"If one theater in New York’s Broadway theater district were to be named the most famous, the privilege would fall virtually uncontested to the Palace, designed not as a legitimate stage theater but as a vaudeville house. Yet no other showplace has hosted a greater number of stars nor a wider variety of entertainment than this Broadway legend."
This is what the New York City Landmarks Commission declared in 1987 when it designated the Palace Theater as an historic landmark thereby preserving and protecting its architecture and saving the structure from ever being torn down to build a glassy office tower at the 47th Street and 7th Avenue location.
Sarah Bernhardt performed in the theater in 1913, the year of its completion; today, Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope dance on its stage in the acclaimed An American in Paris.
This beautiful theater has undergone nips and tucks over the decades, but it appears that she's going to get a major face lift in the coming years – a 29 foot lift into the air, to be exact. This is what we do in New York to save our art. Do you remember how in 1998 the city wheeled the Landmark-protected Empire Theater 170 feet down 42nd Street to its new location? Once the months of preparation for the move were completed, it only took a morning to move it. No big deal. According to the chief engineer and architect, Miss Empire didn't even know that she was being moved.
The plan for the Palace Theater, according to the extensive report in today's New York YIMBY, is to hoist her 29 feet straight up into the air and build 10,000 sq. ft. of new lobby and back of house space underneath. The engineers are going to jack up the theater one inch at a time over a two week period using a telescopic hydraulic system. The interior renovation will yield 25 times more lobby space, hordes of new bathrooms, a brand new HVAC system, new dressing rooms, a new pit lift, two new rows of unobstructed seating, a bit of new balcony plaster, and a beautifully recreated chandelier. We assume that they'll sew up the ripped red velvet on the railings in the balcony, too.
This is all very exciting because right now, the Palace Theater has kind of become lost among the Times Square junk built around it. This project is a ways off (AAIP doesn't need to worry) but the folks at the Landmarks Conservancy, Community Board 5, Times Alliance, and Landmarks Preservation Commission are excited about it. The Historic District Council and Society for the Architecture of the City are less enthused.