across Europe, buns and soft white bread pastries are often sprinkled on top with black and white poppy seeds (for example cozonac, kalach, kolache and kołacz).


title: Poppy seed

text: The seeds of the Czech blue poppy (food safety cultivars "Papaver somniferum)" are widely consumed in many parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The sugared, milled mature seeds are eaten with pasta, or they are boiled with milk and used as filling or topping on various kinds of sweet pastry. Milling of mature seeds is carried out either industrially or at home, where it is generally done with a manual poppy seed mill.


title: Poppy seed

text: Blue poppy seeds are widely used in Austrian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, German, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian cuisines.


title: Poppy seed

text: The states of former Yugoslavia (notably North Macedonia and Serbia, but also Croatia and Bosnia) have a long tradition of preparing poppy seed pastry (štrudla, baklava, pajgle) and dishes (pasta with poppy seeds). In Slovenia blue poppy seeds are used in traditional dishes such as prekmurska gibanica and makova potica.


title: Poppy seed

text: In Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and Eastern Slovakia, a traditional dessert is prepared for the "Kūčios" (Christmas Eve) (in Hungarian: mákos guba) dinner from poppy seeds. They are ground and mixed with water or milk; round yeast biscuits ("kūčiukai" in Lithuanian; "opekance" or "bobalky" in Slovak) are soaked in the resulting poppy seed 'milk' (poppy milk) and served cold.


title: Poppy seed

text: In Central Europe, poppy strudel is very popular, especially during Christmas. In Germany, Poland and countries belonging to the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, poppy seed pastries called "Mohnkuchen" are often eaten around Christmas time. Recipes for Mohnstriezel use poppy seed soaked in water for two hours or boiled in milk. A recipe for Ukrainian poppyseed cake recommends preparing the seeds by immersing in boiling water, straining and soaking in milk overnight.


title: Poppy seed

text: In Eastern European Jewish cuisine, pastries filled with black poppy seeds in a sugary paste are traditional during Purim, which occurs exactly one month before Passover and approximately a month before Easter. Traditional pastries include poppy seed kalács and hamantashen, both sometimes known as "beigli" (also spelled "bejgli"). Poppy seed hamantashen were the main traditional food eaten by Ashkenazi Jews at Purim until the filling was replaced by other fruit and nut fillings. Poppy seed pastries are common in Jewish bakeries and delicatessens throughout the United States.


title: Poppy seed

text: In Indian cuisine, white poppy seeds are added for thickness, texture and flavor to recipes. Commonly used in the preparation of korma, ground poppy seeds, along with coconut and other spices, are combined into a paste added during cooking. Poppy seeds are widely used in many regional Indian cuisines. One dish is aloo posto (potato and poppy seeds) which consists of ground poppy seeds cooked together with potatoes and made into a smooth, rich product, which is sometimes eaten with rice. There are many variants to this basic dish, replacing or complementing the potatoes with other ingredients, such as onions (penyaj posto), pointed gourd (potol posto), Ridged Luffa (jhinge posto), chicken (murgi posto), and prawns (chingri posto). Chadachadi is a dish from Bengali cuisine and includes long strips of vegetables, sometimes with the stalks of leafy greens added, all lightly seasoned with spices like mustard or poppy seeds and flavored with a phoron. One dish involves grilling patties made from "posto", sometimes frying them ("postor bora"). Another dish involves simply mixing uncooked ground poppy seeds (kancha posto) with mustard oil, chopped green chili peppers, fresh onions and rice. Kacha posto bata (uncooked poppy seeds paste) with mustard oil is a very popular dish in West Bengal as well as Bangladesh. Poppy seeds are widely used in Kashmir as a topping on various breads, especially kulcha.


title: Poppy seed

text: Poppy seeds, along with tulsi (basil) seeds, are added to beverages such as thandai, sharbat, milkshakes, rose milk, almond milk and "khus khus" milk.


title: Poppy seed

text: Eating large quantities of poppy seeds can cause a phytobezoar which can block the bowels, though this is unlikely if the seeds are consumed in moderation as an ingredient in cooked or baked foods.


title: Poppy seed

text: Allergy (type 1 hypersensitivity) to poppy seeds is rare, but has been reported and can cause anaphylaxis.


title: Poppy seed

text: Although the drug opium is produced by "milking" latex from the unripe fruits ("seed pods") rather than from the seeds, all parts of the plant can contain or carry the opium alkaloids, especially morphine and codeine. This means that eating foods (e.g., muffins) that contain poppy seeds can result in a false positive for opiates in a drug test. However the results provided will not be the same for someone who uses opiates.


title: Poppy seed

text: Morphine levels in poppy seeds range between 4 and 200 mg/kg. According to an article published in the "Medical Science Law Journal", after ingesting "a curry meal or two containing various amounts of washed seeds" where total morphine levels were in the range 58.4 to 62.2 µg/g seeds, the urinary morphine levels were found to range as high as 1.27 µg/ml (1,270 ng/ml) urine. Another article in the "Journal of Forensic Sciences" reports that concentration of morphine in some batches of seeds may be as high as 251 µg/g. In both studies codeine was also present in the seeds in smaller concentrations. Therefore, it is possible to cross the current standard 2,000 ng/ml limit of detection, depending on seed potency and quantity ingested. Some toxicology labs still continue to use a cutoff level of 300 ng/ml.


title: Poppy seed

text: Discovery Channel's "MythBusters" series episode "Poppy Seed Drug Test" demonstrated that eating both poppy seed bread and poppy seed bagels resulted in both of the hosts testing positive for opiate use, 30 minutes later.


title: Poppy seed

text: To minimize the problems caused by false positives for competitive athletes, the USADA recommends that competitive athletes refrain from eating foods containing poppy seeds several days prior to a competitive event.


title: Poppy seed

text: A fictional example of such a false positive test in popular culture was in the "Seinfeld" episode "The Shower Head", where the character Elaine Benes was not allowed to visit Kalahari Bushmen with J. Peterman after testing positive for opium from the consumption of poppy seed muffins.


title: Poppy seed

text: The sale of poppy seeds from "Papaver somniferum" is banned in Singapore because of the morphine content. Poppy seeds are also prohibited in Taiwan, primarily because of the risk that viable seeds will be sold and used to grow opium poppies. China prohibits spice mixes made from poppy seed and poppy seed pods because of the traces of opiates in them, and has since at least 2005. Despite its present use in Arab cuisine as a bread spice, poppy seeds are also banned in Saudi Arabia for various religious and drug control reasons. In one extreme case in the United Arab Emirates, poppy seeds found on a traveler's clothes led to imprisonment. Concerns were raised in Malaysia by MP Datuk Mohd Said Yusof who claimed in 2005 that mamak restaurants used poppy seeds in their cooking to get customers addicted to it.


title: Poppy seed

text: As poppy seeds cause false positive results in drug tests, it is advised in airports in India not to carry such items to other countries, where this can result in punishments based on false positive results. Travelers to the United Arab Emirates are especially prone to difficulties and severe punishments.


title: Poppy seed

text: In Singapore, poppy seeds are classified as "prohibited goods" by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).


title: Mary Kom

text: Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom (born 01 March 1983) is an Indian amateur boxer, politician, and former Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha. She is the only woman to win the World Amateur Boxing Championship six times, the only female boxer to have won a medal in each one of the first seven World Championships, and the only boxer (male or female) to win eight World Championship medals. Nicknamed "Magnificent Mary", she is the only Indian female boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, competing in the flyweight (51 kg) category and winning a bronze medal. She had also been ranked as the world's No. 1 female light-flyweight by the International Boxing Association (amateur) (AIBA). She became the first Indian female boxer to win a gold medal in the Asian Games in 2014 at Incheon, South Korea and is the first Indian female boxer to win gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She is also the only boxer to become Asian Amateur Boxing Champion for a record six times. Mary Kom won the 51kg gold in President's Cup in Indonesia.


title: Mary Kom

text: On 25 April 2016, the President of India nominated Kom as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. In March 2017, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, appointed Mary Kom along with Akhil Kumar as national observers for boxing.


title: Mary Kom

text: After her sixth world title in 2018, the Government of Manipur has conferred on her the title "Meethoi Leima", loosely translated as "great or exceptional lady" in a felicitation ceremony held in Imphal on 11 December 2018. Mary Kom became the most successful boxer at world championships in 2019. At the function, the then Chief Minister of Manipur also declared that the stretch of road leading to the National Games village in Imphal West district, where Kom currently resides, would be named as "MC Mary Kom Road". She was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2020.


title: Mary Kom

text: Kom was born in Kagathei village, Moirang Lamkhai in the Churachandpur district of rural Manipur in India.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Daniel Marc Snyder (born November 23, 1964) is an American businessman and owner of the Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the National Football League (NFL). He bought the team, then known as the Washington Redskins, from Jack Kent Cooke's estate in 1999. Snyder's ownership of the team has been controversial, with accusations of a toxic workplace culture leading to a Congressional investigation, as well as the lack of success sustained by the team.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Snyder was born on November 23, 1964, in Maryland, the son of Arlette (née Amsellem) and Gerald Seymour "Gerry" Snyder. His family is Jewish. His father was a freelance writer who wrote for United Press International and National Geographic. He attended Hillandale Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland. At age 12, he moved to Henley-on-Thames, a small town near London, where he attended private school. At age 14, he returned to the United States and lived with his grandmother in Queens, New York. A year later, his family moved back to Maryland and he graduated from Charles W. Woodward High School in Rockville, Maryland. His first job was at B. Dalton bookstore in the White Flint Mall.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: At 17, Snyder experienced his first business failure when he partnered with his father to sell bus-trip packages to Washington Capitals fans to see their hockey team play in Philadelphia. By age 20, he had dropped out of the University of Maryland, College Park and was running his own business, leasing jets to fly college students to spring break in Fort Lauderdale and the Caribbean. Snyder claims to have cleared US$1 million running the business out of his parents' bedroom with his friend Joe Craig and several telephone lines.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Snyder courted real estate entrepreneur Mortimer Zuckerman, whose "U.S. News & World Report" was also interested in the college market and who agreed to finance his push to publish "Campus USA", a magazine for college students. Zuckerman and Fred Drasner, co-publisher of Zuckerman's New York "Daily News", invested $3 million in "Campus USA". The venture did not generate enough paid advertising and was forced to close after two years.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: In 1989, Snyder and his sister Michele founded a wallboard advertising (the sale of advertisements placed on boards inside buildings) company with seed money from his father, who took a second mortgage on his property in England, and his sister, who maxed out her credit cards at $35,000. They concentrated on wallboards in doctors' offices (where there was a captive audience) and colleges. They combined the advertisements with the distribution of product samples – such as soaps and packages of medicine – to differentiate themselves from their competitors. The company was named Snyder Communications LP. The business was a great success and Snyder and his sister grew the business organically and through acquisitions, expanding its activities to all aspects of outsourced marketing, including direct marketing, database marketing, proprietary product sampling, sponsored information display in prime locations, call centers, and field sales. They expanded their geography from colleges and doctors' offices to hospital maternity areas, private daycare centers, and fixed-base operations (FBO), or private aircraft lounges in major airports throughout the country. In 1992, the company expanded into telemarketing with a focus on the yet untapped immigrant market. Snyder Communications revenues rose from $2.7 million in 1991 to $4.1 million in 1992 and $9 million in 1993. Proprietary product sampling was introduced in 1992 through their network of private daycare centers.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: In an initial public offering for SNC in September 1996, Snyder became the youngest-ever CEO of a New York Stock Exchange listed company at the age of 32. His top investors, including media mogul Barry Diller, New York investor Dan Lufkin, and Democratic Party icon Robert Strauss, earned significant returns on their initial investment. Mortimer Zuckerman and Fred Drasner, whom Snyder owed $3 million from the failure of his first business venture, were given company stock, which ended up being worth over $500 million. His parents sold their stock in the company for over $60 million.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: He continued to expand the company aggressively through a string of acquisitions, including Arnold Communications in 1997. By 1998, the company had over 12,000 employees and $1 billion in annual revenues. In April 2000, Snyder Communications was sold to the French advertising and marketing services group Havas in an all-stock transaction valued at in excess of US$2 billion, the largest transaction in the history of the advertising/market industry. Snyder's personal share of the proceeds was estimated to be US$300 million.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: In May 1999, Snyder purchased the Washington Redskins, along with Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (now FedExField) for $800 million following the death of previous owner Jack Kent Cooke. At the time, it was the most expensive transaction in sporting history. The deal was financed largely through borrowed money, including $340 million borrowed from Société Générale and $155 million debt assumed on the stadium. To pay down the team's debt, in 2003, he sold 15 percent of the team to real estate developer Dwight Schar for $200 million, 15 percent to Florida financier Robert Rothman for a like amount; and 5 percent to Frederick W. Smith, the founder of FedEx, leaving him with a 65 percent ownership interest. In 2020, Snyder blocked the minority owners from selling their combined 35 percent ownership stake to an outside party by exercising his right of first refusal, only offering to buy back the 20 percent held by Rothman and Smith but not the 15 percent owned by Schar. In April 2021, after a period of litigation, Snyder would be approved by the league for a debt waiver of $400 million to acquire the remaining ownership stake held by the three in a deal worth over $800 million.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Since Snyder became owner, the team's annual revenue increased from more than $100 million a year when Snyder took over the team in 1999 to around $245 million by 2005. Snyder has been on six NFL committees, including appointments to the Broadcast Committee, the Business Ventures Committee, the Digital Media Committee, the International Committee, the Stadium Committee and the Hall of Fame Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Since Snyder bought the Washington Commanders, the team has had a losing record (156–212–1 through the end of the 2021 season) and had ten head coaches over twenty-three seasons. Washington has not advanced past the Divisional Round during his tenure. The media allege that his managerial style and workplace culture have indirectly affected the team's performance during his tenure as the principal owner.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Under Snyder, the team sued season ticket holders who were unable to pay during the Great Recession in the late 2000s, despite his claim that there were over 200,000 people on the season ticket waiting list. Partway through the 2009 season, Snyder temporarily banned all signs from FedExField, leading to further fan discontentment. Fans have also expressed discontentment about the game day experience, rising ticket and parking prices, and Snyder's policy of charging fans for tailgates in special areas of the stadium lot.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Since his purchase of the team in 1999, Snyder was repeatedly pressured to change the team's name by numerous fans, politicians, and advocacy groups because "redskin" is a derogatory term for Native Americans . In May 2013, in response to a question regarding the teams' Federal Trademark, Snyder told the "USA Today" "We'll never change the name. It's that simple. NEVER—you can use caps." Snyder refused to meet with Native American advocates for a name change. A pitched public relations battle in 2013 and 2014 led Snyder to employ crisis management and PR firms in an effort to defend the name. Snyder's creation of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation in 2014 was seen as a "cheap effort to buy favor from Indian communities" by activists.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Following renewed attention to questions of racial justice in wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, a letter signed by 87 shareholders and investors was sent to team and league sponsors Nike, FedEx, and PepsiCo urging them to cut their ties unless the name was changed. Around the same time, several retail companies had begun removing Redskins merchandise from their stores. In response, the team underwent a review in July 2020 and announced they would be retiring the name, with a new name and logo to be chosen at a later date. As a team rebranding process usually takes over a year, the team temporarily played as the Washington Football Team for the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The name was changed in early 2022 to the Washington Commanders.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: Threatening a lawsuit in January 2011, Snyder demanded dismissal of "Washington City Paper"s sports writer Dave McKenna, who had penned a lengthy article for the alternative newspaper called "The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder", creating a critical list of controversies involving Snyder. McKenna had been needling Snyder for years in his columns, and the front-page of the article had a defaced picture of Snyder with devil's horns and a beard, an image Snyder claimed was antisemitic. Other sportswriters have come out in support of McKenna. In a statement released by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, while acknowledging that public figures are fair game for criticism, said the artwork used by the "City Paper" was reminiscent of "virulent anti-Semitism going back to the Middle Ages" and urged the "City Paper" issue an apology. Mike Madden of the "City Paper" issued a statement saying they take accusations of antisemitism very seriously and said the artwork was meant to "resemble the type of scribbling that teenagers everywhere have been using to deface photos" and the cover art was not an antisemitic caricature. In February, Snyder filed a lawsuit against the "City Paper" before dropping it in September.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: In 2004, Snyder brokered a deal with the National Park Service to remove old growth trees from the of national parkland behind his home to grant him a better view of the Potomac River, on the condition that Snyder would replace the trees with 600 native saplings. Lenn Harley, a real estate broker who was not involved in Snyder's purchase of the estate but was familiar with the area, estimated that the relatively unobstructed view of the river and its surroundings that resulted from Snyder's clearing could add $500,000 to $1 million to his $10 million home's value. The clearcutting was started without approval from Montgomery County, Maryland, and without environmental assessments, as required by law. As a result, Snyder was fined $100 by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in December 2004. Snyder's neighbors also filed complaints regarding his clearcutting of scenic and historic easements behind his home.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: The NPS ranger who investigated the complaints of Snyder's neighbors and clearcutting along the Potomac was transferred multiple times due to his continued pursuit of the complaints and the Snyder property. Eventually, the NPS ranger filed a whistleblower complaint regarding the Snyder case. Later, the ranger's anonymity as a whistleblower was lost, potentially leading to extreme harassment and a trial of the park ranger, ultimately ending the ranger's career.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: In July 2020, "The Washington Post" published a series of articles alleging that over 40 women who were former employees of the organization, including office workers and cheerleaders, had been sexually harassed and discriminated against by Snyder and other male executives, colleagues, and players of the team since at least 2006. That December, it was also reported that Snyder had settled a sexual harassment claim with a former female employee for a sum of $1.6 million. The alleged incident had occurred on his private plane while returning from the Academy of Country Music Awards in 2009. Two private investigations at the time, by the team and an outside law firm, failed to substantiate the woman's claim, and it was reported that Snyder paid the sum to avoid any negative publicity.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: A year-long independent investigation into the team's workplace culture, led by lawyer Beth Wilkinson, was concluded in July 2021. It found that incidents of sexual harassment, bullying, and intimidation were commonplace throughout the organization under his ownership. The NFL fined the team $10 million in response, with Snyder also voluntarily stepping down from running the team's day-to-day operations for a few months, giving those responsibilities to his wife Tanya. On July 28, 2022, Snyder voluntarily testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform regarding its own investigation on Washington's history of workplace misconduct.


title: Daniel Snyder

text: On December 8, 2022, following a 14 month probe, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform published a report which found that Snyder gave "misleading" answers when he testified about alleged controversies surrounding his team's workplace. The report also accused Snyder of paying former employees "hush money" so they wouldn't come forward with their allegations of abuse which included "sexual misconduct, exploitation of women, bullying of men and other inappropriate behavior," describing it as "commonplace, and that he was a hands-on owner who had a role in nearly every organizational decision.” The report also stated the NFL "has not protected workers from sexual harassment and abuse."