New York Hippodrome
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The Hippodrome Theatre (aka New York Hippodrome, 1933) stood in New York City from 1905 to 1939, at 6th and 43rd/44th, on the site of what is now a large modern office building known as "The Hippodrome Center" (1120 Avenue of the Americas), in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan. It was called the world's largest theatre by its builders and held 6,000 with a 100x200-ft (30x61-m) stage[1] and a rising glass water tank.
The Hippodrome was built by Frederick Thompson and Elmer Dundy, creators of the Luna Park amusement park at Coney Island. The theatre was located on Sixth Avenue (now named Avenue of the Americas) between Forty-third and Forty-fourth streets. Its auditorium seated 5,300 people, and it was equipped with what was then the state of the art in theatrical technology. The theatre was acquired by The Shubert Organization in 1909. In 1933, it was re-opened as the New York Hippodrome cinema, became the stage for Billy Rose's "Jumbo" in 1935, but closed in August 1939 for demolition (after WWII, the office building opened in 1952).[1] Acts included numerous circuses, musical reviews, Neptune's Daughter (1914 film), Better Times (1922), Harry Houdini's disappearing elephant, vaudeville, silent movies, and 1930s cinema. [1]
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[edit] Construction
With J. H. Morgan as architect, the Hippodrome first opened in 1905 with a seating capacity of 5,200, and is still considered as one of the true wonders of theatre architecture. Its stage was 12 times larger than any Broadway "legit" house and capable of holding as many as 1,000 performers at a time, or a full-sized circus with elephants and horses. It also had an 8,000-gallon clear glass water tank that could be raised from below the stage by hydraulic pistons for swimming-and-diving shows.
[edit] The glory years
For a time the Hippodrome was the largest and most successful theater in New York. The Hippodrome featured lavish spectacles complete with circus animals, diving horses, opulent sets, and 500-member choruses. Until the end of World War I, the Hippodrome housed all sorts of spectacles then switched to musical extravaganzas produced by Charles Dillingham, including "Better Times," which ran for more than 400 performances.
When Dillingham left in 1923 to pursue other interests, the Hippodrome was leased to Keith-Albee, which hired Thomas Lamb to turn it into a vaudeville theatre by building a much smaller stage and discarding all of its unique features. The most popular vaudeville artists of the day, including illusionist Harry Houdini, performed at the Hippodrome during its heyday. Others might vanish rabbits, but in 1918, on the brightly-lit stage of the Hippodrome, Houdini made a 10,000-pound elephant disappear. He created a sensation. When Houdini fired a pistol, Jennie vanished from view.
The Hippodrome's huge running costs made it a perennial financial failure, and a series of producers tried and failed to make money from the theatre. It became a location for vaudeville productions in 1923 before being leased for budget opera performances, finally becoming a sports arena.
[edit] Decline and fall
In 1922, the elephants that graced the stage of the Hippodrome since its opening moved uptown to the Bronx's Royal Theater. On arrival, stage worker Miller Renard recalled, the elephants were greeted with extraordinary fanfare:
The next day the Borough President gives them a dinner on the lawn of the Chamber of Commerce up on Tremont Avenue, with special dinner menus for the elephants. It was some show to see all those elephants march up those steps to the table where each elephant had a bail of hay. The[n], the Borough President welcomes the elephants to the Bronx, and the place is just mobbed with people. And that was the worst week's business we ever done in that theatre.
In 1925, movies were added to the vaudeville, but within a few years, competition from the newer and more sumptuous movie palaces in the Broadway-Times Square area forced Keith-Albee-Orpheum, which was merged into RKO by May 1928, to sell the theatre. Several attempts to use the Hippodrome for plays and operas failed, and it remained dark until 1935, when producer Billy Rose leased it for his spectacular Rodgers & Hart circus musical, Jumbo, which received favorable reviews but lasted only five months due to the Great Depression.
After that, the Hippodrome sputtered through bookings of late-run movies, boxing, wrestling, and Jai Lai games before being demolished in 1939 as the value of real estate on Sixth Avenue began to escalate. The New York Hippodrome closed on August 16, 1939. Unfortunately, the start of World War II delayed re-development, and the Hippodrome site remained vacant until 1952, when it was taken over for a combination office building and parking garage.
[edit] Chronological Program List
- March 26, 1907, Double billing of "Neptune's Daughter" (opera) and "Pioneer Days" (drama). In between the two performances, a variety of circus acts entertained.[2]
[edit] Legacy
The building was torn down in 1939, though an office building and parking garage that today stands on the same site claims the name "The Hippodrome Center." [3] Through the 1960s the modern building was the corporate headquarters of the old Charter Communications Inc. media publishing company.
In the 1970s the famous old theater also gave its name to the nearby "Little Hippodrome", a drag and comedy club which was located at 227 East 56th Street, between Second and Third Avenues. The club is famous for hosting the final live New York performances of the legendary Glam rock group, The New York Dolls in March 1975, a month before the group disbanded. [4] The show recorded at that venue appeared later as the group's Red Patent Leather album. [5] Soon after in 1975 that location of the defunct Little Hippodrome club re-opened as The East Side Club, a gay men's social club. [6]
The largest theater in New York City is now Radio City Music Hall.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c "World Theatres - alphabetical listing", World-Theatres, 2008, webpage: World-theatres.
- ^ Theatre record and scrap book, 1904-1908. Clarke Historical Library (located inside Park Library, CMU campus) manuscript. Mt. Pleasant, MI
- ^ The Hippodrome Center, Star Office Space
- ^ From the Hip, "It's All the streets you crossed not so long ago" blog, October 18, 2005, from Nina Antonia, "Too Much, Too Soon" London: Omnibus, 1998, and Village Voice ad, March 30, 1975
- ^ Live in NYC - 1975, mp3.com
- ^ East Side Club home
- Kenneth Jackson (1995). Encyclopedia of New York City. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-05536-6.
[edit] External links
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