25. Liberty Theatre

Inside the Liberty Theater. Photo via Speakeasy Dollhouse: Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic by Arin Sang-urai

The Liberty was a Broadway theater from 1904 t0 1933, built by the partnership of Klaw and Erlanger that brought us the New Amsterdam Theatre. It had a 100-foot long lobby and a beautiful Neo-Classical facade. It also had a rather patriotic theme with a carving of the Liberty Bell and a large stone bald eagle at the bottom of the facade.

Much like the rest, the Liberty was converted into a movie theatre instead of going dark, which began a long process of decline for the theater. By 1996, most of the original architecture had been removed, some of it hidden behind a boxy marquee, and the rest remodeled. The inside was no better, falling into dirty and decrepit disuse. Many of the beautiful older features, like the balconies, were closed off. In 1997, a few plans were made to convert the venue into a reality arcade, a plan that fell through plunging the theater into another decade of disuse only to be revived as a Dave & Busters in 2011 (it closed in 2013). Today, the theater runs as a bar and night club, with the auditorium space used for special events.