New Amsterdam Theatre
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater at 214 West 42nd Street, at the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. One of the first Broadway venues to open in the Times Square neighborhood, the New Amsterdam was built from 1902 to 1903 to designs by Herts & Tallant. The theater is operated by Disney Theatrical Productions and has 1,702 seats across three levels. Both the Beaux-Arts exterior and the Art Nouveau interior of the building are New York City landmarks, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The theater's main entrance is through a 10-story wing facing north on 42nd Street, while the auditorium is in the rear, facing south on 41st Street. The facade on 42nd Street is made of gray limestone and was originally ornamented with sculptural detail; the rest of the facade is made of brick. The lobby within the office wing leads to a set of ornamental foyers, a reception room, and men's and women's lounges. The elliptical auditorium contains two balconies cantilevered above a ground-level orchestra. Above the main auditorium is a now-disused roof theater, which opened in 1904 and also served as a studio. The theater has a steel frame and was designed with advanced mechanical systems for its time.
The New Amsterdam Theatre was named for the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, the precursor to New York City. Klaw and Erlanger operated the venue for more than two decades after its opening on October 26, 1903. From 1913 to 1927, the New Amsterdam was the home of the Ziegfeld Follies, whose producer, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., maintained an office in the building and operated the theater on the roof. Erlanger bought Klaw's ownership interest in 1927, and the New Amsterdam was converted into a movie theater in 1937, in which capacity it served until 1983. The Nederlander Organization tried to redevelop the theater for ten years as part of the 42nd Street Development Project. It was then leased by The Walt Disney Company and renovated by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer from 1995 to 1997. After Disney took over the New Amsterdam's operation, the theater hosted the musical The Lion King, followed by Mary Poppins and Aladdin.
Site
The New Amsterdam Theatre is at 214 West 42nd Street, between Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue near the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The land lot is irregularly shaped and covers, extending between its two frontages on 41st and 42nd Streets. The main frontage on 42nd Street measures wide, and the 41st Street frontage measures wide. Originally, the 42nd Street frontage was only wide; the developers, Abraham L. Erlanger and Marcus Klaw, wanted the more prominent 42nd Street frontage as the main entrance. The lots comprising the site had previously been owned by Samuel McMillan and the Johnson estate.The city block includes 5 Times Square to the east and the Candler Building, Madame Tussauds New York, Empire Theatre, and Eleven Times Square to the west. The Todd Haimes Theatre, Times Square Theater, Lyric Theatre, New Victory Theater, and 3 Times Square are across 42nd Street to the north, and the Nederlander Theatre is to the south. An entrance to the New York City Subway's Times Square–42nd Street station, served by the, is next to the theater.
The surrounding area is part of Manhattan's Theater District and contains many Broadway theaters. In the first two decades of the 20th century, eleven venues for legitimate theater were built within one block of West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The New Amsterdam, Harris, Liberty, Eltinge, and Lew Fields theaters occupied the south side of the street. The original Lyric and Apollo theaters, as well as the Times Square, Victory, Selwyn, and Victoria theaters, occupied the north side. These venues were mostly converted to movie theaters by the 1930s, and many of them had been relegated to showing pornography by the 1970s.
Design
The New Amsterdam Theatre was designed by architects Herts & Tallant and developed for Klaw and Erlanger from 1902 to 1903. It was built by the George A. Fuller Company. The facade is designed in the Beaux-Arts style with Art Nouveau elements, and the theater's interior is an early example of architectural Art Nouveau in New York City. Decoration was carried out by more than a dozen artists. The decorative scheme predominantly depicted three topics: the history of New York City prior to 1903, including its original history as the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam; the history of theater; and the floral and foliage motifs often seen in theaters. The design also included elements of classicism.The theater consists of a 10-story tower with offices, on the narrow 42nd Street frontage, and an auditorium at the rear, on 41st Street. The tower was developed to house Klaw and Erlanger's booking activities. The two sections are connected by a one-story passageway at ground level. The New Amsterdam Theatre's building housed two theaters when it opened: the main 41st Street auditorium as well as a rooftop theater.
Facade
The primary elevation of the facade, on 42nd Street, is made of gray limestone with a steeply pitched roof made of red tile. The theater's entrance is a triple-height segmental arch; the stories above contain offices. The office wing measures tall. The 41st Street elevation contains the stage doors and is clad with plain brick, since the architects thought the public would seldom see that elevation. The side walls of the office wing on 42nd Street are also constructed of brick because the architects had anticipated that high-rise buildings would be constructed on either side. Fire escapes are placed across the theater wing's exterior on 41st Street.Theater entrance
On 42nd Street, the triple-height arch had rusticated stone piers on either side. The original entrance was a double door with transom windows made of leaded glass, above which was a sign with the theater's name. The sign was ornately decorated and, at night, was illuminated by lights on the upper stories. The second and third stories contain bronze-framed windows with flower and vine decorations. The original doors were removed around 1937, but the second- and third-story windows still exist. The entrance vestibule, originally immediately inside the doors, contained green tiles and relief panels by St. John Issing. The vestibule was reconfigured as an outdoor space when the original entrance doors were removed; it contains a ticket booth on its western side.The arch at the second and third stories was initially highly decorated, but the decorations were all removed in 1937 to make way for a marquee. At the second floor were yellow-and-gray Montreal marble columns. These were topped by bronze capitals designed by Enid Yandell, which contained four heads depicting the ages of drama. The top of the arch at the third story originally had a keystone carved by Grendellis and Ricci, with a garland depicting oak, laurel, and ivy. Above was a cornice with modillions, as well as a group of sculptures by George Gray Barnard, depicting five figures linked by garlands. Cupid and a woman stood on one side of the central figure, a female personification of drama; Pierrot and a knight stood on the other side.
Office stories
The office stories along the 42nd Street elevation are three bays wide. The fourth through sixth stories contain simple fenestration, but the seventh-story windows are taller than those on the three preceding stories. On the seventh story there is a frieze with winged heads below it, as well as pilasters topped by capitals with floral decorations. Grendellis and Ricci designed terracotta panels for the arched pediments above the seventh-story windows, which represent dance, declamation, and song. At the ninth story, decorated pilasters flank the windows, and a frieze runs above the windows, with the year "1903" carved into it.The tenth story contains a central projecting dormer, containing a decorated pediment, as well as a smaller dormer in either of the side bays. The peak of the central dormer contains a mask with garlands. It was originally flanked by representations of drama and music. These figures held up a shield silhouetted against the sky. Herts & Tallant did not include a cornice on the facade, since they felt such a feature was unsuitable for office buildings.
Interior
The New Amsterdam Theatre was among the first non-high-rise buildings in New York City with a steel superstructure. The structural frame is made of of steel. According to a 1903 source, the frame is made of approximately 270,000 steel pieces, which required about 7,500 engineering drawings. There were originally also 57 cantilevers and 38 electric lifts. The side walls of the office wing are non-bearing walls. The tower wing was used as offices for Klaw and Erlanger and later Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.The theater was also mechanically advanced for its time, with heating, cooling, and vacuum-cleaning systems, as well as a fireproof structural frame. The auditorium alone had a volume of and was indirectly heated by fans in the subbasement. The ventilation system included air plenums on 41st Street, a fan, a silk filter, and a heater that moistened the air to natural levels of humidity. The air could be completely changed in ten minutes. Air was distributed through the floors and walls, and it was exhausted through disc fans above the auditorium. Three telephone systems were installed to allow communications between different parts of the theater. These mechanical systems were completely replaced between 1995 and 1997. The new mechanical systems do not intrude upon the original design, except for a light grid above the proscenium of the auditorium.
Lobby
Leading from the 42nd Street entrance vestibule is the lobby, which runs under the office wing; the space contains curving Art Nouveau-style floral motifs. The eastern wall contains bronze office and elevator doors. The remainder of the wall contains marble panels, separated by terracotta pilasters that were designed by Neumark of Bremen and carved by Grendellis and Ricci. There are mirrored panels above the marble on the western wall.Above the walls are twelve terracotta panels designed by Roland Hinton Perry, which form a frieze. Those on the eastern wall depict scenes from Shakespeare's plays, and those on the western wall depict scenes from operas by Richard Wagner. A scene from Faust is depicted over the entrance on the north, and Greek drama is depicted over the doorway to the auditorium foyer on the south. The coffered ceiling is made of wood and originally contained plaster-and-leaded-glass chandeliers, which have since been replaced by simpler fixtures. The elevators lead to the auditorium's mezzanine and upper balcony levels.