2. Ziegfeld Theatre

wurts_A0810_808013 001Photo from Museum of the City of New York Collection

As history often comes full circle, the current Ziegfeld Theatre, built a few hundred feet away and three years after the demolition of the original, may be closing. The original Ziegfeld Theatre was built in 1927 by impresario Florence Ziegfeld, with backing from William Randolph Hurst at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 54th Street. Joseph Urban, a favorite designer of Ziegfeld conceived of the structure, with consultation by famous theater architect Thomas Lamb. As this was show business, it’s not surprising that Urban’s architecture was derided by the architectural critics of the time as overly theatrical, and flamboyant even. But as Arnold Aronson writes in Architect of Dreams: The Theatrical Vision of Joseph Urban:

“Urban believed that public space should be designed with the same sense of total environment and aesthetic pleasure with which one created a stage setting…Following the metaphor to its logical end, his architectural projects could all be seen as ‘theaters,’ an impression reinforced by his frank assertion that a building facade was a form of advertising – a marquee.”