December 17th marks the 80th anniversary of the AP’s move to The Associated Press Building at 50 Rockefeller Plaza. Although the AP left Rockefeller Center in 2004, Isamu Noguchi’s stainless steel sculpture, News, created for the building, still marks the place where 66 years of AP history unfolded.

People surround the teletype machine at the Associated Press Building on Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, May 10, 1940. (AP Photo/Robert Kradin)

The Associated Press Building at 50 Rockefeller Plaza on November 29, 1938, shortly before the AP moved in on December 17, 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. leased most of the land for Rockefeller Center on a long-term lease from Columbia University in 1928, eventually replacing the 229 brownstones on the site with 14 commercial towers. The 1929 stock market crash and the Depression that followed slowed progress on the development which was not completed until 1940.

This aerial view shows the site of the projected Rockefeller Center in New York, prior to the beginning of demolition works, in June 1930. Two hundred and twenty-nine brownstone buildings are to be demolished in a three block area, stretching from West 48th Street to West 51st Street, and between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, to make way for the $250,000,000 commercial and cultural complex in the heart of New York City. (AP Photo)

The new Associated Press building is shown under construction at Rockefeller Center, New York, May 17, 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

The swiftly growing steel skeleton of the new Associated Press building is shown under construction at Rockefeller Center, New York, June 10, 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives/Joseph W. Brady)

A "topping-out" ceremony - the raising of an American flag on the topmost girder - marked the completion of the steelwork on the 15-story new Associated Press building at Rockefeller Center, New York, June 16, 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives/Joseph W. Brady)

The new Associated Press building is shown under construction at Rockefeller Center, New York, Oct. 8, 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

Below is text from a December 19, 1938 AP story:

Associated Press Occupies New Home; Moves to Rockefeller Center Without Hitch

The Associated Press moved early yesterday morning into its new seventeen-story [sic] home in Rockefeller Center from its old quarters at 383 Madison Avenue. It accomplished the shift without the slightest interruption in its twenty-four-hour collection and distribution of worldwide news for 1,350 member newspapers of the cooperative, non-profit organization.

Transfer of the news department from old to new quarters presented one of the most delicate problems. But it was accomplished at the ebb-time of news, between 2 and 4 A.M. and Associated Press officials reported that there had not been a single hitch.

"Spare" or duplicate equipment was installed in the new home before the news department started on its six-block move. For about two hours the A.P.'s 285,000-mile leased-wire system operated from both old and new headquarters.

Ready for use in case of any emergency, the new wirephoto network was installed. In the old offices and in the new, teletypes pounded away in unison. Reporters remained on duty in the old news rooms while other reporters began to perform their duties in the new.

The change of operations to the new building was accomplished step by step, but rapidly. Teletypes stopped one by one in the old quarters while similar machines in the new building carried on without a break in the news sequence.

Operations in the old building finally were reduced to one main trunk wire. Over it came a last story of the favorite Christmas toy of "Sistie" and "Buzzie" Dall, grandchildren of President Roosevelt.

In a message to The Associated Press staff before the change was made, Kent Cooper, general manager of The Associated Press, said:

The Associated Press Building to which the New York offices are to move is a monument to its newspaper members and its empolyes [sic]. Through ninety years they have mutually striven that an accurate, unbiased chronicle of events, interestingly recorded, be available to newspaper readers. What you have aided in accomplishing in the past must continue in the future, so that “By The Associated Press” shall prevail as long as the rights of a free press continue to make possible an uncensored, unfettered collection and dissemination of truthful news.”

This undated photo shows reporters working at the 383 Madison Ave. office in New York. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

This photo shows the final days of reporters working at the 383 Madison Ave. office prior to the completion of the move to Rockefeller Center in New York, in Dec. 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

Workmen set up teletype machines in the newsroom at the new Associated Press building at Rockefeller Center, New York. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

A workman puts finishing touches on the rear of the vast switchboard - nerve center of the worldwide leased wire system of the Associated Press in the new AP building at Rockefeller Center, New York, Dec. 18, 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

Here is the front of the master switchboard in the new Associated Press building in Rockefeller Center in New York, Dec. 18, 1938. This switchboard, comprising 157 circuits links 285,000 miles of leased wires. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

Workmen set up teletype machines in the newsroom at the new Associated Press building at Rockefeller Center, New York. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

Workers preparing for AP's move to its new headquarters at 50 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, 1938. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives/Joseph W. Brady)

Workers lay cable in floor channels in the market department at Associated Press in the new AP building at Rockefeller Center, New York, in 1938. The market department switchboard and main market operating table are shown.(AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

This photo shows the interior of the print drying room under construction at the new Associated Press building at Rockefeller Center, New York in 1938. Prints come through the wall into tanks from the printing room. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

The newsroom at Associated Press headquarters at 50 Rockefeller Plaza, 1939. (AP Photo/Corporate Archives)

A wirephoto operator for the Associated Press is shown lining up the wirephoto receiver, New York, July 17, 1939. (AP Photo)

AP motorcycle messenger Pete Schivilla departs AP headquarters at 50 Rockefeller Plaza with a photo package destined for one of New York's daily newspapers in March 1939. Although the AP had been transmitting photos by wire for four years, competitive big-city dailies also wanted original prints. (AP Photo/Anthony Camerano)

The new AP building was dedicated on December 25th, 1938 with a dramatization by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), celebrating what was then believed to be AP’s 90th anniversary. Since that time, documents have been added to the AP Corporate Archives which date the AP’s founding to 1846, not 1848.

Actor Raymond Massey performs as Abraham Lincoln for the radio play, "Ninety Years of News", a dramatization by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), celebrating what was then believed to be AP's 90th anniversary, December 25, 1938 in New York. (AP Photo)

This unusual wide-angel view of New York’s Rockefeller Center looks like a photo montage in 1939, but is really a single shot taken from just below the statue of Prometheus. The camera was pointed straight up, taking in 110 degree of sky, building and statue. Just above Prometheus is the RCA building. In clock-wise order come the Time and Life Building, La Maison Francaise, the British Empire Building, the International Building and the Associated Press Building. (AP Photo)

The landmark Christmas tree at New York's Rockefeller Plaza stands out Dec. 26, 1947 as a few hardy pedestrians make their way through the snow drifts of one of the heaviest winter storms in years. (AP Photo/Harry Harris)

Text written by Francesca Pitaro, AP Corporate Archives.

Written content on this post was not created by the editorial department of AP.