Manhattan transfer

A Kiwi movie star led the charge for an Anzac garden atop New York's Rockefeller Centre that's still in use today.

- CLARE GLEESON

High above Saks Fifth Avenue, an intimate service takes place in a very special garden every April. Designated as a place to remember the dead of two world wars, the Anzac Memorial Garden stemmed from the drive of New Zealand-born Hollywood movie star Nola Luxford and the generosity of Manhattan's Rockefeller family.

Born in the small Rangitikei town of Hunterville in 1895, Luxford became an actress in silent movies and talkies after moving to Los Angeles in 1919. In the 1930s, she became a radio announcer in New York.

When World War II broke out, Luxford threw herself into war relief and fundraising, hosting gatherings for many of the hundreds of young Australians and New Zealanders who flocked to New York on their final leave after pilot and navigator training in Canada.

Luxford initially used her apartment for the parties but as numbers grew she organised the free lease of a room and gathered a group of volunteer helpers. This was the start of the Anzac Club. By the end of the war, some 35,000 men had enjoyed its hospitality and Luxford had been dubbed the "Angel of the Anzacs" by New York's media.

In 1940, she asked the public relations manager of the newly opened Rockefeller Centre if it would be possible to site an Anzac memorial garden on top of one of its buildings. Dominant on the midtown skyline, the original 14 art deco buildings were constructed by businessman and philanthropist John D Rockefeller and designed by leading architects including Raymond Hood, an early proponent of a "city of towers".

Luxford's preference for the garden was atop the British Empire Building, which overlooks Saks Fifth Avenue and St Patrick's Cathedral on one side and the Rockefeller Centre's ice-skating rink on the other. The Rockefeller family agreed.