Four young members of the Gramercy Boys Club, 535 East 16th St, practice on their homemade Christmas carol instruments. December 3, 1938.

The cover of the December 3, 1949 issue of the Saturday Evening Post showed the view of St. Patrick's Cathedral through the windows of the Rockefeller Center building across the street. Illustration by John Falter.

[From the editors of the December 3, 1949 issue] John Falter chose a Christmas shopping scene that New Yorkers could enjoy to the full, but are apt to miss while endeavoring not to fall downstairs. As you look at the Gothic architecture of St. Patrick’s Cathedral framed in the contrasting modern character of Rockefeller Center’s principal Fifth Avenue building, you are standing in imagination on the edge of the mezzanine floor. But you’d better watch your step or you’ll go down faster than the moving stairs do. The Christmas trees are by courtesy of Falter, who had to sweat while erecting them on his canvas, because he did the painting in steamy weather last summer. And did that give him the energy to do his Christmas shopping early? The last we heard. he hadn’t bought a thing.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on December 3, 1947. Left to right: Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, unknown actors, Jessica Tandy, and Karl Malden.