New Victory Theater
The New Victory Theater is a theater at 209 West 42nd Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, near Times Square. Built in 1900 as the Republic Theatre, it was designed by Albert Westover and developed by Oscar Hammerstein I as a Broadway theater. The theater has been known by several names over the years, including the Belasco Theatre, Minsky's Burlesque, and the Victory Theatre. The theater is owned by the city and state governments of New York and leased to nonprofit New 42, which has operated the venue as a children's theater since 1995. The New Victory presents theater shows, dance shows, puppet shows, and other types of performance art shows from all around the world.
The New Victory Theater's modern design dates to a 1995 renovation; its facade reflects its appearance in 1900, while the interior incorporates details that were added when David Belasco took over the theater in 1902. The theater has a brick and brownstone facade with a central stoop leading to the second floor. Inside the entrance is a lobby and reception area, as well as a basement with the theater's restrooms, lockers, and concessions. The New Victory Theater's auditorium seats 499 people on three levels, although it originally accommodated over 900 guests. The auditorium is designed in a red-and-gold palette, with green and purple accents, and contains box seats and a decorative domed ceiling. The backstage areas were initially extremely small, but they were expanded into a new wing in 1995.
The theater opened on September 27, 1900, with the play Sag Harbor. Two years later, Belasco leased the theater, renamed it for himself, and completely reconstructed the interior. Although Belasco restored the Republic Theatre name in 1910, he continued to operate it until 1914. A. H. Woods then leased the theater until 1922, when Oliver D. Bailey took over, hosting the play Abie's Irish Rose at the theater for five years. Due to a lack of theatrical productions, Billy Minsky converted the Republic into a burlesque house in 1931, and his family operated it as such until 1942. Afterward, the Republic became a movie theater, the Victory, operated by the Brandt family. The theater became the first adult movie theater on 42nd Street in 1972. New 42 took over the Victory and several neighboring theaters in 1990. Plans for the children's theater were announced in 1993, and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates restored the theater, which reopened on December 11, 1995, as the New Victory.
Site
The New Victory Theater is at 209 West 42nd Street, on the northern sidewalk between Eighth Avenue and Seventh Avenue, at the southern end of Times Square in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. The building occupies a rectangular land lot covering, with a frontage of on 42nd Street and a depth of. The theater abuts 3 Times Square to the east and northeast, as well as the Lyric Theatre to the west and northwest. It also shares the block with the Hotel Carter building, the Todd Haimes Theatre, and the Times Square Theater to the west. Other nearby buildings include 255 West 43rd Street, the St. James Theatre, and the Hayes Theater to the northwest; 229 West 43rd Street and 1501 Broadway to the north; 5 Times Square and the New Amsterdam Theatre to the south; and the Candler Building to the southwest.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 theatre 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 Victory Theater was designed by architect Albert Westover; its current design dates to a 1995 renovation by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. The design of the facade reflects its appearance in 1900, when Oscar Hammerstein I developed the theater. The interior design incorporates details that were added when David Belasco took over the theater in 1902. The theater's interior was intended to be completely fireproof, with marble stairways, artificial stone, and plaster surfaces with wire-net lathing.Facade
The brick and brownstone facade was inspired by Venetian architecture. When the theater was completed in 1900, the main facade measured tall and wide. The New-York Tribune described it as being made of "iron, brownstone, and Powhatan brick". At the front of the theater, a brownstone stoop with two staircases rises from ground level to the second story. Ten wrought-iron street lights decorate the perimeter. The current stoop is a replica of the theater's original stoop, which led to the auditorium's second balcony level; the original lobby was below the original stoop. The original stoop was removed in 1910 before being restored in 1995. The New York City government had to approve the installation of the current stoop because it extends onto the sidewalk of 42nd Street.When Belasco renovated the theater in 1902, he installed a wrought iron and glass canopy in front of the entrance, which was also eliminated in 1910. Prior to the New Victory's restoration, there had been an Art Deco-style marquee in front of the entrance, dating from 1932. This was removed in 1995, along with a piece of the neighboring Lyric Theatre's marquee.
Above the cornice of the theater building are capital letters spelling out "New Victory". Although the theater was originally topped by a colonnade with arches, it was not rebuilt in the 1995 restoration. The modern-day "New Victory" sign occupies the site of the former colonnade. The roof of the theater contained the Paradise Roof Garden, an extension of a garden atop the neighboring Victoria Theatre. It operated until about 1914 or 1915. The garden originally consisted of a "Swiss farm", which was replaced with a "Dutch farm" in 1905. According to The New York Times, the "Dutch farm" was a replica of a Dutch village "complete with water mill, a rooftop space where patrons dined and danced".
Interior
Lobby and lounges
The theater initially had a small reception area, described by the New-York Tribune as "tomblike", which was replaced with a lobby in 1902. The original lobby had oak panelling and wrought-iron doors to the auditorium, Three doors under the original stoop led to a box office, cab office, check room, and information bureau, and two more doors led to the orchestra-level seats. Two staircases with carved balustrades led from the lobby to the first balcony level. By the 1930s, the lobby had been removed, and the main entrance doors led directly to the theater's orchestra level. When the theater was renovated in 1995, the rearmost rows of seating were removed from the auditorium, creating space for the present lobby. A wall was installed between the auditorium and lobby, reducing disruption caused by noise from the street.A staircase and an elevator connect the lobby to other stories. The elevator was installed in the mid-1990s. Because there was so little space within the theater, the elevator had to be built within an alleyway at the eastern end of the theater building. The basement contains the theater's restrooms, lockers, and concessions. During the theater's restoration in 1995, part of the underlying bedrock was excavated to make way for the basement. Prior to its restoration, the Victory Theatre had never been equipped with adequate lounges, concessions, or restrooms.
Auditorium
Seating areas
The original capacity of the Victory Theatre is unclear, with numbers ranging from to 936 to 1,100 given across various sources, although this has since been reduced to an off-Broadway capacity of 499 seats. Seating is across three levels. The decreased capacity reflects the fact that part of the former seating area is occupied by the lobby. In addition, the present-day children's theater did not need a high seating capacity, and modern audiences generally required wider seats. The modern auditorium is a cube measuring around on each side. When it opened as the Theatre Republic in 1900, the auditorium was decorated in green, white, and gold. Belasco repainted the auditorium red, green, and brown in 1902. The New Victory Theater was repainted in a red-and-gold palette, with green and purple accents, during the 1995 renovation. The modern color palette resembles the color scheme introduced in Belasco's 1902 renovation, with lighter tones.The seating areas were originally so steeply raked that The New York Times said "the big-hat question", in which some patrons' large hats obstructed other guests' views, "will never be raised in that house". When Belasco replaced the seats in 1902, he installed seat coverings with bee motifs, a reference to his last initial. The modern-day seats are flanked by wrought-iron stanchions, both with bee motifs. The modern seat coverings are similar in design to those that Belasco installed. HHPA created a custom design for the current carpets in 1995; the original carpets could not be restored due to a lack of documentation.
The auditorium is decorated with woodwork and plaster decorations, which resemble the original decorations in the theater. The auditorium was gilded extensively; the gilding was covered in 1902, before HHPA restored the gilding in 1995. The modern-day decorations consist of motifs such as fleurs-de-lis and laurels, which are made of glazed Dutch metal. At the rear of the second balcony level are control booths. The rear wall of the orchestra and first balcony level, as well as the control booths on the second balcony level, contain sound-absorbing acoustical panels. In addition, the entrance from the lobby and the auditorium's emergency exits have soundproof doors. When Belasco owned the theater, he had installed autumn-themed tapestries on the rear and side walls of the auditorium. He also placed a rosewood partition at the rear of the auditorium. Behind this screen was originally a men's smoking room, as well as one women's lounge on each of the three levels. These rooms were outfitted with then-modern amenities such as telephones and carriage calls.
There are triple-height boxes flanking the stage, above which are golden domes. Originally, there were two boxes on either side of the stage at the orchestra and first balcony levels, while there was one box on either side at the second balcony level. The boxes are topped by lighting fixtures, similar to those that had been installed when Belasco owned the theater. On the ceiling is a large dome that features lyre-playing putti perched on its rim; these putti were removed in 1902 before being restored in 1995. The dome is divided by ribs, with a central motif of a lyre and cherubs at the intersection of the ribs. Its glazed surface is painted amber and ocher. The dome includes an LED chandelier and uplights, as well as ventilation openings. Above the auditorium is the theater's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment; to minimize vibrations, the HVAC equipment is mounted on girders spanning the auditorium's ceiling.