Threatens Demolition of the Music Hall; Rockettes Kick Up a Storm in City Hall Routine

What's Up? SSTs Over Manhattan By RICHARD EDMONDS Gleaming white against the slate gray overcast sky, two supersonic Concordes thundered over Manhattan's skyline for the first time vesterday morning on an infrequently used arrival route to Kennedy Airport that carried the jetliners at altitudes of 1,000 feet or less over part of Brooklyn and Queens. High-rise office workers saw the rare sight shortly after 10 a.m. as the SSTs, arriving minutes apart from London and Paris, descended from 3,500 feet at the World Trade Center to under 1,000 feet as they flew by the Empire State Building on their electronically guided final approach to landing. The watch supervisor at Kennedy's Common Instrument Flight Rules Room, where arrivals and departures are coordinated for all three metropolitan airports, said that wind conditions had dictated the novel flight paths for safety's sake. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said it was the first time Concordes had approached Kennedy's runways by flying over Manhattan. He added that other arriving aircraft, including the extremely noisy 707 freighters, followed the same path for several hours until the wind changed. New Jersey Lottery Pick It: 674 Straight Payoff: $262.50 Connecticut Lottery Daily: 238 News photo by Frank Russo Rockettes taking steps to save the Music Hall outside City Hall yesterday. Threatens Demolition of the Music Hall By SHERYL Predicting that making the Hall a city landmark would be "the Alton G. Marshall, president of day to apply for a permit to demolish tion was approved. Marshall made the threat at an emotionally charged hearing of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in City Hall, where several hundred spectators most of them supporting landmark designation - heard testimony. Marshall told the commission that the Music Hall management's inability in recent years to fill the 6200-seat auditorium for its movie-stage show format made an alternative use necessary. He cited $10 million losses in recent years. "Landmark designation presents an obstacle to alternate uses that might re- McCARTHY financially ailing Radio City Music last nail in the Music Hall's coffin," Rockefeller Center, threatened yesterthe building if landmark designaquire physical modification, and that obstacle will kill the enthusiasm of persons who may have hopes of alternate plans," Marshall told the commission. The threat brought boos and hisses from the audience, a number of whom made emotional pleas earlier in the hearing for saving the hall and having it named a landmark. Under the landmarks law, the commission has 305 days to come up with an alternative use for a landmark after the owner has applied for a demolition permit on the ground of hardship. If it fails to do so, the Rockettes Kick Up a Storm in City Hall Routine The Rockettes played the steps of City Hall yesterday in the greatest advance for municipal beautification since the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. For a few brief minutes, the old veined faces of the political chorus line were gone. Those men whose brows are permanently imploding with the details of sewer contracts were nowhere to be seen. All you had were these beautiful young women, dressed in street clothes with scarlet sashes across their chests, kicking their legs. Ignore the rain. Spring is here. "Do it again!" one black kid yelled when the women were finished, but they just smiled and turned and went up the steps and into the Hall. Upstairs, owner may proceed with demolition plans. Marshall offered the commission an alternative, however. He told the commission that if it would hold off on approving designation for about eight months the owners of the Music Hall would sign a written agreement promising to make no alterations to the hall's interior in that time without conferring with the commission. The movement to save the Music Hall has been gaining momentum since its owners announced in early January that there was no hope for continuing to operate the hall in its present form. Performances are scheduled to end April 12. PETE HAMILL the Landmark Preservation Commission was meeting to decide the fate of Item No. 1, Tax Map Block 1266, Lot 1 in part, better known as Radio City Music Hall. And the Rockettes were there to support that part of our past that is also their future. "If they can have it get to be a landmark today, that wiil give us enough time to possibly convince Rockefeller that the theater can be run wat a profit," said • Barbara Anne Cittadino, 27, who has been a Rockette for 8½ years. "It's not just the tax advantages, if there are any. But I think a new management, with a little more liberal point of view, would help the theater greatly. I really think there are ways that the theater can be run to make it profitable." She Started at 16 Cittadino first went to the Music Hall on her 16th birthday; she was a student at Lawrence High School in Long Island at the time. "I had started dancing when I was 12," she said, "but I'd never given it any serious thought; it was just something I did after school. But right then I decided I wanted to work there. It was a combination of watching the orchestra pit come up, and .. it was breathtaking. Then we moved down front for the second show, and saw the girls up close, and I felt, you know, I can do that. And that's when I decided to work here. I could do that," And she could. In the years since 1969, she worked four shows a day, seven days a week, one of the mostgrueling schedules in show business; that work now pays about $297 a week, When the Music Hall tried to cut its losses by reducing the stage shows from 52 weeks a year to 38, Cittadino filled in with work in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe and the other places to which live entertainment has emigrated from New York. But New York was never far away. "So Many People Are Concerned" "Working at the Music Hall is like working at home," she said. "The kids love it. And when we had to work on the road, we knew we'd be coming back home. So many people are concerned. We've been having petitions signed, and people come up to us and say, 'Why (Continued on page 26, col. ?)

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Threatens Demolition of the Music Hall; Rockettes Kick Up a Storm in City Hall Routine

Threatens Demolition of the Music Hall; Rockettes Kick Up a Storm in City Hall Routine

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