New York City Center
New York City Center is a performing arts center at 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Developed by the Shriners between 1922 and 1924 as a Masonic meeting house, it has operated as a performing arts complex owned by the government of New York City. City Center is a performing home for several major dance companies as well as the Manhattan Theatre Club, and it hosts the Encores! musical theater series and the Fall for Dance Festival annually.
The facility was designed by Harry P. Knowles and Clinton and Russell in the Moorish Revival style and is divided into two parts. The southern section houses a main auditorium, with 2,257 seats across three levels; this auditorium could originally fit over four thousand people, but it has been downsized over the years. Immediately beneath the main auditorium are two smaller theaters, one of which is used by MTC; these occupy what was originally a banquet hall. This section contains an ornate sandstone facade with an alfiz–like entryway made of terracotta, as well as a dome measuring about across. The northern section is much simpler in design, with a largely windowless brick facade, and contains four rehearsal studios and a 12-story office tower.
The Shriners decided in 1921 to construct the 55th Street building after having outgrown their previous headquarters, and the new building was dedicated on December 29, 1924. The Great Depression prompted the Shriners to downsize their activities in the 1930s and relocate out of the building entirely by 1940. New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia and New York City Council president Newbold Morris established the City Center of Music and Drama Inc. to operate the building as a municipal performing-arts venue, which reopened on December 11, 1943. In its early years, City Center housed the City Opera and City Ballet, as well as symphony, dance theater, drama, and art companies. After the City Opera and Ballet relocated to Lincoln Center in the 1960s, the CCMD continued to operate the building until 1976, when the City Center 55th Street Theater Foundation took over operation. City Center largely hosted dance performances during the late 20th century, although it also began hosting off-Broadway shows when the MTC moved to City Center in 1984. The venue was renovated in the 1980s and again in the 2010s.
Site
New York City Center, originally the Mecca Temple, is at 131 West 55th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building's L-shaped land lot covers, extending northward to 56th Street, with frontage of along 55th Street and on 56th Street. City Center abuts the CitySpire office building to the west and 125 West 55th Street to the east. Immediately to the north are Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Hall Tower, Russian Tea Room, and Metropolitan Tower from west to east. Other nearby buildings include 140 West 57th Street, 130 West 57th Street, and the Parker New York hotel to the northeast, as well as the 55th Street Playhouse to the southwest and 1345 Avenue of the Americas to the southeast.The neighborhood was part of a former artistic hub around a two-block section of West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The hub had been developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the opening of Carnegie Hall. Several buildings in the area were constructed as residences for artists and musicians, such as 130 and 140 West 57th Street, the Rodin Studios, and the Osborne Apartments, as well as the demolished Sherwood Studios and Rembrandt. In addition, the area contained the headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society, the Lotos Club, and the American Society of Civil Engineers. By the 21st century, the artistic hub had largely been replaced with Billionaires' Row, a series of luxury skyscrapers around the southern end of Central Park.
When the Mecca Temple was constructed in 1923, the city block had contained garages, stables, and a school. The lots on the southern part of the building's site, at 131–133 West 55th Street, had been used by Famous Players–Lasky Corporation as a movie studio. The two lots on the northern part of the site, at 132 and 134 West 56th Street, contained horse stables.
Architecture
New York City Center was built by the Shriners between 1922 and 1924 as the Mecca Temple, a Masonic house of worship. The building was designed by architects Harry P. Knowles, who died before its completion, in conjunction with the firm of Clinton and Russell. The building's design is Neo-Moorish, although sources have described the 55th Street wing as "Moresco-Baroque" and "delightfully absurd". An article for the Architectural Forum characterized the Shriners' clubhouses in general as "Saracenic".The building contains a steel superstructure. The roof is carried by a large girder measuring long and wide. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission wrote that, at the time, it was the largest piece of steel ever installed in a New York City building.
Form and facade
In keeping with the Shriners' heritage, the City Center building's facade incorporates several motifs inspired by Islamic architecture. Knowles had to work around the irregularly shaped site, and he needed to accommodate meeting rooms, an auditorium, and a banquet hall. As such, he placed the clubrooms and lodge rooms on the northern half of the site, which was narrower and faced 56th Street. The northern portion of the building, at 12 stories high, is also taller than the rest of the building. The auditorium and banquet hall were placed on the wider southern half, facing 55th Street, since these spaces were to be used much more frequently. The southern part of the building has a tiled rooftop dome.55th Street facade
The southern part of the building, which contains the theater, is largely clad with ashlar sandstone and contains a large pointed arch spanning nearly the entirety of the facade. Early plans called for the facade to be laid in contrasting shades of sandstone; ultimately, the building was clad with golden Ohio sandstone. The word "Mecca" was originally inscribed at the top of the large arch. The 55th Street elevation also contains multicolored glazed terracotta tiles originally manufactured by the New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Company. In the early 2010s, a glass-and-steel marquee was installed above the entrance.The entrance consists of an alfiz with an arcade of nine horseshoe arches. The arches are surrounded by a terracotta frieze with ocher, green, and blue foliate motifs. Each of the horseshoe arches in the arcade is supported by pink-veined and gray-veined granite columns and contain voussoirs made of glazed ocher tiles. The tympanum of each arch has multicolored tiles, some of which depict a scimitar and a crescent. There are also metal lamps within the arches. The entryway's design reflects the arrangement of the staircases and lobby inside. The five central arches are grouped together and lead to the theater's lobby. The two horseshoe arches on either side lead to staircases that ascend to the theater's mezzanine and first balcony. On either side of the arcade are double-height sandstone arches, which connect to staircases that lead down to the basement and up to the second balcony.
Each of the arcade's five central doorways is topped by a pair of arched windows on the mezzanine level; these windows are separated by engaged columns and surrounded by an extension of the terracotta frieze. The five center bays are flanked by blue terracotta pilasters and topped by a muqarnas cornice above the mezzanine level. The upper portion of the 55th Street facade is relatively plain in design, except for lancet windows on the sides. The uppermost part of the facade is stepped upward at its center, following the curve of the domed roof, and is topped by a large cornice with dentils. The corners are chamfered at the top; this was intended to serve as a transition between the cube-shaped lower stories and the domed roof.
Domed roof
The theater's domed roof measures wide and tall, with 28,475 pieces of Ludowici Spanish roof tile. Structurally, the roof is composed of four main ribs; between these are twelve smaller ribs, which are supported at their tops by a "ring" just below the top of the dome. Unlike other domes in the United States, it was designed as a true sphere. The lower half of each rib is composed of two chords, while the upper half is made of I-beams measuring thick. The inner chord of the dome rises and has a diameter of ; by contrast, the outer chord has a radius of about.The dome's outer surface consists of a layer of a material called "Nailcrete", which was spread across metal lath; the terracotta tiles were then attached to the Nailcrete. Both the 1922 and 2005 tiles for the structure were produced by Ludowici Roof Tile and colored in a varied blend of reds and ochers. The tiles gradually narrow near the top of the dome, which also makes City Center the only structure in the Northeastern United States with a dome of graduated clay tiles. The top of the dome originally was decorated with a scimitar and a crescent. The roof was renovated in 2005. The refurbished roof includes a waterproof membrane underneath each tile; a steel frame above the membrane; and 8,000 stainless-steel anchors that connect the tiles to the steel frame.
56th Street facade
The 56th Street elevation of City Center's facade was designed in a substantially different manner than that on 55th Street, as the northern part of the building was designed for a different purpose. The facade contains elements of an abstract classical style. At ground level, the facade is made of limestone and contains five arches. The outermost arches are the widest and are connected directly to stage rear, as is the center arch, which is slightly narrower. The second-outermost arches on either side are the narrowest and are flanked by lanterns on either side.The upper 11 stories are clad with yellow brick. The third story contains three windows, which contain sandstone moldings, balconies, and pediments. All the decoration above the third story was made of buff-colored terracotta. The stories above originally contained the Shriners' lodge rooms, so Knowles chose not to add windows, as was typical for office buildings of the time. Instead, on the fourth through ninth stories, the center of the facade contains six vertical piers, which are made of projecting bricks that are angled outward. The side elevations of the northern half of the building contain even less decoration; they largely consist of brick walls with some scattered window openings.