Watch It Made Blog

Posts for November 2010

Got the little-town blues? Will those vagabond shoes set foot in New York City this holiday season? If so, remember the showbiz tours you can find right in Manhattan. Entertainment has been a leading industry in the United States for nearly a century, and New York is one of its hubs.

An obvious first stop is the tour of NBC Studios at the famous address 30 Rockefeller Plaza. NBC has been running tours here since the 1930s. These days, the tour lasts a little over an hour and takes you to any among several studios that are not in use at the time; these may include the sets of The Today Show, Saturday Night Live, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. While you are at Rockefeller Center, you can also tour Radio City Music Hall. Attractions here include an up-close look at the backstage workings of this famous venue and a chance to meet one of the Rockettes.

Also in Manhattan is the Sony Wonder Technology Lab at 550 Madison Avenue. Communications technology, both past and current, is the subject here. Children especially will love the robots and the interactive displays that illustrate the workings of various technologies, including televisions, video cameras, and digital sound production.

Outside Manhattan, in Queens, you can sample a much older type of music technology: the piano, as made by Steinway & Sons in its factory at 1 Steinway Place, Long Island City. While it takes a year to make a Steinway piano, that does not mean production is sluggish: at any given moment, nearly 3,000 pianos are being made. The factory tour shows you some of the highlights of their construction.

Of course, many more factory-tour ideas for New York, New Jersey, New England, and every other region of the U.S. are available in the pages of Watch It Made in the U.S.A.
Posted By Karen Axelrod Nov 9, 2010