The Town Hall (New York City)
The Town Hall (also Town Hall[a]) is a performance space at 123 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue near Times Square, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It was built from 1919 to 1921 and designed by architects McKim, Mead & White for the League for Political Education. The auditorium has 1,500 seats across two levels and has historically been used for various events, such as speeches, musical recitals, concerts, and film screenings. Both the exterior and interior of the building are New York City landmarks, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark.
Not to be confused with New York City Hall.Address
123 West 43rd Street
Manhattan, New York City
United States
Town Hall Foundation, Inc.
1,495
1919
January 12, 1921
1921–present
Teunis J. van der Bent of McKim, Mead & White
12,563 square feet (1,167.1 m2)
1011, 1012
April 23, 1980
March 2, 2012
November 28, 1978[2]
Town Hall was designed in the Georgian Revival style and has a brick facade with limestone trim. The base contains seven arched doorways that serve as the venue's entrance. The facade of the upper stories contains a large limestone plaque, niches, and windows. Inside the ground story, a rectangular lobby leads to the auditorium. The upper stories originally housed offices for the League for Political Education the Civic Forum, the Economic Club, and the Town Hall Club.
Town Hall's auditorium opened on January 12, 1921, and was originally intended as a place for speeches, but Town Hall subsequently became one of New York City's top musical venues in its 20th-century heyday. The first public-affairs media programming, the America's Town Meeting of the Air radio program, broadcast from Town Hall between 1935 and 1956. New York University (NYU) leased Town Hall afterward, but the venue began to decline in popularity during the 1950s and 1960s. NYU closed the auditorium in 1978 due to financial shortfalls, and Town Hall was then renovated and reopened as a performance venue by the Town Hall Foundation.
Site[edit]
Town Hall is on 123 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue near Times Square, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City.[6][7] The land lot covers 12,563 square feet (1,167.1 m2), with a frontage of 125 feet (38 m) on 45th Street and a depth of 100.42 feet (31 m). Nearby buildings include the Millennium Times Square New York, Hudson Theatre, Hotel Gerard, and the Chatwal New York hotel to the north; the Belasco Theatre to the northeast; the Bank of America Tower and Stephen Sondheim Theatre to the south; 4 Times Square to the southwest; and 1500 Broadway to the west.[7]
History[edit]
Early history[edit]
Eleanor Butler Sanders and five other prominent suffragists established the League for Political Education in 1894 to advocate for women's suffrage.[41][42] The group held popular "town meetings" about social issues and had 600 members by 1899.[43] The initial meetings were held in Sanders's house and attracted mainly women. Subsequent meetings attracted more men and were hosted in various venues around New York City, since the League had no dedicated clubhouse.[43][44] The Economic Club and Civic Forum were both founded in 1907 as offshoots of the League for Political Education.[43] In 1912, Anna Blakslee Bliss gave money to fund the construction of a dedicated clubhouse;[14][45] her initial donation of $1,000 was followed the next year by a larger donation.[45]
Development[edit]
Plans for a dedicated clubhouse for the League were first announced in 1914; the clubhouse would have been at 108–120 West 49th Street.[46][45] The 49th Street clubhouse, which would likely have been designed by James E. Ware, was never built.[45] The League's real estate committee then researched alternate sites before recommending the plots at 113–123 West 43rd Street, near Times Square. The committee recommended the site because of its proximity to transit.[13][45] The plots were then purchased in 1917[45][47] for $425,000.[13][45][48] At the time, Manhattan's theater district was in the process of shifting from Union Square and Madison Square to the vicinity of Times Square,[49] with forty-three Broadway theaters being erected there from 1901 to 1920.[45] The Societies Realty Corporation, which had been formed to construct the building,[48] received a $300,000 loan for the site in 1918.[50] That February, the League announced it would organize "a new club for men and women interested in civic problems", with a new clubhouse at 113 West 43rd Street.[51]
The plans for Town Hall were announced in April 1919. McKim, Mead & White had prepared plans for the building, which was expected to cost $500,000 and be completed by the next year. The structure was to house the League for Political Education, the Civic Forum, and the Economic Club.[13][48][52] That July, Russell B. Smith began to raze the existing row houses. Work on Town Hall began on October 10, 1919.[52] The League then scheduled a ceremony where Sanders's grand-niece Eleanor Butler Roosevelt would have laid the cornerstone.[53][54] E. B. Roosevelt could not attend because she was sick,[55] so her husband Theodore Roosevelt Jr. laid the cornerstone for Town Hall on January 24, 1920.[56][57] At a June 1920 dinner of the Economic Club, real-estate operator Joseph P. Day raised $7,500 in subscriptions for Town Hall, then tried to compel its attendees to give $100 each by locking them inside a dining room.[58]
Management and operations[edit]
Town Hall is managed by the Town Hall Foundation, Inc.[295][296] The foundation was formed in 1973 as a fundraising arm of the Town Hall at New York University[160] and took over the operation in 1979.[136]
The Town Hall Foundation offers free morning performances to public school students.[297] It also features programming in alliance with Theatreworks USA as part of its Arts in Education program.[298] The Hall's tradition of jazz programming continues with the Not Just Jazz series of concerts, which also features poetry, film and dance. Past participants in the series include The Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Lounge Lizards, Cassandra Wilson, Meredith Monk, and Allen Ginsberg.