Photo Credit: Roving Rube. Viewpoint: 50th St. just west of 6th Ave.; 3/7/02 8:48 AM.
Notes (Roving Rube): The Rube wondered why -- since there is a Golden Hour in the late afternoon, when it is good to take pictures because of the golden sideways light of the sun -- there is not also another golden hour in the early morning, when the sunlight is similarly sideways.
His artist and scientist friends did not really know, except that they thought maybe the light was paler in the morning, and made more golden in the afternoon by the atmosphere being heated up. Or maybe in the morning people are in a bad mood and things don't look as good.
Whatever. The three brightly-enameled metal roundels on the south side of Radio City look particularly nice when the sun first hits them in the morning, and it is actually the copper details that catch the eye, which this picture unfortunately doesn't quite capture.
The other two roundels are shown in and . Each is 16 feet across; a contemporary critic called them "giant ladies broaches ... enlarged a hundred diameters." (Putting Modern Art in its Place, quoted in New York 1930, Stern, Gilmartin, and Mellins).