The Lost Ziegfeld Theatre -- 6th Avenue and 54th Street

 

photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1925 news that the Sixth Avenue elevated train was soon to be demolished sparked excitement and speculation among real estate operators.   Sixth Avenue in Midtown was still mostly lined with humdrum brick buildings three stories tall.   And its location between Fifth Avenue and the theater district made it deliriously exciting for developers.

By now William Randolph Hearst’s publishing empire included 27 newspapers and nine major magazines like Cosmopolitan.   He opted in on the Midtown real estate potential.    On June 13, 1925 The New York Times announced his ambitious intentions.

Hearst, with Arthur Brisbane, had purchased 14 old buildings which were already being demolished.  In their place he planned a $7 million group to include a theater, a residence hotel, and two office buildings.  The hotel, which would be completed in 1926, became the luxurious Warwick Hotel; and the theater would be known as the Ziegfeld Theatre.

Hearst was well-acquainted with Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegeld, who was disgruntled with owner of the New Amsterdam Theatre, Abe Erlanger.   But, of course, the construction of a theater was not simply out of the goodness of his heart for an old friend.  Hearst realized that a high-class theater diagonally across from his hotel would enhance business.

In announcing the project, The New York Times noted “Thomas W. Lamb will draw the plans for the new theatre, which, according to tentative plans, will have a seating capacity of about 1,650 persons.  The stage will be unusually large and especially adapted to Ziegfeld productions."

Florenz Ziegfeld thought big and he thought flashy.  His set designer, Vienna-born Joseph Urban, understood the producer’s mind and for years had supplied the sensational stage sets audiences came to know as pure “Ziegfeld.”  While Thomas W. Lamb was a veteran of theater designing; his reported neo-Georgian design that he submitted to Ziegfeld fell flat.

Two days after The New York Times’ announcement, another article appeared in the newspaper.  In it Ziegfeld made a surprising change of course.  “The plans have been drawn by Joseph Urban in conjunction with Thomas W. Lamb, architect.  Mr. Urban will act also as artistic director.”  It was perhaps the last time Lamb’s name would appear in conjunction with the structure.

Ziegfield said he had hoped to have his own venue for 30 years.  “Now at last I shall have such a theatre.  I shall be able to build what I call a super-theatre that will startle the public by its modernity and equipment.”

He enumerated a few of the modern features, including “a revolving stage, hydraulic stage, and remarkable electrical equipment, capable of producing all sorts of stage effects.”  The impresario told of an early form of air conditioning.  “There will be a cooling plant, capable of keeping the theatre at 50 degrees if desired.”

By November 7, 1926 Lamb’s involvement had essentially been swept under the carpet.  On that day The New York Times ran a headline reading “Joseph Urban Turns from Scenery to Architecture and plans a Theatre with Highly Original Features.”

The article reminded readers that, indeed, Urban had worked as an architect in Austria “before he got mixed up in the theatre at all.”   The New York Times journalist H. I. Brock wrote “Now he builds a theatre.  And his theatre is not the conventional type.”

Brock called the proposed exterior “unique” and the interior “novel.”  The façade was designed to mimic a theatrical auditorium.  The bowed section above the lobby entrances was meant to depict a gigantic theatrical proscenium.  The boldly Art Deco façade featured clean geometric carvings above the “proscenium” and heroic-sized console brackets that flanked the bowed section above its cornice.

Brock explained further, “The base represents the stage.  The mock-stage front framework rises above it, with architectural simulation of the curtain above the row of tall windows.”

 

Fluted pilasters suggest open curtains beside the proscenium -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

More than the exterior, Brock was impressed with Urban’s innovative design of the auditorium, calling it “the shape of an egg.”  Urban had done away with all corners and areas out of eyesight.  The goal was acoustical perfection.

“The inside of this egg is decorated after the fashion of the outside of those very gay, giant, egg-shaped candyboxes which are sold to the guileless at ruinous prices around Easter time.  A design of romantical personages and creatures from the legends of the Middle Ages covers it with rich colors and curious, intriguing forms…Thus one sits under a canopy composed of a mad medley of knights, ladies, knaves, archers, men-at-arms, charging steeds antelopes, unicorns, castles in Spain.”

The cornerstone laying ceremony, on December 9, 1926, was a Ziegfeld spectacular.  Will Rogers was master of ceremonies and Vincent Lopez and his entire orchestra played.  Following Rogers’s amusing remarks, Billie Burke (who was married to Ziegfeld) and their daughter Patricia placed the chosen items into the box—photographs of the Zeigfeld family including Florenz’s mother; one of A. L. Erlanger; a copy of Theatre Magazine; a program from Sally, the show Ziegfeld considered his greatest success; another of the first Follies; a photograph of Charles Frohman who had made Billie Burke a star; and an ancient brick from a Greek theater.

Patricia Ziegfeld cemented the stone in place.  Afterward, many of the 1,500 present filed into the Warwick Hotel “for coffee.”  Included in the crowd were many notables of the entertainment industry including Marilyn Miller, lyricist Gene Buck, actress Ada May, cartoonist Harry Herschfield, and comedian Bert Wheeler.  The New York Times noted that Mr. and Mrs. Josef Urban were in the assemblage.  No mention was made of Thomas Lamb.

On February 1, 1927 the theater prepared to open.  The New York Times reported “The cast of ‘Rio Rita’ [went] through their preliminary paces in the $500,000 stage of [the] $2,500,000 Ziegfeld Theatre, in preparation for tomorrow night’s opening.”

Theater critic J. Brooks Atkinson suggested that Urban’s innovative and wonderful decorations could possibly steal the show from the production.  “For the wall and ceiling decorations of this elliptical playhouse Mr. Urban has unfolded one of the most extravagant and bizarre cycloramas of imaginative designing to be found this side of fairyland.  It is not only splendid but appropriate…Mr. Ziegfeld must take care lest his productions on the stage prove inferior to the sweep of carnival beauty on the walls of his theatre.”

As far as the play went, Atkinson was tepid on its content, saying it broke “no fresh trail…the book is commonplace enough and the humor will never hold both its sides with laughter.”  But, he admitted, Zeigfeld’s trademark lavish production pulled it off.  He said “for sheer extravagance of beauty, animated and rhythmic, ‘Rio Rita,’ has no rival among its contemporaries.”

Ada May played Dolly in Rio Rita - photo by Ira D. Schwarz from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Ziegfeld had every reason to be pleased.  That evening he received scores of congratulatory telegrams including those from President Calvin Coolidge, Mayor James Walker and Eddie Cantor.  The audience was packed with luminaries, including Charlie Chaplin, polar explorer Roald Amundsen, and former Ambassador to Spain Alexander P. Moore.   Manhattan’s top echelon of society was well represented by Otto H. Kahn, James A. Blair, Jr., Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Pulitzer, and others.  Patrons purchasing the highest priced tickets that night would spend $5.50—more in the neighborhood of $75 in 2015.

Following on the tail of Rio Rita was the smash success, Show Boat which opened on January 7, 1928.  Called by one critic the following day “the best musical show ever written,” Zeigfeld used his showmanship to transform Edna Ferber’s novel with music by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II into a stage extravaganza.  On stage with the trio of stars—Howard March, Helen Morgan, and Norma Terris—were 31 featured players, 95 dancers and singers, and 18 sets designed by, of course, Joseph Urban.  The cast also included Tess Gardella, Edna May Oliver, Charles Winninger, Eva Puck, Sammy White and Jules Bledsoe.

When Flo Ziegfeld died on July 22, 1932 the Great Depression was taking a toll on Broadway.   One newspaper attributed the producer’s death partly to the economic situation.  Ziegfeld had been ill for some time, and “a hard season after his illness caused a relapse and complications.”

Theater-goers and players grieved.  One cast member said “We are all shocked and saddened and we do not feel like singing and laughing.  But Florenz Ziefeld would want the show to go on.  It will go on as our tribute to him.”   But in the meantime, business was attended to.

Almost immediately an armed guard was placed at the door of Ziegfield’s private office “with instructions to permit no one to tamper with the innumerable knick-knacks and mementoes with which the producer surrounded himself,” reported The New York Times.  Among the “knick-knacks” were two gold telephones.

Hard times continued and in December 1932 a dispossess warrant was tacked on the main entrance to the theater.   Two month later, on February 2, 1933 The New York Times reported that “The Ziegfeld Theatre at Sixth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street, the home of the ‘Follies’ and other Ziegfeld productions, was leased yesterday by the Loew theatre circuit.  It will reopen in about four weeks under a different name, with a policy of continuous motion picture entertainment.”

Somewhat wistfully, The New York Times wrote on April 18, 1933, “The theatre, which housed the latter-day Ziegfeld success—‘Show Boat,' the ‘Follies,’ ‘Bitter Sweet’ and ‘Rio Rita’—will show second-run films with a tri-weekly change of program."

On the afternoon that the movie theater was to open—Friday, April 21, 1933—a stunning assemblage of chorus girls, stars and stagehands threw a Florenz Ziegfeld-worthy spectacular as a tribute to their former boss.  Eddie Dowling was master of ceremonies and Abe Lyman and his orchestra provided the music.  The who’s-who of the American state that afternoon included Marilyn Miller, Ruth Etting, Jimmy Durante, Fannie Brice, Ed Wynn, Lupe Velez, Bert Lahr, Will Rogers and others.  Fifty of Ziegfeld’s famous chorus girls showed off their legs for the last time.

William Randolph Hearst felt the financial hit of the Depression and in 1944 he found himself forced to liquidate real estate.  Among his most expendable properties, of course, was the Ziegfeld Theatre.   After some back and forth negotiations, it was another bigger-than-life impresario who bought the theater—Billy Rose.   Rose spent $630,000 on the building that had cost $2.5 million; then hired Joseph Urban’s daughter, Gretl, to restore it to its original condition.

Billy Rose returned the venue to legitimate theater.  Clifford Orr, writing in The New Yorker, said “Mr. Rose, who does not expect the reopening to be an anticlimax, is presenting ‘The Seven Lively Arts,’ a review which will combine the talents of Markove, Stravinsky, Cole Porter, Beatrice Lillie, Bert Lahr, Norman Bel Geddes, and (for all we know) Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Carol Channing and Anita Loos backstage of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -- photo by Sam Siegel from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The theater would produce hits like the 1947 Brigadoon, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949 with Carol Channing and Yvonne Adair, and George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra with Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh in 1951.  These were followed by Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, which ran for 305 performances; and Kismet in 1953.

Loew's added a movie marquee to the entrance.  photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

Billy Rose closed the curtain in 1955 when he leased the Ziegfeld to NBC as a television studio.  It was from here that the Perry Como Show was broadcast, as well as the Emmy Awards ceremonies in 1959 and 1961.  Although Rose briefly returned the theater to a legitimate stage; the musical Anya was the last production here.  It opened on November 29, 1965 and lasted only 16 performances.

Within months the wonderful Art Deco building, Joseph Urban’s fantastic interpretation of the inside of a theater on the outside, was bulldozed.  In its place rose the Burlington House building, designed by Emery Roth & Sons, completed in 1969.

photo by Americasroof

The box from the cornerstone was removed to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.  And one surviving chunk of the façade sculpture was carried away to the Upper East Side where it remains today.

The only surviving fragment of the facade sits on the Upper East Side -- photo by Tim Buchman

The 1905 Revillon Freres Bldg -- Nos. 19-17 W. 34th Street

The lower floors of the Revillon Freres building, now the Martin Building, have endured repeated remodeling.

When the Revillon Brothers started their fur company in 1723 New York City was still governed by the British and the area around what would become Fifth Avenue and 34^th Street was countryside.  Nearly two centuries later much would have changed.

By the end of the 19^th century, the French firm Revillon Freres was a leading retailer and manufacturer of luxury furs and accessories.   In 1890, its first store was opened in New York on Broadway.  It was an instant success as women of the city’s carriage trade sought out custom-made coats and wraps in exotic furs.  The company quickly erected its own building on West 28^th Street.  But that, too, would soon prove insufficient.

As a reflection of its high-end product, Revillon Freres included an automobile in its 1900 advertisement (copyright expired)

When the Astor Family razed their brownstone mansions on Fifth Avenue between 33^rd and 34^th Streets to erect the hulking, combined Waldorf and Astoria Hotels, the quietude of the exclusive neighborhood was shattered.   Within only a few years the brownstone mansions in the immediate area were razed or converted to commercial use, and by 1905 broad 34^th Street was lined with high-end stores.

The two impressive brownstone mansions at 19 and 17 West 34^th Street were about to go.  Owned by James W. Pryor and Henry P. Loomis, they sat mid-block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, and were being crowded out by retailers.  Pryor was the first to relent.

In the place of 17 East 34th Street rose an 11-story store and loft building designed by Francis A. Minuth with a single tenant:  Revillon Freres.  On February 11, 1905 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide noted that Revillon Freres had leased the building for “a term of years.”  The limestone-clad building stretched through the block to 35^th Street.   Foliage-carved spandrels, carved bands between floors and Beaux Arts decoration added interest to the Italian Renaissance-inspired structure.    The two-story base featured shallow limestone bands.

Within a year the building was enlarged to the west with the acquisition of the Loomis’s house and the erection of a matching extension.



Below an openwork balustrade on the 35th Street side are four carved faces, two smug looking women and two aghast men.

The wealth of Revillon Freres’ customers and the expensive nature of its wares were evident shortly after the new store opened.   The firm offered cold storage to its clients and Belinda Carbonneau placed a few items in their warehouse for safe keeping.  In 1905, she called for her furs.  To her dismay, and that of Revillon Freres, her items were gone.

“The furs and wearing apparel alleged to have been lost consisted of a $6,000 seal-lined Hudson Bay fur coat, a $200 seal-lined coat, a robe of eagle feathers lined with lavender cloth, and an ermine stole,” reported The New York Times.   The first coat alone would be worth about $120,000 in 2012.

On February 2, 1908, the store advertised less expensive, ready-made Russian pony coats, short seal skin coats and imported cloth coats (fur lined) with prices up to $400.

A  year later a New York socialite ordered a matching muff and stole and waited eagerly for its completion.    The Moscow agent of Revillon Freres carefully selected the matching Russian sable pelts and shipped them to New York.  The muff was valued at $5,000 and the stole at $4,000.

The wealthy customer was promised delivery of her completed furs on October 21, 1909.  On October 20 the stole was completed and work continued on the muff late into the night.   The man working on the muff went to supper and became ill at the restaurant, so he went home rather than completing the muff.   But, said The New York Times, he “determined to go back to the workrooms early next morning and complete it.  When he did return the nearly completed muff was missing.”

The theft was not only an expensive loss for the company, it was a disastrous blow to public relations.  High end retailers, then as now, were less than eager to tell a society leader that her long-awaited purchases were lost.  “It was impossible to duplicate the furs here,” said The New York Times, “and so the agent in Moscow was notified and new furs were selected and sent here, while the unsuccessful thief search went on.”

As the stock ledgers were examined, other thefts were noticed.  Police and private detectives scratched their heads as they “scoured the city [and] they could get no trace of the missing muff or thieves.”   Law enforcement officials gave up all hope of finding the perpetrators.

That is, until  Mrs. George E. Knox entered a Cleveland fur dealer’s shop and offered a mink and ermine set valued at $500 “for a very small sum.”   The dealer recognized the pieces as the work of Revillon Freres and suspected foul play.  While the woman waited, he quietly summoned the police.    A traveling salesman for Revillon Freres was brought in who recognized the stolen set.

Mrs. Knox, who also went by the name of Mary Ingram, was the wife of George Knox, a former elevator boy at Revillon.  When police found pawn tickets in a trunk in their room, he confessed to the robberies, telling police the “jig is up.”  Before long the jig was up for Thomas Mullins, former Captain of elevator boys in the building, who was part of the three-person ring.  At the time of their arrests, police estimated the value of the stolen pieces at $25,000.

The exquisitely carved oak leaves and acorns in the spandrels of the 35th Street entrances, along with the decorative ironwork, hint at the original appearance of the 34th Street facades.

Revillon Freres continued its tradition of relocating uptown and on January 3, 1912 The New York Times reported that negotiations were underway to sublease the 34^th Street building.   “It was stated that the Revillon concern would move to new quarters in the Fifth Avenue vicinity near by, probably taking one of the new loft buildings above Thirty-sixty Street,” the article said.

Indeed, by 1918 Revillon Freres had relocated to Fifth Avenue and 53^rd Street.  Bedell Company, women’s “cloak and suit” store, took over the former Revillon Building, adding to the growing number of department stores like B. Altman and Macy’s in the immediate area.  Upper floors were leased to wholesale garment dealers like Rotary Frocks, Inc.

Bond Thomas managed Bedell’s until just after the new year in 1920.  He returned to his home in Plainfield, New Jersey after having felt ill for about a week.  The retailer went to bed and never got up.  “For two weeks it has been impossible to arouse him,” reported the New-York Tribune on January 25.  Diagnosed with “sleeping sickness,” he was examined by specialists, including his brother who was a member of the faculty of Johns Hopkins Medical College, and his brother-in-law, Dr. Simon Flexner.

“But the results of their treatment do not encourage them,” said the New-York Tribune.  “Nourishment is given to the patient, but his condition is regarded as critical.”

On February 21, 1922, Martin Bulagur, president of Rotary Frocks, pulled off an ingenious but dangerous ploy here.  While he was working with buyers from Chicago, two men entered his showroom introducing themselves as buyers from Montreal.   While Bulagur finished up with the Chicago buyers, the two men waited in another room.

When Bulagur entered the room to work with the Montreal buyers, he noticed several dresses were missing.  “Bulagur then did some thinking,” reported the New-York Tribune.  He questioned the men about the contents of a large duffel bag they had with them and when they started for the elevator he went into action.  “He trust his right hand into his hip pocket, called for them to halt and told them they’d better stay halted,” said the newspaper.

The corny finger-in-the-pocket trick worked.  The thieves believed Bulagur had a handgun and remained frozen until police arrived.  The Montreal buyers were revealed to be from the Bronx.

In 1928, architect Joseph Urban was commissioned to update the façade of the Bedell store.  The banded limestone was replaced with four floors of sleek Art Deco polished black granite.   Panels of streamlined zig-zag motifs and waterfall light fixtures contrasted with the dark stone.   The entrance was protected by a lavish two-story Art Deco bowed screen.

Below eight stories of Victorian facade, Joseph Urban brought the retail space squarely into the Roaring 20s -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Meanwhile, on West 35^th Street the old Revillon Freres façade lived on.

The wonderful Art Deco façade of Joseph Urban was demolished only a few years later.  By the 1940s it had been replaced with a hideous, nondescript slab as Lerner Shops took over most of the building and installed arcade windows at street level.

A gruesome slab replaced Urban's fabulous Art Deco facade by 1943 -- photo NYPL Collection

With the 21^st century, the block along West 34^th Street experienced a renaissance as national chain retailers renovated old store spaces.  Banana Republic took over the lower floors of what was now called The Martin Building and the façade was once again revamped.  Interestingly, Banana Republic’s entrance includes a two-story bowed section reminiscent of Urban’s design.

On the 35th Street facade, a cartouche with the Revillon Freres monogram sits among carved oak leaves.

But a walk around the block reveals the Francis A. Minuth's original 1905 Revillon Freres façade at Nos. 30-32 West 35^th Street.   A lavishly-carved cartouche beneath the third floor cornice holds an entwined RF.  The carved ornamentation from sidewalk to roof is intact—giving a visible sense of what the exclusive furrier’s 34^th Street store must have looked like.

The banded base and Beaux Arts carvings of the 35th Street facade survive.

non-historic photographs taken by the author