The CBS Building in New York City, also known as Black Rock, is the headquarters of CBS Corporation. The building, opened in 1965, was designed by Eero Saarinen. It is located at 51 West 52nd Street, at the corner of Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas). The 38 story building is 490 feet (150 m) tall and measures approximately 872,000 rentable square feet. The interior spaces, as well as the furnishings were designed by Saarinen and Florence Knoll.

The building is known as Black Rock for the dark granite cladding. Unlike some major skyscrapers built in that section of midtown Manhattan during the 1950s and 60s, the pillars are more dominant than the glass windows between them. The building was the result of intricate planning between Eero Saarinen and CBS's then-president, Frank Stanton.

CBS moved to Black Rock from its longtime corporate headquarters, 485 Madison Avenue at 52nd Street. Prior to Black Rock’s completion, CBS moved its radio network studios - the CBS News network radio studios on the 17th floor of 485 Madison and other studios across the street in the CBS Studio Building - to the CBS Broadcast Center on 57th Street starting in 1964. The TV news studios, based mostly at the Graybar Building at Grand Central Terminal, also moved to the Broadcast Center around that period of time, starting with the CBS Evening News studio-newsroom in 1963.

Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 (a total of 23 years), which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S. broadcast history.

In 1996, Ed Sullivan was ranked #50 on TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time".

Sullivan was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elizabeth F. (née Smith) and Peter Arthur Sullivan, a customs house employee. He was of Irish descent. A former boxer, Sullivan began his media work as a newspaper sportswriter for The New York Evening Graphic. When Walter Winchell, one of the original gossip columnists and the most powerful entertainment reporter of his day, left the newspaper for the Hearst syndicate, Sullivan took over as theatre columnist. His theatre column was later carried in The New York Daily News. His column, 'Little Old New York', concentrated on Broadway shows and gossip, as Winchell's had and, like Winchell, he also did show business news broadcasts on radio. Again echoing Winchell, Sullivan took on yet another medium in 1933 by writing and starring in the film Mr. Broadway, which has him guiding the audience around New York nightspots to meet entertainers and celebrities. Sullivan soon became a powerful starmaker in the entertainment world himself, becoming one of Winchell's main rivals, setting the El Morocco nightclub in New York as his unofficial headquarters against Winchell's seat of power at the nearby Stork Club. Sullivan continued writing for The News throughout his broadcasting career and his popularity long outlived that of Winchell.

Robert William "Bobby" Flay (born December 10, 1964) is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur and reality television personality. He is the owner and executive chef of 12 restaurants: Mesa Grill in Las Vegas, New York City, and the Bahamas (Atlantis Paradise Island, Nassau); Bar Americain in New York City and Uncasville, Connecticut; Bobby Flay Steak in Atlantic City; and Bobby's Burger Palace in Lake Grove, New York, East Garden City, New York, Paramus, New Jersey, Eatontown, New Jersey, Uncasville, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and College Park, MD.

Flay has hosted seven Food Network television programs and appeared regularly on an eighth. He has appeared as a guest on other Food Network shows and hosted a number of specials on the network. Flay is featured on the Great Chefs television series.

Bobby Flay was born in New York to Bill and Dorothy Flay, where he was raised and continues to live. He is a fourth generation Irish American.

At age 8, Flay asked for an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas, against his father's objections, who thought a G.I. Joe would be more gender-appropriate. He ended up getting both.

Robert Shields VC (1827 – 23 December 1864) was a Welsh recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1827 and died in Bombay, India, in 1864.

Shields was approximately 29 years old and a corporal in the 23rd Regiment of Foot (later the Royal Welch Fusiliers) of the British Army during the Crimean War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross:

On 8 September 1855 at Sebastopol, Crimea, near the Redan, Corporal Shields volunteered to go out with Assistant Surgeon William Henry Thomas Sylvester to an exposed and dangerous part of the front, to bring in an officer who was wounded, and was afterwards found to be mortally so.

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. Although he reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombing in World War II, the Nuremberg trials, combat in the Vietnam War,Watergate, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the murders of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr., and The Beatles musician John Lennon, he was known for extensive TV coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of a Moon-rock award. Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase "And that's the way it is," followed by the date on which the appearance is aired.

Cronkite was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the son of Helen Lena (née Fritsche, August 1892 - November 1993), and Dr. Walter Leland Cronkite (September 1893 - May 1973), a dentist. He had remote Dutch ancestry on his father's side, the family surname originally being Krankheyt.