Rockefeller Center’s Channel Gardens deserve inclusion in this volume as an example of “vibrant and multidimensional spatial ecology.” Mid-way between 49 and 50th streets, facing the Saks department store and diagonally across St. Patrick’s Cathedral, this 60-by-200-foot pedestrianPedestrians link between Fifth Avenue and the iconic Sunken Plaza is framed by the British Empire Building and Maison Française, hence its enduring nickname. Historical scholarship and social commentary can help us analyze, contextualize, and appraise how and why its epoch-making original design—which fortunately benefits from strong landmark protections since 1985—has been the locus of increasingly spectacular and debatable internal makeovers and public artPublic art installations. One of the greatest symbols of America’s recovery from the Depression, Rockefeller Center turned economic challenges into opportunities: in order to complete construction, its management was compelled to recruit high-end tenants in Europe, who added to its cosmopolitan cachet, and to convert the Sunken Plaza from a shopping concourse into a skating rink, which was less profitable but more beneficial in terms of public outreach and which increased the flow of visitors using the Channel Gardens. This chapter focuses on the design principlesDesign principles of this masterpiece of urban scenography: gradation in height, massing and setbacks from the eight-story French and British blocks to the 66-story RCA (now Comcast) tower; pedestrianization and belowground accommodation of automobile traffic, parking and deliveries; provision of greenery in a section of Manhattan deprived of open spacesOpen space; design unity through uniform stone claddings for buildings and pavements.