Ed Sullivan Theater
The Ed Sullivan Theater is a theater at 1697–1699 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th streets, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Built from 1926 to 1927 as a Broadway theater, the Sullivan was developed by Arthur Hammerstein in memory of his father, Oscar Hammerstein I. The two-level theater was designed by Herbert J. Krapp with over 1,500 seats, though the modern Ed Sullivan Theater was downsized to 370 seats. The neo-Gothic interior is a New York City designated landmark, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Ed Sullivan Theater was built in conjunction with a 13-story Gothic-style office building facing Broadway. An entrance vestibule and two lobbies lead from the main entrance on Broadway to the auditorium on 53rd Street. The auditorium was purposely designed to resemble a cathedral, unlike other structures that were designed as Broadway theaters. It has a domed ceiling with ribs, as well as walls with stained glass. Though the seating arrangement and stage have been heavily modified from their original design, many of the design elements in the lobbies and auditorium are intact.
Hammerstein operated the theater from 1927 to 1931, when he lost it to foreclosure. For the next five years, the theater was leased to multiple operators as both a theater and a music hall. The theater became a venue for CBS radio broadcasts in 1936, and it was converted to TV broadcasting in 1950. Under the Studio 50 name, the theater housed The Ed Sullivan Show from 1953 to 1971, as well as other shows such as The Garry Moore Show and The Jackie Gleason Show. Studio 50 was renamed after Ed Sullivan in 1967, and Reeves Entertainment used the Sullivan in the 1980s as a broadcast facility. The Sullivan has staged CBS's The Late Show franchise since 1993, first under David Letterman, then under Stephen Colbert since 2015.
Site
The Ed Sullivan Theater is at 1697 Broadway, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. It is on the west side of Broadway between 53rd and 54th streets. The theater building's site is approximately L-shaped and covers. The site has a frontage of about on Broadway and on 53rd Street. The theater building wraps around—filling in the "L"—two commercial structures of five stories each, and the surrounding area typically contains hotels and commercial buildings. Nearby locations include Studio 54 to the northwest, 1717 Broadway to the north, 810 Seventh Avenue to the southeast, the Broadway Theatre to the south, and the August Wilson Theatre to the southwest.Design
The Ed Sullivan Theater was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp and built by Arthur Hammerstein between 1926 and 1927. The theater building consists of two major portions: a 13-story office tower on the narrow Broadway frontage, as well as the auditorium at the rear on 53rd Street. This layout was necessary because New York City building regulations of the 1920s prohibited developers from constructing offices above theaters.Facade
The building has a facade made of brown brick and terracotta. The Broadway elevation of the facade contains the theater entrance and offices, and it is largely designed with Gothic-style glazed terracotta trim. The ground story is elaborately decorated with glazed terracotta blocks. The center of the ground story contains the theater entrance, which has four pairs of recessed bronze-and-glass doors. There is a modern marquee above the entrance, which since 2015 has advertised The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. To the south of the theater entrance is a pointed arch leading to the office lobby. To the north is a pointed arch and a storefront with twisted colonettes., Angelo's Pizza occupied the storefront to the north.The remainder of the Broadway elevation is relatively simple in design. On Broadway, the windows are divided by brick piers into seven bays. There is Gothic ornamentation on the second through fifth floors and atop the facade.
The 53rd Street elevation is divided into three parts from east to west: the office section, the auditorium exit, and a seven-story auditorium facade. The office section to the east is six bays wide and 13 stories high, with the windows on each story being grouped in pairs. The ground story contains a storefront and an entrance to the Ed Sullivan Theater's office lobby, while the top stories contain Gothic ornament. The auditorium exit at the center is three stories high and contains burned stretchers between the red brick. The second story of this section has a fire escape and an arched window. The third story contains a brick pattern with pulled-out bricks, as well as vertical stretchers that are arranged to resemble piers. The auditorium facade at the west is seven stories high, with six window openings on each story. An electrical substation for the New York City Subway exists immediately west of the auditorium.
Interior
The Ed Sullivan Theater is housed in the western portion of the L-shaped site, along 53rd Street. The neo-Gothic auditorium was purposely designed to resemble a cathedral, uniquely among structures that were designed as Broadway theaters. The theater was equipped with ventilating and heating/cooling systems that were advanced designs for the 1920s. In a report about the Ed Sullivan Theater, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission could not identify a reason why the theater was designed in the neo-Gothic style as opposed to the more common Adam or neoclassical styles.The office building lobby has terrazzo-and-marble floors; plaster wall panels with marble wainscoting; a bronze mailbox; a plaster vaulted ceiling. Four elevators lead from the office lobby to the upper floors, and a stair with a cast-iron balustrade also leads up from the office lobby. The office stories were designed with high ceilings and column-free spaces. Each story was originally arranged with a narrow elevator vestibule, which has been replaced on most floors. The office stories were otherwise decorated in a utilitarian fashion. Arthur Hammerstein reportedly kept a bar room in his office. Among the tenants of the office stories are the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting, a New York City government agency on the sixth floor.
Entrance vestibule and lobbies
Generally, the vestibule and lobbies have marble floors, cast-stone wall panels, and cast-iron radiator grilles. The four double doors on Broadway lead west to a small theater vestibule, which is irregular in shape. The floor of the vestibule has marble panels in a rhombus pattern. The vestibule's walls contain baseboards made of veined marble, above which are cast-stone wall panels that are designed to resemble travertine. The walls contain shallow archways. The north wall contains a cast-iron radiator grille in the Gothic style, which is divided by the arches. The west wall has six bronze-and-glass doors leading to the outer lobby. The vestibule contains a Gothic-style vaulted ceiling made of plaster. Foliate corbels support the ribs of the ceiling, while the center of the ceiling contains a flat rectangular panel.The outer lobby is L-shaped and has Gothic design details. As in the vestibule, the outer lobby's marble floor has a rhombus pattern, while the walls have marble baseboards and cast-stone panels. The north and south walls are each divided into three bays, with pairs of piers projecting from either wall. The center bay of the south wall has a three-sided ticket booth, while the westernmost bay on the south wall leads into the inner lobby of the auditorium. The ticket booth projects outward and contains cusped arches with windows, surrounds with Gothic details, and finials. The north wall has cast-iron radiator grilles as well. The west wall contains metal double doors with Gothic tracery, which lead to a service alley, while the east wall contains doors from the entrance vestibule. The ceiling contains transverse ribs, which rise from columns along the north and south walls, dividing the ceiling into coffers. Within each coffer, there are moldings with foliate decoration, as well as rosette bosses.
The inner lobby is rectangular and arranged on a north-south axis, approached via the outer lobby on the north. The marble floor is made of a synthetic stone that is designed to resemble rock pavement. The east and west walls are both divided into three bays by projecting shafts, composed of clusters of columns. The center bay of the west wall is slightly recessed and leads to the orchestra level of the auditorium. On either side are staircases ascending to the balcony, with Gothic-style balustrades. The east and south walls, as well as the undersides of the west wall's staircases, contain marble baseboards, wood wainscoting, and cast-stone wall panels. The center bay of the east wall contains Gothic-style tracery that formerly flanked a statue of Arthur Hammerstein's father, Oscar Hammerstein I. The statue was designed by Pompeo Coppini and was made of bronze. The inner lobby has transverse ribs that divide the ceiling into coffers, with foliate-molded ribs that converge at rosette bosses. The coves of the ceilings are decorated with latticework panels.
Auditorium
The auditorium has an orchestra level, one balcony, and a proscenium arch. The auditorium's width is greater than its depth, and the space is designed with plaster decorations in high relief. Hammerstein's Theatre was originally designed with 1,265 seats., the Ed Sullivan Theater has 370 seats. The Sullivan does not have boxes. The orchestra level was originally raked, but this rake was leveled in subsequent renovations. The auditorium has ten stained glass windows in total, depicting scenes from the elder Hammerstein's opera productions. The stained glass was removed during the run of Late Show with David Letterman, but these were subsequently restored when The Late Show with Stephen Colbert took over.The rear end of the orchestra contains a promenade, which has wooden wainscoting with heraldic shields, as well as cast-stone walls. Clustered columns divide the promenade wall into three bays with Gothic arches. The rear of the orchestra also contains a Gothic-style rail. The side walls of the orchestra contain floating corbels just below the balcony, which divide each wall into four bays. The underside of the balcony contains Gothic-style moldings, including ribs with foliate decoration and ceiling panels that resemble webs. The balcony level is divided into front and rear sections by an aisle halfway across its depth, which contains Gothic railings. The walls are divided into bays by clustered columns, which are topped by capitals with foliate decoration. The outermost bays have exits within pointed archways, while the center bays had stained glass windows inside pointed arches.
There are four-story-tall openings near the front of the orchestra, which resemble apsidal recesses with stained glass windows in them. Near the front of the orchestra, the walls curve inward toward an elliptical proscenium arch. The archway is flanked by Gothic arches with tracery, as well as clustered columns. The capitals of the columns contain foliate decoration and serve as the imposts of the arch. There is a decorated concave panel on the arch itself.
File:Secretary Kerry Makes an Appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in New York City.jpg|thumb|The Late Show with Stephen Colbert stage, with Stephen Colbert interviewing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015
The stage is in front of the arch. The original stage had hydraulic equipment that could lift sets from the basement. The orchestra pit in front of the stage could seat 50 musicians and could descend into the basement; the pit also had a theatrical organ., the auditorium contained a stage that projects into the seating areas. Raised two steps above the stage, left of center, is a desk area used by Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Late Show desk is made of reddish wood and is curved, with shelves to allow him to pull props from under the desk area, as well as a monitor in the desktop. The set also contains balconies above the stage area. Louis Cato and the Late Show Band, the show's in-house band, has their own area on the stage next to Colbert.
The ceiling contains a dome with 30 ribs, which intersect above the center of the auditorium. Each rib contains molded foliate decorations as well as bosses. Midway up the ribs, there is a set of ten latticework grilles between the ribs. A lantern hangs from the center of the ceiling. The five-story dome was covered by ceiling panels when Letterman hosted The Late Show, but they were uncovered in 2015 during Colbert's tenure.