The United Palace (originally Loew's 175th Street Theatre) is a theater at 4140 Broadway in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The theater, occupying a city block between Broadway, Wadsworth Avenue, and West 175th and 176th Streets, is both a house of worship and a cultural center. Thomas W. Lamb designed the theater as a movie palace, which opened on February 22, 1930, as one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area. The theater's interior decor, incorporating elements of numerous architectural styles, was supervised by Lamb and Harold Rambusch. Like the other Wonder Theaters, the United Palace features a "Wonder Morton" theater pipe organ manufactured by the Robert Morton Organ Company.
The theater was built specifically to present films and live shows, the latter of which were discontinued shortly after the theater opened. The theater operated until 1969, when the television evangelist Rev. , better known as Reverend Ike, acquired it. The theater became the headquarters of his United Church Science of Living Institute and was renamed the United Palace. Latin American music acts began using the theater in the 1990s, and the United Church began renting the theater out as an event venue in 2007. Various parts of the theater, such as the movie screen and sound system, have been upgraded gradually during the 2010s and 2020s.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as a city landmark in 2016. The church is called the United Palace of Spiritual Arts, and it offers performing arts events through the United Palace of Cultural Arts. When the Loew's 175th Street Theatre was in operation, Hollywood stars appeared at the theater to host films. In addition to concerts, the theater hosts other events such as graduation ceremonies, film shoots, meetings, and recording sessions. Critics have written about the mixture of architectural styles used in the building's design.
Description The theater was designed by Thomas W. Lamb and occupies a full city block in Washington Heights, Manhattan, between Broadway, 175th Street, Wadsworth Avenue, and 176th Street. The structure is divided into two sections: the auditorium portion, which occupies much of the block, and the retail and office portion, which occupies the northwestern corner and runs parallel to Broadway. The Loew's 175th Street Theatre was one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York City area,; along with the Jersey Theatre in Jersey City, the Paradise Theatre in the Bronx, the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, and the Valencia Theatre in Queens. Along with the Valencia and Paradise, the United Palace is one of three Wonder Theatres that are used as churches in the 21st century.; The United Palace was also the last Wonder Theatre to be completed and the only one without a specific architectural style.
The United Palace is one of three theaters in New York that were designed by Lamb with Asian–influenced decorations. The other two theaters are the State Theatre in Syracuse and the Pitkin Theatre in Brooklyn; the designs of both the 175th Street and Pitkin theaters are derived partially from the State Theatre. The United Palace's design also incorporates elements of Aztec, Classical, Egyptian, Islamic, Mayan, and Mughal architecture. Lamb himself wrote that he used exotic decorations to stimulate visitors' minds. At the time of the United Palace's construction, the American public was increasingly becoming interested in Asian culture. A writer for The New York Times Magazine stated that the design may have been inspired by both the Alhambra palace and the Kailasa Temple.
Facade The United Palace has an ornate terracotta facade. Similarly to the Pitkin Theater, the United Palace's facade is decorated with niches, pilasters, and panels with curving and geometric motifs; the facade also bore similarities to that of the demolished Loew's Triboro Theatre in Queens. The facade is decorated with hexagonal shapes in a pattern known as muqarnas., p. 286 There is a cupola or prayer tower, topped by a star, above the northeast corner of the roof. The elaborate ornamentation was intended to entice patrons inside. The historian Ben M. Hall wrote that the theater was "built to be viewed—and admired—from all sides" because there were decorations on all four elevations of the facade.
Auditorium portion The entrance protrudes from the western, or Broadway, elevation of the facade. The theater's entrance is at the southern end of the facade's Broadway elevation. There is a marquee wrapping around the chamfer at the theater's southwest corner. Underneath the marquee are two recessed sets of doors made of bronze and glass, as well as a soffit with lights. Between the two sets of doors are a ticket booth with a marble base and bronze frames, topped by cusped arches. There are rusticated blocks with elaborate terracotta ornamentation on either side of the doorways, as well as a signboard above the doorways. Above the marquee is a terracotta panel shaped like a ziggurat. The central panel, in turn, is flanked by two pairs of pilasters with ornate capitals, and there is a niche between each pair of pilasters. A vertical sign is mounted in front of the pilasters to the right (south). The top of the entrance pavilion on Broadway is decorated with an elaborate parapet. There is a smaller two-story pavilion to the left (north) of the main entrance, which has display cases at ground level and a pointed arch with a niche on the second story.
The auditorium has a seven-story-high facade on 176th Street to the north, which occupies the eastern portion of the block. At ground level are four doorways, some display cases, and recessed panels surrounded by terracotta frames. The westernmost portion of the auditorium facade on 176th Street contains windows on the second through seventh stories. The rest of the facade has no windows. Terracotta pilasters divide the upper stories vertically into several wide bays; the theater's cupola rises above the eastern end of the building. The eastern elevation on Wadsworth Avenue has rusticated facade at ground level, with doorways and blind window openings. The upper section of the Wadsworth Avenue facade has a fire escape but is otherwise similar in design to the remaining elevations of the facade. The marquee above the main entrance on Broadway wraps around to the southern elevation on 175th Street.
Retail and office portion The northern portion of the Broadway elevation is part of the retail and office section. At the southern end of this section (just to the left of the main theater entrance) is a recessed double door. The rest of the ground-level facade on Broadway has storefronts with roller shutters. There are window sills with foliate ornament beneath the second-story windows. The windows on that story are separated by pilasters. There are ornamental bands atop the second-story windows, with foliate ornament, geometric motifs, and rosettes. A pitched roof runs above the second story. The northwestern corner of the building has a chamfered corner. The western section of the 176th Street elevation, to the north, is similar in design to the northern portion of the Broadway elevation, except that there is an asymmetrical entrance, and the ground story lacks storefronts on 176th Street.
Interior
Lamb collaborated on the interior design with Harold Rambusch, who had also designed the interiors of Radio City Music Hall and the Waldorf Astoria New York. Rambusch, who regarded movie palaces as "social safety valves", sought to use the theater's elaborate ornamentation to attract visitors. The interior was originally described as being designed in the "Indo–China" style, with Asian-inspired decorations. There are hand-carved and filigreed walls and ceilings, along with and XVI furnishings. The spaces are illuminated by indirect, recessed lighting from within and behind the walls, in addition to large Baroque–style chandeliers. The building retains its original elevator, which is accessible upon special request and has red-and-gold walls and a sky-blue ceiling.
Lobby and secondary spaces The lobby is a double-height space with balconies surrounding it. A grand staircase connects the ground level with the mezzanine. At the top of the staircase is a silhouette of a goddess with rays emanating from behind her. There is an Oriental–styled mezzanine promenade behind the auditorium, which is decorated with paintings, sculptures, and other artwork. The wall has balconettes that are designed to resemble brass grilles, though they are made of plaster. The mezzanine level also has a men's smoking lounge. When Reverend Ike converted the theater into a church in 1969, the smoking lounge became his personal library. A similar women's lounge on the same level was later used for storage.
Auditorium The auditorium, designed in the Byzantine and Romanesque styles, seated over 4,000 people in its heyday. The seating capacity has been downsized over the years to about 3,400 seats by the 21st century. The seats are spread across a parterre-level orchestra and a balcony level. The balcony itself is split into three sections: a main balcony, an upper loge, and a lower loge. There are niches decorated with bodhisattvas. The auditorium also has rosettes, acanthus leaves, and tendril motifs that depict birds, cherubs, lions, centaurs, griffins, and buraqs.
The auditorium originally was a single-screen theater, with a wide screen similar to those in the other Wonder Theaters. It had a double stage and three lifts in the orchestra pit. The orchestra lifts could be raised to create an extension of the theater's stage. There were also large openings below the stage to allow scenery to be moved. Like the other Wonder Theaters, the Loew's 175th Street featured a "Wonder Morton" theater pipe organ manufactured by the Robert Morton Organ Company. The organ featured a console with 4 manuals and 23 ranks of pipes. The United Palace's organ, which is seven stories high, is the only Wonder Theater organ that remains in use. Events featuring "Live Organ" accompaniment used an electronic organ. After World War II, the organ was sealed for 25 years and was not rediscovered until 1970. The piano, chairs, and organ could be moved to make way for scenery. The organ console remains in place; it was inoperable for decades but was restored in the 2020s.
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 legitimate-theater architects Thomas W. Lamb, C. Howard Crane, and John Eberson. By the late 1920s, numerous movie palaces were being developed in outlying neighborhoods in New York City; previously, the city's movie palaces had been concentrated in Midtown Manhattan.
Development In 1924, Len Cohen of Loew's Inc. began acquiring property on the city block between Broadway, 175th Street, Wadsworth Avenue, and 176th Street. Cohen spent three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars buying the rest of the city block through 1927. The theater was one of several structures built around the eastern terminus of the George Washington Bridge to northern New Jersey, which was developed around the same time. Loew's had specifically chosen the site because it was in a growing middle-class neighborhood, close to the New York City Subway stations at 175th Street/Fort Washington Avenue and 181st Street/St. Nicholas Avenue. After the assemblage had been completed, Cohen sold the sites in February 1928 to the Highbridge Realty Corporation, which was controlled by Loew's Inc. president Nicholas Schenck