Hippodrome Theatre

Wow it looks like a stadium, anyone have any pictures or stories of this gem?

Here is an actual photograph postcard from a slightly later date, with the vertical marquees added.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ny/newyork/postcards/hippdr.jpg

With J. H. Morgan as architect, the Hippodrome first opened in 1905 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. Until the end of WWI, 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. 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, by then merged into RKO, 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 Depression conditions. 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. Unfortunately, the start of WWII delayed re-development, and the Hippodrome site remained vacant until 1952, when it was taken over for a combination office building and parking garage.

There are photos and some history on the Hippodrome here:
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON027.htm

The style is listed as Beaux-Arts.

Christopher Gray from the New York Times has written an article for this last Sunday's Times about the Hippodrome. It's part of his continuing series on New York architecture, "Streetscapes".

May 22, 2005
STREETSCAPES
From a Palace of Spectacles to an Edifice of Offices
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

HE new skin going up over the old Hippodrome Building on the west side of the Avenue of the Americas from 43rd to 44th Street is the latest chapter in the building's complicated construction saga. What is now a 20-story structure was built in 1953 five stories high; it grew the next year to eight, and it attained its present height in 1961.

What was put up on the site 100 years ago, though, was much more complex - a grand palace of theatrical and other spectacles whose name the current building memorializes. Even though the theater was demolished in 1939, the original Hippodrome - a 5,200-seat home for stage spectaculars involving airships, Martians, elephants, Civil War battles and raging rivers - remains to this day one of the most unusual theatrical venues ever built.

The Hippodrome was the creation of Frederic Thompson and Elmer Dundy, who had attained fantastic success with their Luna Park entertainment center in Coney Island. Thompson was only in his 30's when he conceived Luna Park, a 22-acre assembly of thrilling rides, canals, towers, dance halls and sideshows that opened in 1903 (and that stayed around until the mid-40's).

In 1904, Thompson began work on an even more ambitious project, the Hippodrome, named for the open-air arenas in ancient Greece and Rome where chariot races were held. The theater was credited to the architect Jay H. Morgan, but he is otherwise known largely for stables and tenements, so it's reasonable to assume that the physical appearance was mostly Thompson's work.

To compete with the roaring Sixth Avenue elevated line, the exterior of the theater had to be something special, and it was - a rich Roman Renaissance screen of red brick and delectably lacy terra cotta, topped by a string of flagpoles and with miniature temples at each end capped by globe-shaped frames illuminated by strings of lights.

Giant banded columns flanked the main doorway, which had a keystone formed by a relief sculpture of a huge elephant's head. The auditorium, 160 by 160 feet, included a promenade consisting of glass cases holding live wild animals. It also had a great water tank, 14 feet deep, within the 200-foot-wide stage. The 1904 permit for the building said its construction cost would be $400,000.

The Hippodrome opened in April 1905 with "A Yankee Circus on Mars," an improbable drama-ballet-circus-opera in which the King of Mars buys a bankrupt New England circus. Another first-night offering (the evening lasted about four hours) was a Civil War drama, "Andersonville," in which opposing cavalry members fought a battle across a mountain torrent running under a 30-foot bridge. The evening's cast was reported to have included 280 chorus girls and 480 "soldiers." Those attending included Frederick Vanderbilt, Harry Payne Whitney and the architect Stanford White.

Thompson and Dundy envisioned a nationwide network of Hippodromes to send the shows on tour. But their investors were dissatisfied with the high costs of the visionary productions, and according to Woody Register's biography of Thompson, "The Kid of Coney Island" (Oxford University Press, 2001), the boy wonder was ousted after only 14 months.

Other theater operators continued Thompson's spectaculars, but Milton Epstein's exhaustive "The New York Hippodrome: A Complete Chronology of Performances, From 1905 to 1939" (Theater Library Association, 1993) shows a gradual increase in the number of concerts, sports events, benefits and other more traditional offerings, less expensive to produce.

In 1912, Al Jolson and others performed in a benefit after the sinking of the Titanic; in 1917, the religious revivalist Billy Sunday spoke at a benefit for newsboys; in 1920, John D. Rockefeller spoke at a religious meeting.

The New York Times said in 1925 that the Hippodrome had been sold and would become a department store, but that didn't happen, and in 1929 the developer Fred F. French proposed a $30 million skyscraper of 83 stories, to be called Hippodrome Towers. That didn't come to pass either.

By that time, large movie palaces were dominating the market, and the Hippodrome was for a time a vaudeville house and also showed movies. The mid- and late-1930's saw a dizzying mix of events: the weigh-in for the Max Schmeling-Joe Louis fight in 1936; a meeting of the "People's Committee Against William Randolph Hearst"; a gathering of the German-American Bund opposing a boycott against the Nazi regime; groups gathering in support of the Spanish Republic; a "Keep America Out of the War Rally" in 1938; and jai-alai, fencing, table tennis and wrestling.

But theater was not ignored. In 1935, the producer Billy Rose leased the Hippodrome for Rodgers and Hart's circus musical, "Jumbo," which featured Jimmy Durante and a live elephant and ran for 233 performances.

In January 1939, a "Mass Rally Protesting Six Years of Hitler Rule" was held, followed later that year by a swing concert with Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and many others.

The last recorded use of the Hippodrome was in June 1939, for the Emergency Committee to Save Our Children's Schools, a meeting at which 5,000 parents and teachers protested budget cuts. The theater was torn down later that year and used as a parking lot.

In 1944, five years after the Sixth Avenue elevated line was demolished, the architects Eggers & Higgins designed a 42-story office building for the site that was not built. Then, in 1947, Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith designed a three-story office building. Two years later McKim, Mead & White designed a 30-story building, a slim brick office tower with ribbon windows and a rooftop terrace, set on top of a wide base with space for 1,200 cars.

Neither of these plans came to fruition, but in 1951 the architects Kahn & Jacobs designed a three-story garage and office building, with a metallic front, called the Hippodrome Building. Difficulties in excavation - during which the original Hippodrome water tank was uncovered - soon caused revisions and resulted in a five-story structure, completed in 1953.

This concept seems to have worked, because in 1954 the same architects added three stories to the existing five, leaving the eight-story base as it appeared until recently. Then Kahn & Jacobs designed a major expansion for the building, adding a 12-story setback tower, atop and in the same style as the lower section. It was completed in 1961.

These days the Hippodrome Building looks a bit strange. The installation of a new skin designed by Moed de Armas & Shannon Architects is partly finished and is to be completed in August. Andrew Gottesman, a principal in the ownership group, says that it is rebuilding the lobby - doubling its height by eliminating some of the garage space on the second floor - and installing the new metal and glass skin to give the building "modern, clean lines" to match the neighborhood's upscale look.

Raul de Armas, a partner in the architecture firm, says that the lobby will feature a 20-foot-wide mural showing the original 1905 Hippodrome. "The site is kind of dynastic," he says, "and we wanted to honor that."

One relic will survive - the top-floor mechanical tower of 1961 has an abstract pattern of white metal that looks a bit like an ice floe of piano keys. The new skin will stop just short of that crowning feature, which is a perfect model of jet-age modernism.

I found Gray's article more than a bit lacking. He barely mentions all the MANY musical plays, revues and spectacles that were presented at the Hippodrome, leaving an impression to the uninformed that it was mainly a forum for special events. In its heyday, it was probably the world's largest and most famous entertainment showplace. If Gray can't do justice to the Hippodrome (about which there is no shortage of research material), I shudder to think what he would write in an article about the Mayfair, which has been suggested in the postings for that theatre.

You know Warren, I have to agree with you. I scanned this site quickly and by reading your entry, I got more from that than his article. My guess is (I'm playing devil's advocate here...) is that he has space constrictions and wanted to also discuss what is going on with the building that replaced it. His articles are very informative when he discusses buildings that have managed to remain through the years. If he does something on The Mayfair, it's liable to be something on the building The Mayfair resides in as a whole rather than just the theater itself. Disappointing to us but in terms of architecture, that might be way he'd look at it.

Given the very tight space contraints for his column, I thought Gray actually covered the diverse history of the Hippoadrome site very well, particularly here:

"Other theater operators continued Thompson's spectaculars, but Milton Epstein's exhaustive "The New York Hippodrome: A Complete Chronology of Performances, From 1905 to 1939" (Theater Library Association, 1993) shows a gradual increase in the number of concerts, sports events, benefits and other more traditional offerings, less expensive to produce."

I think it's also important to remember that his column is not billed as (or intended to be) an in-depth history of theaters and cinemas, but a brief column/"update" about New York City's changing streetscape -- particularly, it seems to me, it's architecture.

It's funny that Gray should have a column published on the Hippodrome just as he was being discussed in the Embassy 2, 3, 4 thread on this site. I briefly met Gray a number of years before he actually started writing his column, and have been a fan of his from the beginning. I think he could have done a really interesting and useful article on the Embassy 2, 3, 4 (I agree it should really be listed as the Mayfair, instead), and I'm about to post on the Embassy 2, 3, 4 thread a suggestion about how I think it might be possible to still get him to do one.

Benjamin, I felt exactly the same way when I turned to Gray's article on Sunday. I was like "Hmmmmm...interesting." He might have realized that he hadn't done anything on theaters in awhile. Or it's just a weird coincidence.

I've been reading his articles for about five years and I think (I could be wrong) that this is the first one I've read about a theater.

I'm not sure about this, but I think Gray once did an article on the the spectacular Art Deco, 3,000+ (?) seat, Earl Carroll Theater that once existed on the southeast corner of Seventh Ave. and 50th St. Although the theater had been closed for many years -- with a Woolworth's occupying the ground level space -- the structure existed until relatively recently, when it was torn down for the construction of the office tower that ultimately became the Lehman Bros. building.

It seems to me that Gray usually does his articles when something of note is happening to a building (e.g., it's being sold, refurbished, torn down, etc.). So I think this piece was done when the Earl Carroll was finally scheduled to be torn down. Again, if I remember correctly, Gray got permission from the owners to visit the untouched space that was above the Woolworth's.

But it is also possible that I've misremembered this and that the article that I think I read in the "Times" was actually written by Nicholas Van Hoostraten, the author of "Lost Broadway Theaters," instead. Hoostraten writes in his book about getting permission from Rockefeller Center, Inc. (the skyscraper's builders) to visit the areas above the Woolworth before the building was torn down.

By the way, there are great pictures of Earl Carroll Theater (and many others, including some that had also been used as movie theaters) in a Dover paperback, "Broadway Theaters: History and Architecture," by William Morrison. A few weeks ago at the Strand bookstore, there were stacks of brand new copies of this book being sold for less than the already relatively inexpensive cover price.

If I remember correctly, there are also some great photos of the Hippodrome in the Morrison book, including one of the interior of the auditorium that I haven't seen in my, admittedly quick, viewing of the links in this thread.

The history of the Hippodrome was played on a radio show on WFMU NYC last night.

The first "predominantly film" program at the Hippodrome opened on March 20th, 1915, with "The Heart of Maryland," starring the internationally-famous Mrs. Leslie Carter in the screen version of one of her most famous plays. Some short films were also on the bill, along with a stage show utilizing the Hippodrome's water tank. The top admission price was 50 cents, which a reviewer for The New York Times recommended as "an excellent investment."

"The Most For The Least" (November 20, 1932):
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/hipp32.jpg

1st photo is dated 12-4-38:

http://www.subwaywebnews.com/Images2/6thavel.jpg

2nd photo is a slightly larger shot of the postcard scene at the top of this page:

http://www.subwaywebnews.com/Images2/hippo02t.jpg

Does anyone know about the mural "The Thousand Horses" that was painted in the building by artist J. Charles Schnorr?

During this February, 1927 ad, the Hippodrome was the second largest NYC theatre showing movies (preceded by the Capitol), but in another month it would drop to third place due to the opening of the Roxy:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/hipp2627-1.jpg

A half dozen pix of the Hippodrome and interesting text can be found at the link below:

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON027.htm

After eighteen months of roadshowing elsewhere, Paramount's aviation epic "Wings" finally entered general relase in January 1929, prompting the RKO Hippodrome to support its engagement with a colossal stage production (with a cast of 100!) that re-created the longest and bloodiest battle of the Great War of 1913-18:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/hipp129.jpg

This is a photo of the Hippodrome Theater. Date given for photo is 1929.

In the spring of Depression-wracked 1932, the RKO Hippodrome was claiming to be "the biggest entertainment bargain" in New York City. Complete shows lasted from four to five hours, and included two feature movies, eight acts of vaudeville, several newsreels, short subjects, and cartoons. Prices ranged from 25 cents during the day to 50 cents at night (75 cents on Saturday and Sunday).

Some of the introductory information needs to be changed. Vaudeville and movies came late to the Hippodrome, which was originally home to spectacular stage presentations of many types, including plays, musicals, circuses, rodeos, etcetera. The Capitol Theatre, which opened in 1919 (eight years before the Roxy), had more seats than the Hippodrome, and became the largest theatre in Manhattan until the Roxy's arrival.

Here is a 1910 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/5b54dq

A thorough and delightful history of the Hippodrome by 97-year-old Jack Robinson, who actually attended the theatre many times during its final years, is featured in the Second Quarter 2008 issue of Marquee, the journal of Theatre Historical Society of America. Numerous illustrations include an ultra-rare view of the huge auditorium in the process of demolition. The article won a prize in THSA's annual Jeffrey Weiss Literary Competition, and is highly recommended. A subscription to Marquee is part of annual membership in THSA. More details can be found at www.historictheatres.org

When I worked in this dreary, non-descript building in the 1980s, the address was 1120 Avenue of the Americas (in case anyone goes searching for the site).

Charles Chaplin in person, 1916.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25725093@N07/3468625748/

There is a segment in NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOWBUSINESS that takes place in the Hippodrome. Probobly special effects but very well done and showing the water tank effects.

Here is a 1929 photo currently being advertised on eBay:
http://tinyurl.com/rbue7a

A 1939 World's Fair Guide lists the Hippodrome Theatre as a being a professional Jai Alai venue, the only one in NYC at the time. How long did it last ?