Roundabout Theatre at Studio 54 (New York City, New York)

 theatre, interesting place

192-foot, 16-story office building and theater completed in 1927. Designed by Eugene de Rosa, it has a narrow office section fronting 54th Street, clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story limestone base, and a theater behind it fronting 53rd Street, clad in buff-colored brick. It opened as the Gallo Opera House and transformed into the New Yorker Theatre in 1930. CBS purchased the space in 1942 and made it the home of renowned television shows like "The Johnny Carson Show." CBS sold the space in the late 1970s, and the new owners transformed the space into the most legendary nightclub of the disco-era, Studio 54.

Studio 54 was a popular and world renowned nightclub from 1977 until 1981 when it was sold by founders and creators Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. It was called the most famous nightclub of all time and was a sophisticated, groundbreaking multi-media visual extravaganza. It continued to operate as a nightclub until 1991 by other owners. Since November 1998 it has been a venue for the Roundabout Theatre Company and is still called Studio 54, but is no longer a nightclub.

During 1994 Allied Partners bought the building for $5.5 million. They restored much of the architectural detail that had been painted black or covered with plywood by Schrager and Rubell. The nightclub reopened with a live concert by disco stars Gloria Gaynor, Vicki Sue Robinson, and Sister Sledge. The building again went into bankruptcy in 1996 and Allied announced plans to demolish it and replace it with Cyberdrome, a virtual reality gaming venue; however the project was never completed.

During 1998, the collapse of a construction hoist blocked access to the Henry Miller Theatre on 43rd Street, where the successful revival of the Broadway musical Cabaret was playing. To keep the show accessible, the Roundabout Theater Company agreed to move the performance to Studio 54. Roundabout later bought the building in 2003 from Allied for $22.5 million, and Cabaret played until 2004. The theaters seats 1,006. A separate restaurant and nightclub, Feinstein's/54 Below, operates in the basement of the building.

The office portion on 54th Street has four separate entrances lining ground floor, which is painted black. At the left is a large, red wooden door to 54 Below, with a small, rounded, red canvas canopy. To the right is the main entrance to the upper floors of offices, with triple glass doors. Further right is a theater entrance with three sets of glass double-doors under a marquee with signboards on all three sides, outlined by light bulbs. At the west end is a glass double-door and sidelight, the separate entrance to The Mandl School - College of Allied Health, which occupies much of the space on the upper floors.

The 2nd floor has only a small window to the left of the marquee. The 3rd floor has larger double-windows in the end bays, and a band of four window panes in the middle, with three projecting flagpoles above them. The base is capped by a dentiled band course with four prominent brackets at the piers formed by bronze figures, each sitting cross-legged and representing various forms of the arts.

The brick upper floors have double-windows with black iron mullions in the end bays, and four bays of single-windows in the middle. The two piers framing the center section are wider than the end piers, but all four have angled, projecting stone bases at the middle of the 4th floor; extending up through the middle of the 5th floor, the end piers have vertical stone bands in the center of the piers and the middle two piers have tall, slightly-recessed arches lined in stone. At the tops of these short projecting sections, stone caps angle back to the facade. Between these pier sections, the spandrels between the 4th & 5th floors have vertical stone bands, and there are stone sills at the 5th floor. The 4th-floor windows are fronted by wrought-iron railings at the lower halves. The rest of the windows have simpler stone sills and brick lintels.

The end bays set back above the 11th floor, and the middle bays set back above the 13th, with additional setbacks every two floors up to the main roof line and mechanical penthouse on top. The upper setbacks have finial-like projections at the corners of the middle section. The west side elevation is also clad in brick and has a bay of single-windows at the front, with three bays of double-windows farther back.

The theater section to the south on 53rd Street has two main sections. At the west is the main theater area, rising four floors. At the west end there are two bays of recessed exit doors, each with two sets of paired metal doors atop two steps. The middle section of the facade is recessed, and to the right is the taller, 6-story stagehouse section, where the ground floor has a freight entrance at the far east end, next to poster boxes. The entire ground floor is topped by a pair of stone string courses. The bottom of an iron fire escape fills the middle recessed area, with a metal door accessing the fire escape. It continues up to a landing halfway up the theater section (where a pair of metal doors accessing the landing are the only openings), and then to a long section that runs along the top floor, with a metal roof. There is another set of metal doors at the west end here. The stagehouse section has five bays of single-windows at the 2nd-4th floor, with smaller windows at the 2nd bay from the left. All the windows have brick sills and lintels and round-arches are formed by the brickwork at the 2nd floor (except for the smaller window). At the top two floors there are no openings, but there are vertical bands of brick, and the middle section of the top two floors is covered by an angled sign mounted on the facade.

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