NYC’s Ziegfeld Theatre Will Close
Steve Cuozzo reports in the New York post “It’s fade to black for Midtown’s iconic movie palace the Ziegfeld movie theater — but the iconic venue at 141 W. 54th St. will be reborn as a spectacular high-end event space, The Post has learned.
The new Ziegfeld Ballroom will be a mecca for society galas and corporate events, to open in fall 2017 after a two-year renovation of the space.
The ballroom is to be run by most of the partners who operate Gotham Hall, the event venue inside a landmarked former bank at Broadway and West 36th Street.
Plans call for a 10,000-square-foot column-free ballroom, as well as mezzanine meeting rooms and advanced electronic facilities.
The Ziegfeld, opened in 1969, is Manhattan’s last remaining large single-screen showplace used exclusively for movies with 1,300 seats (there is only one remaining single-screen movie venue in the borough, the 571-seat Paris). Although the Ziegfeld is revered by cinema buffs, it has in recent years lost over $1 million annually.
World renowned for the quality of its sound and projection — and for an ornate design that evoked the long-gone ’20s movie palaces that once lined Broadway and Seventh Avenue — the Ziegfeld was for decades one of the country’s best-known movie venues.”
Read the NY Post article here.
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Learn more about historic theatres in the THS American Theatre Architecture Archives and on our website at historictheatres.org
Images by Ken Roe courtesy of Cinema Treasures.
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