Liberty Theatre (New York, New York)

The Liberty Theatre is a former Broadway theater at 234 West 42nd Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1904, the theater was designed by Herts & Tallant and built for Klaw and Erlanger, the partnership of theatrical producers Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger. The theater has been used as an event venue since 2011 and is part of an entertainment and retail complex developed by Forest City Ratner. The theater is owned by the city and state governments of New York and leased to New 42nd Street. Brookfield Asset Management, which acquired Forest City in 2018, subleases the venue from New 42nd Street.

The Liberty Theatre consists of an auditorium facing 41st Street and a lobby facing 42nd Street. The facade on 42nd Street is largely hidden but was designed in the neoclassical style, similar to the neighboring New Amsterdam Theatre, designed by the same architects. The lobby from 42nd Street led to the auditorium in the rear, as well as men's and women's lounges in the basement. The auditorium, designed in the Art Nouveau style, contains two balconies cantilevered above ground-level orchestra seating. The theater has a steel frame and was designed with advanced mechanical systems for its time. The original design included depictions of the Liberty Bell and bald eagles, which have since been removed.

The Liberty opened on October 10, 1904, and in its early years hosted several hit productions, which largely consisted of comedies, dramas, or musicals. D. W. Griffith briefly screened movies at the theater in the 1910s. After Klaw and Erlanger ended their partnership in 1919, Erlanger continued to operate the theater until 1931; the Liberty was leased the next year to Max Rudnick, who presented movies and vaudeville. The Liberty hosted its last legitimate show in 1933, and the Brandt family took over the venue, operating it as a movie theater until the 1980s. The city and state governments of New York acquired the theater as part of the 42nd Street Redevelopment Project in 1990. Forest City Ratner developed an entertainment and retail complex on the site in the 1990s, but the Liberty Theatre remained largely abandoned until the early 21st century, when it became a restaurant space and event venue.

Site

The Liberty Theatre is at 234 West 42nd Street, on the south side between Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue near the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The theater is part of an entertainment and retail complex at 234 West 42nd Street, which includes the Madame Tussauds New York museum and the AMC Empire 25 movie theater. The complex's land lot covers and extends between its two frontages on 41st and 42nd Streets, with a frontage of on 41st Street and on 42nd Street. Originally, the theater occupied its own land lot; the main frontage on 42nd Street measured only wide, while the 41st Street frontage measured wide. This is because the developers, Abraham L. Erlanger and Marcus Klaw, wanted the more prominent 42nd Street frontage as the main entrance.

The city block includes the Candler Building, New Amsterdam Theatre, and 5 Times Square to the east, as well as Eleven Times Square to the west. The E-Walk entertainment complex is directly across 42nd Street to the northwest. The Todd Haimes Theatre and Times Square Theater are to the north, while the Lyric Theatre, New Victory Theater, and 3 Times Square are to the northeast. In addition, the Port Authority Bus Terminal is to the west, the New York Times Building is to the southwest, and the Nederlander Theatre is to the south.

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 theater were built within one block of West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The New Amsterdam, Harris, Liberty, Eltinge (now Empire), and Lew Fields theaters occupied the south side of the street. The original Lyric and Apollo theaters (combined into the current Lyric Theatre), as well as the Times Square, Victory, Selwyn (now Todd Haimes), 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 Liberty Theatre was designed by architects Herts & Tallant and developed for Klaw and Erlanger in 1904. It was built by the Murphy Construction Company. Herts and Tallant designed the theater in the Art Nouveau style, similar to their earlier projects in New York City (namely the New Amsterdam, Lyceum, and German theaters), although the Liberty's architectural detail was smaller in scale than in the other theaters.

Exterior

The Liberty Theatre originally had a three-story-tall neoclassical facade on 42nd Street, similar to the neighboring New Amsterdam Theatre (also designed by Herts and Tallant). The entrance was through an arch, which was flanked by sign boards and topped by an electric sign. On either side of the main entrance were caryatids representing comedy and song. The second and third floors, which contained the theater's offices, were spanned by a large archway. Above the arch was a stone shield, with a relief of the Liberty Bell carved into it. The facade was capped by a statue of a bald eagle with spread wings. There was an ornamental cornice above the top story. By the 1990s, most of the facade had been obscured or heavily modified, and the third story had been completely stripped of ornamentation. The 42nd Street facade is no longer visible above the first floor.

The rear facade on 41st Street remains intact, and ''The New York Times'' described it in 1996 as being in "good condition". Images indicate that the 41st Street facade is made of plain brick and has no windows. Projecting brick piers divide the facade into five bays. There are loading docks within three of the bays, as well as globe-shaped lanterns affixed to the piers. The facade does not have any other decoration.

Interior

The theater was mechanically advanced for its time, with heating, cooling, ventilation, and fire-suppression systems. The structural frame was made of skeletal steel, while the floors were made of concrete and tile. The theater's sprinkler system was supplied by a water tank on the roof. All of the air in the theater could be changed within five minutes. In addition, there were 21 emergency exits within the theater building, excluding the fire escapes outside the dressing rooms, which allegedly allowed the theater to be cleared within two minutes. These emergency exits led to courtyards on either side of the theater, running between 41st and 42nd Streets. The structural frame and emergency exits may have been added in response to the Iroquois Theatre fire in 1903, where hundreds of people died in a Chicago theater that was allegedly fireproof.

Auditorium

The auditorium is at the south end of the building and originally measured wide, with a depth of between the stage and the rear wall. The auditorium's seats were spread across the orchestra level and two balconies. The theater had 1,055 seats. Unusually for theaters of the time, the balconies are cantilevered from the structural framework, which eliminated the need for columns that blocked sightlines. The orchestra level had 546 seats, arranged in 15 rows. The balcony levels were smaller; the upper balcony only had 264 seats. At the rear of the auditorium, a wide staircase led from the lobby to the two balcony levels, while promenades ran behind the seating areas on all three levels. The promenades were decorated in amber, white, and gold, a color scheme that was also used on the auditorium's seats, carpets, and other fabrics.

The original design included eight boxes, four on either side of the stage. The boxes were painted in ivory and gold. Above each set of boxes was a motif of a bald eagle, which in turn flanked a depiction of the Liberty Bell. The proscenium opening is wide and high. Unlike in other theaters, the proscenium arch was not topped by a sounding board; as a result, audiences at the rear of the auditorium did not receive amplified sound from the stage. By the 21st century, the rear walls of both balcony levels had been shifted forward significantly.

The stage was designed to accommodate comedies and large musicals, measuring about deep and wide. The top of the fly loft was above the stage. The Liberty's stage curtain was made of asbestos, as at many other theaters at the time, and contained a mural of '' Half Moon'', the ship belonging to Dutch explorer Henry Hudson. The curtain, measuring , was probably designed by F. Richards Anderson and was decorated in blue, green, and brown hues. With the deterioration of the theater in the late 20th century, parts of the asbestos curtain began to flake off.

Other spaces

The theater's lobby led from 42nd Street. It consisted of a vestibule with aluminum and gold decorations, as well as an ivory-and-white hallway that acted as a foyer. The vestibule had a domed ceiling measuring across, and the foyer was long. The two spaces were separated by doors covered in leather. The original lobby has been heavily modified.

At the rear of the orchestra-level promenade were stairs, which led to men's and women's lounges in the basement. The men's lounging and smoking room was decorated in the English style, with weathered-oak paneling as well as furniture covered with Spanish leather. The women's lounge was painted green, gold, and ivory.

History

Times Square became the epicenter for large-scale theater productions between 1900 and the Great Depression. Manhattan's theater district had begun to shift from Union Square and Madison Square during the first decade of the 20th century. At the beginning of that century, Klaw and Erlanger operated the predominant theatrical booking agency in the United States. They decided to relocate to 42nd Street after observing that the Metropolitan Opera House, the Victoria Theatre, and the Theatre Republic (now New Victory Theater) had been developed around that area. Klaw and Erlanger hired Herts and Tallant to design the New Amsterdam Theatre at 214 West 42nd Street, which opened on October 26, 1903. Klaw and Erlanger then decided to build a second theater on the block, also designed by Herts and Tallant, which would host musicals by the Rogers Brothers. By early 1904, the Murphy Construction Company was constructing the theater's steel frame.

Legitimate use

1900s and 1910s

The Liberty Theatre opened on October 10, 1904, with the revue ''The Rogers Brothers in Paris''. This was followed the next month by ''Little Johnny Jones'', the first large musical written by George M. Cohan. The Liberty hosted several hit productions in its early years, largely consisting of comedies, dramas, or musicals. The Liberty's second season included ''The Rogers Brothers in Ireland'' in late 1905, as well as the comedy-drama ''The Clansman'', the Christmas musical ''The Gingerbread Man'', and the musical ''Lincoln'' in early 1906. During the 1906–1907 season, Eleanor Robson produced several plays at the Liberty, and the theater also hosted '' The Follies of 1907'', the first edition of the annual ''Ziegfeld Follies'' revue. The Rogers Brothers presented ''The Rogers Brothers in Panama'' in 1907, but, amid decreasing popularity, the brothers never performed at the Liberty again. Margaret Mayo's play '' Polly of the Circus'' opened in December 1907 and was a hit, running for 160 performances. Other shows in the Liberty Theatre's early years included ''The Redskins'' in 1906 with Tyrone Power Sr., as well as ''Wildfire'' in 1908 with Lillian Russell.

The musical '' The Arcadians'' opened at the Liberty in 1910, followed at the end of the same year by the operetta ''The Spring Maid'', which stayed for six months.; The theater's other productions in the early 1910s included the play '' The Fascinating Widow'' in 1911, the play ''Milestones'' in 1912, and the operetta '' Rob Roy'' and the musical '' Sweethearts'' in 1913. Around the same time, Klaw and Erlanger had become involved in the film industry; in 1913, they signed an agreement with the Biograph Company that allowed Biograph to produce two features weekly at the syndicate's theaters. Klaw and Erlanger leased the Liberty to movie-theater operator D. W. Griffith in February 1915, on the condition that movie tickets be sold at $2, the same price as tickets for plays. The next month, Griffith presented ''The Birth of a Nation'', the first film to be screened at the theater. Griffith screened ''The Birth of a Nation'' over 750 times during the next nine months.

The Liberty again hosted live shows in early 1916, when it presented a week of variety performances by The Blue Pierrots troupe, as well as the musical ''Sybil''.; In August of that year, Griffith leased the Liberty Theatre again, this time for his film ''Intolerance''. The Jerome Kern musical '' Have A Heart'' opened at the Liberty in January 1917, followed the same year by the revue '' Hitchy-Koo of 1917'' and the play ''The Wooing of Eve'' with Laurette Taylor and Lynn Fontanne. At the end of the year, George M. Cohan and Sam H. Harris's musical ''Going Up'' opened at the Liberty, running for 351 performances. Following the success of the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' at the nearby New Amsterdam, Klaw and Erlanger presented two revues at the Liberty in 1919: '' George White's Scandals of 1919'' and ''Hitchy-Koo of 1919''. By then, Klaw and Erlanger's Theatrical Syndicate no longer had a monopoly on theatrical shows, and they had dissolved their partnership. A. L. Erlanger continued to produce shows at the Liberty Theatre, while Marcus Klaw developed his own venue on 45th Street, the Klaw Theatre.

1920s and early 1930s

The Kern musical ''The Night Boat'' opened at the Liberty in February 1920 and ran for several months. It was followed by ''George White's Scandals of 1921'' and the Otto Harbach musical ''The O'Brien Girl''. During 1922, the Liberty Theatre hosted the comedy ''To the Ladies'' with Helen Hayes, as well as Cohan's musical ''Little Nellie Kelly''. The theater's shows the next year included the play ''Magnolia'' with Leo Carrillo and ''The Magic Ring'' with Jeanette MacDonald. The firm of Mandelbaum & Lewine, along with Max N. Natanson, bought the Liberty and Eltinge theaters in November 1923 and immediately resold the theaters to Maximilian Zipkes. The Liberty hosted another Cohan musical at the end of that year, ''The Rise of Rosie O'Reilly'',; although Cohan's musicals had begun to decline in popularity by then. George and Ira Gershwin's musical '' Lady, Be Good!'' opened at the theater in December 1924 and lasted 330 performances. This was followed in December 1925 by another Gershwin musical, ''Tip-Toes'', which lasted for 194 performances.

Erlanger announced in April 1926 that the Liberty Theatre would be completely renovated after ''Tip-Toes'' ended that June, and the theater reopened that September. Lew Fields's revue ''Blackbirds of 1928'', featuring an all-Black cast, premiered in May 1928 and had 518 total performances over two theaters. It was one of several revues with Black casts to be presented at the Liberty Theatre in the late 1920s and early 1930s. ''Blackbirds'' relocated to the Eltinge Theatre in October 1928 to make way for the comedy ''Mr. Moneypenny'',; which lasted 61 performances. The Liberty then hosted ''Subway Express'', which premiered in October 1929 and ran for 270 performances. By then, increasing competition between producers had resulted in many flops. Furthermore, with the onset of the Great Depression, many Broadway theaters were impacted by declining attendance.

The theater hosted a series of short-lived plays and musicals in early 1930, including the Theatre Guild's revival of the play ''Volpone''. The musical comedy ''Brown Buddies

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