1211 Avenue of the Americas anchors the southwest corner of Rockefeller Center. Rockefeller Group Development Corporation completed the 45-story tower in 1973, culminating a westward expansion that included two adjoining towers — the McGraw-Hill Building at 1221, and the Exxon Building at 1251, completed respectively in 1972 and 1971.

This westward expansion began with the 1959 completion of the Time & Life Building at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, and it increased Rockefeller Center’s rentable office space more than twofold. Rockefeller Group Development Corporation later expanded Rockefeller Center further westward with the 2001 completion of the 745 Seventh Avenue, the 1-million-square-foot global headquarters of Lehman Brothers, Inc.

The street-level spaces of 1211 Avenue of the Americas exude New York dynamism. The News Corporation, the building’s anchor tenant, operates its Fox News studio at the northeast corner, beneath a perpetual stream of headlines that traverse Fox’s wrap-around zipper.

The Rockefeller Group developed the building as headquarters for the Celanese Corporation, and sold its interest in 1980.