PRESENTATION COPY OF THE DEDICATION OF ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 1939, WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY ABBOTT AND BOURKE-WHITE, INSCRIBED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER AND WITH ORIGINAL ROCKEFELLER LETTER LAID IN

(NEW YORK CITY) ROCKEFELLER, John D. Jr. and ROCKEFELLER, Nelson. The Last Rivet: The Story of Rockefeller Center, a City Within a City. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940. Quarto, original half maroon cloth, green velvet boards, patterned endpapers, uncut; pp. 45 [1]. Original signed letter measures 8 by 10-1/2 inches.

First edition of the speeches delivered by the Rockefellers, New York mayor LaGuardia and others, at the dedication of Rockefeller Center, illustrated with numerous photographs, including several by Bernice Abbott and Margaret Bourke-White, inscribed, “Jan. 4, 1940. My compliments, John D. Rockefeller, Jr.” Laid in is typed letter, also signed by him, denying a request from a well-connected entertainment figure to sign a copy of The Last Rivet.

This commemorative volume chronicling the building of Rockefeller Center contains speeches by Nelson Rockefeller (president of Rockefeller Center), David Sarnoff (president of the Radio Corporation of America), Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, and industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., among others. The rich photogravures are after images taken of the building by Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, Wendell MacRae and Fritz Henle. Laid in is a typed letter dated November 13, 1947 to A. Sheldon Jaffe, recent owner of New York’s Vanderbilt Theater, who had requested that Rockefeller autograph a copy of Last Rivet, which Jaffe had purchased as a gift for Abe Lastvogel, chairman of the famous William Morris Agency. During World War II, Lastfogel staged USO-Camp Shows with more than 7,000 performers, including Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore and James Stewart. He stood by Edward G. Robinson in the Macarthy witch hunt and fought against racism that denied Sammy Davis Jr. from his own TV series. Rockefeller politely declines, saying that “everyone has some pet foible… Mine has always been an aversion to giving my photograph or autograph, which aversion— rightly or wrongly— has led me all my life to refrain, practically without exception, from so doing.” Presumably, this makes these signed items all the more scarce. Without fragile dust jacket.

A near-fine copy, with light rubbing to extremities of original binding. Fold lines of letter repaired on verso with tape.