The Beacon Theatre is an entertainment venue at 2124 Broadway, adjacent to the Hotel Beacon, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Opened in 1929, the Beacon Theatre was developed by Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and built as a movie palace, with 2,894 seats across three levels. It was designed by Walter W. Ahlschlager with decorations inspired by the Renaissance, Ancient Roman, Ancient Greek, and Rococo styles. The theater is designated as a New York City interior landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The facade is relatively plain and is made of brick and stone, with a marquee above its entrance on Broadway. The outdoor ticket booth leads to a vestibule and a multi-story rotunda lobby under the hotel, with a mural by Danish artist Valdemar Kjoldgaard in the lobby. The auditorium is in an adjacent structure on the eastern part of the site, near 75th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The auditorium's side walls have ornate arched doorways and murals, while the multicolored ceiling has a chandelier. The proscenium arch has Greek columns and is flanked by large statues. The orchestra pit has a Wurlitzer organ, one of three in a theater in Manhattan.
The theater was originally proposed in January 1927 as the Roxy Midway Theatre. Roxy severed his involvement and Warner Bros. took over the theater, opening it on December 24, 1929. The Central Amusement Corporation took over the Beacon in 1932, and Brandt Theatres assumed operation in 1944, running it for three decades. The theater started presenting live entertainment in 1966, and Steven Singer and Barry Kerr renovated it into a rock venue in 1974. After Singer's bankruptcy, Kazuko Hillyer turned the theater into a performing arts center in 1976. Following a failed attempt to convert the Beacon into a nightclub and restaurant in 1986, the theater remained in use as a live music and entertainment venue. Madison Square Garden Entertainment took over in 2006 and renovated the Beacon shortly afterward.
Over the years, the Beacon has hosted numerous concerts. Some acts have appeared for extended residencies, including the Allman Brothers Band. It has also hosted other types of live performances, including dance troupes and plays. The Beacon has additionally been used for broadcasts, tapings, films, and ceremonies such as the Tony Awards.
Description The Beacon Theatre is at 2124 Broadway, along the east side of the avenue between West 74th and 75th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The theater is part of the Hotel Beacon building and was designed by Walter W. Ahlschlager for Samuel L. "Roxy" Rothafel. The Beacon's auditorium is mostly along the rear of the hotel, facing Amsterdam Avenue to the east and 75th Street to the north, although the main entrance is on Broadway to the west. The theater and hotel are near several other buildings such as The Ansonia apartments to the southwest, The Astor apartments to the northwest, and the Central Savings Bank Building to the south.
The Beacon Theatre had been designed as a miniature version of the earlier Roxy Theatre in Midtown Manhattan, which Ahlschlager also designed. Whereas the Roxy Theatre had been designed with Moorish and Renaissance-inspired elements, the Beacon contains a variety of styles, including Renaissance, Ancient Roman, Ancient Greek, and Rococo-inspired elements. Danish artist Valdemar Kjoldgaard designed numerous murals for the Beacon as well. When the theater opened, Women's Wear Daily described Kjoldgaard's murals as being "themselves worth a king's ransom". A reporter described the theater in general as "a true bit of on Broadway", while another critic called the theater's interior "like walking into an Arab sheik's tent".
Facade
The Beacon Theatre's entrance and lobby are within the hotel building, while the auditorium is in its own structure to the east. The hotel's facade is plain in design, and the theater's entrance is on the southern section of the hotel's Broadway facade. Above the theater's marquee, the hotel building contains arched windows on the second floor and a brick facade on upper stories.
The facade of the auditorium faces 75th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where the first floor is made of stone and the upper stories are made of brick. Both facades have blind openings without any windows. There are horizontal band courses above the first and fifth floors, corresponding to those on the hotel's facade, as well as an arcade near the auditorium's roof. On 75th Street, there is a large arch at the center of the facade, with a stone frame, along with three blind arches on the fifth-story band course above it. On Amsterdam Avenue, there is a large stone-framed ogee arch at the fifth story, along with four blind arches to the sides. A stepped gable rises atop the auditorium's Amsterdam Avenue facade.
Interior
Lobbies
Under the theater's marquee is a semicircular outdoor ticket lobby with tile flooring, which is recessed from the sidewalk. There is a ticket booth in the middle of the outdoor ticket lobby. The ticket booth was originally gilded and was made of marble, glass, and metal. Prior to its renovation in 2009, the ticket booth had been painted over several times. East of the outdoor ticket booth are glass and metal doors, topped by transom windows, which lead to an indoor vestibule. This vestibule has a low ceiling with lamps and Renaissance-style molded bands. The north wall contains mirrors and signs, while the south wall has another ticket booth and an office. The doors to the west (leading from the street) and to the east (leading to the main lobby) both curve into the vestibule.
East of the vestibule is a circular rotunda with Rococo-inspired decorations. The rotunda ceiling is as high as the auditorium itself; it contains moldings of rosettes and coffers, as well as a large chandelier hanging from its center. The western wall of the rotunda, which leads from the entrance vestibule, contains fluted pilasters on either side. Above the doorways is a landscape mural by Valdemar Kjoldgaard. Some time before a renovation in 2008, the mural had been covered with wallpaper, though the artwork was restored during the renovation. On the eastern wall of the rotunda is a passageway flanked by Ionic-style pilasters, which reach from the floor to the ceiling. Above the passageway is a decorative panel, as well as an archway with full-height colonettes on the mezzanine and balcony levels.
On either side of the passageway on the rotunda's eastern wall are Rococo-style stairways. The lowest flight connects to the mezzanine level. Two more flights provide access to both the bottom and the top rows of the steeply raked balcony.
Auditorium
The auditorium has three levels of seating and a proscenium arch. The space is designed with both sculpted decorations and murals by Kjoldgaard. , the Beacon Theatre has 2,894 seats. The theater's operator, MSG Entertainment, classifies the mezzanine level directly above the orchestra as a loge level. Two stories above the orchestra is the balcony level, which is divided into two sections: a lower balcony in the front and an upper balcony in the back. When the theater opened, there was a smoking-room balcony behind the auditorium, with ventilation ducts in the ceiling. There was also a fireproof projection booth in the rear. The original seats were characterized as "fully upholstered" folding seats with large amounts of legroom.
The side walls of the orchestra contain ornate arched doorways. Above each of the arches are theatrical masks, which are flanked by swags and cartouches. Above these arches are the balcony's side walls, which are divided into two bays by fluted pilasters. Each bay contains a piece of a mural by Kjoldgaard; according to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, these represent "oriental scenes with caravans of elephants, camels, and traders". The ceiling above the front of the auditorium contains a red, gold, green, and blue color scheme and is designed to resemble the draped roof of a tent. A Venetian-style chandelier hangs from the center of the ceiling.
The proscenium arch consists of Doric-style columns on either side, supporting the top of the proscenium. The latticework of the proscenium had openings for the sound coming from the theater's organ. Flanking the proscenium are bronze female figures, which measure and depict Greek goddesses. Women's Wear Daily described these figures as "heroic-size bronzes of Amazons with spear and shield". Above the proscenium are green and gold plaster draperies. The theater originally had a curtain that contemporary media described as the only "contour curtain" in a movie theater in the United States.
The Beacon also retains its original Wurlitzer organ in its orchestra pit. The organ was manufactured in 1928 and contains four manuals and 19 ranks. The Beacon is one of three theaters in Manhattan that retains its original organ, along with Radio City Music Hall and the United Palace. The organ was abandoned by the early 1960s, but it was not removed because the removal cost was too high for the theater's operators. The organ was restored in 1967 and remained in use at the Beacon until it was sealed in 2009.
Elevator
Since 2007, more than 2,000 performers have been encouraged to sign their name on the walls of an elevator inside the venue. Signers include Jerry Seinfeld, Bono, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, Dan and Phil, Trevor Noah, Ben Schwartz, and Eddie Vedder. There are a total of three stage elevators inside the venue: one for the main stage, one for the orchestra pit and one for the Wurlitzer organ.
History Movie palaces became common in the 1920s, between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression. In the New York City area, only a small number of operators were involved in the construction of movie palaces. These theaters' designers included the architects Walter Ahlschlager, Thomas W. Lamb, C. Howard Crane, and John Eberson. Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel was a successful theater operator who was prominent in the city's movie theater industry, having built the 5,920-seat Roxy Theatre on 50th Street in midtown during 1927. The Chanin brothers also had some experience in theatrical development, having built six Broadway theaters in the mid-1920s.
Movie palace
Development and opening
The Chanins acquired a site on 75th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in 1925 for the construction of a hotel and an attached theater. Two years later, in January 1927, the Chanins sold the site to the Havemeyer Construction Company. Film producer Herbert Lubin negotiated the sale on behalf of Roxy, who would operate the theater on the site, known as the Roxy Midway Theatre. Roxy retained Ahlschlager to design the new hotel and theater, and the Chanins were hired as the consulting engineers for the project. The sale came one month after Lubin established the Roxy Circuit, which planned to operate numerous movie theaters in New York City, with the midtown Roxy Theatre as its flagship. In April 1928, S. W. Straus & Company underwrote a $4.45 million loan on the Midway project, which at the time was nearly completed. An airway beacon was placed on top of the hotel, and the project was renamed the Midway Beacon, a name that was kept as late as June 1928.