8. The Ziegfeld Theater’s Many Reincarnations

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The Ziegfeld Theater had a long, eventful life, as documented by the New Yorker. After its 1927 completion, in 1933 it was converted into a movie house. Then in 1944, producer Billy Rose purchased the theater for $630,000 and reverted it back into a theater venue. In the 1950s, the Ziegfeld hosted “The Perry Como Show,” and in the 1960s, it reopened as a Broadway theater but was razed in 1966, to much public outcry. A skyscraper, called the Burlington House, now stands there. The most recent Ziegfeld movie house, built by the prolific architecture firm Emery Roth & Sons, opened a little way down 54th street in 1969, and since then, has hosted several important film premieres and galas.