Palace Theatre (New York City)
The Palace Theatre is a Broadway theater at 1564 Broadway, facing Times Square, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Milwaukee architects Kirchhoff & Rose, the theater was funded by Martin Beck and opened in 1913. From its opening to about 1929, the Palace was considered among vaudeville performers as the flagship of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II's organization. The theater had 1,743 seats[a] across three levels as of 2018.
Address
1564 Broadway
Manhattan, New York City
United States
Nederlander Organization
1,743[a]
Closed for renovation
March 24, 1913 (vaudeville)
January 29, 1966 (Broadway theater)
1987–1991, 2018–2022
1913–1932 (vaudeville)
1932–1965 (movie palace)
1966–present (Broadway)
July 14, 1987[1]
1367[1]
Auditorium interior
The modern Palace Theatre consists of a three-level auditorium at 47th Street, which is a New York City designated landmark. The auditorium contains ornately designed plasterwork, boxes on the side walls, and two balcony levels that slope downward toward the stage. When it opened, the theater was accompanied by an 11- or 12-story office wing facing Broadway, also designed by Kirchhoff & Rose.
The Palace was most successful as a vaudeville house in the 1910s and 1920s. Under RKO Theatres, it became a movie palace called the RKO Palace Theatre in the 1930s, though it continued to host intermittent vaudeville shows in the 1950s. The Nederlander Organization purchased the Palace in 1965 and reopened the venue as a Broadway theater the next year. The theater closed for an extensive renovation from 1987 to 1991, when the original building was partly demolished and replaced with the DoubleTree Suites Times Square Hotel; the theater was reopened within the DoubleTree in 1991. The DoubleTree Hotel was mostly demolished in 2019 to make way for the TSX Broadway development. As part of this project, the Palace closed again in 2018 and was lifted 30 feet (9.1 m) in early 2022. As of 2023, the renovation is scheduled to be completed in 2024.
Alleged haunting[edit]
The ghost of acrobat Louis Bossalina allegedly haunts the theater. Observers have said that the ghost is a white-clothed figure swinging in the air before emitting a "blood-curdling scream" and falling.[286][287] Bossalina, who was a member of the acrobatic act the Four Casting Pearls, was injured when he fell 18 feet (5.5 m) during a performance on August 28, 1935, before 800 theatergoers.[286][287] Bossalina's act was not a trapeze but rather fixed towers in which the acrobats were "cast from one to the other".[288] Comedian Pat Henning started his act in front of a curtain that was pulled right after the accident.[288] Bossalina died in 1963.[286][287] According to television channel NY1, sightings of Bossalina only occurred through the 1980s,[286] though another source cited a sighting in the 1990s during a showing of Beauty and the Beast.[287]