New Amsterdam Theatre (New York City, New York)

 theatre, Art Nouveau / Jugendstil (architecture), 1903_construction

10-story Art-Nouveau theater building completed in 1903. Designed by Herts & Tallant for A.L. Erlanger and Marcus Klaw, it was the largest theater in New York when it opened, with a seating capacity of 1,702. Offices were built above the theater portion. Along with the Lyceum Theatre, also built in 1903, it is the oldest surviving Broadway venue. It opened in November 1903 with a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. From 1913 to 1927, the theater was the home of the Ziegfeld Follies, whose producer, Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., maintained an office in the building, and operated a nightclub on the roof. It was used as a movie theater beginning in 1937. The Nederlander Organization purchased the landmark property in 1982, but it would not be on the road to rehabilitation for another eight years. In 1990, after a court battle, the State and City of New York assumed ownership of the New Amsterdam and many other theaters on 42nd Street. Disney Theatrical Productions signed a 99-year lease for the property in 1993.
It was renovated by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer in 1995–97 to be the flagship for Disney presentations on Broadway. In November 1997, after the premiere of the film Hercules and a limited engagement of a concert version of King David, Disney's stage version of The Lion King opened. On June 4, 2006, The Lion King closed in The New Amsterdam Theatre, moving two blocks uptown to the Minskoff Theatre on June 13, 2006. Mary Poppins began previews at the New Amsterdam Theatre on October 16, 2006 and opened on November 16, 2006.

The north portion of the building, with its front facade on 42nd Street is long and narrow, leading to the main theater space at 41st Street. The front facade is clad in grey limestone topped by a sloping red tile roof. Projecting from the roof is a central dormer with a stylized pediment incorporating a garlanded, carved mask at the peak; this is flanked by two smaller dormers. Originally freestanding figures representing Music and Drama surmounted the center dormer. The roof level is separated from the floors below by a projecting carved cornice with carved heads and floral ornament. An elaborate frieze with the date "1903" surmounts the 9th-floor windows which are flanked by stylized pilasters. At the 7th floor the windows, which are taller than those on the other office floors, are set off above a frieze incorporating winged heads, and the center window is flanked by stylized pilasters with floral capitals. Arches above the windows are filled with terra-cotta panels executed by the architectural sculptors Grendellis and Ricci. The panels with their trios of cupids represent Dance, Declamation, and Song.

The three lower floors have the most detail, with the theater entrance. The segmental-arched entrance originally had paired columns of Sicilian marble at the 2nd floor, with bronze capitals. The ground floor has brass-and-glass doors, covered by a large, projecting marquee lined with light bulbs. There is a tall round-arch extending to the 3rd floor; the bronze spandrel below the 3rd floor is modeled in curvilinear flower and vine forms, but this is partially obscured by the vertical sign attached to the facade, extending up to the 5th floor. This sign was added in 1937 when the theater was converted for showing movies; this was also when most of the ornament at the lower floors was removed. The white metal vertical sign is Art-Deco in style, with a rounded front banded with silver, red neon letters spelling "AMSTERDAM" down the sides, and a clock on top.

The west elevation, visible above the adjoining 3-story structure (containing the box office on the ground floor, and completely covered by sign boards on the upper floors), is clad in reddish-brown brick, with a section of red-painted brick at the 7th-9th floors near the front, and various bands of limestone. Near the center there is a narrow light well, bridged by a round-arch at the 8th floor. There are two bays of windows on either side, with quoined stone surrounds at the top floors. A few other random windows also appear at the lower floors.

The wide rear facade on 41st Street is clad in dark-red brick with a limestone band courses above the ground floor. On the west side there are nine bays of small, segmental-arched windows with keystones and stone sills, mostly beginning at the 4th floor. One of these bays has paired windows, offset vertically, with the eastern ones placed lower. The 9th floor has stone piers and cornices, and large, multi-pane windows filling each bay. The east part of the facade extends to the 10th floor, and has a seemingly random assortment of windows, including small round-arched single-windows like those at the west, larger segmental-arched windows, narrow paired segmental-arched windows. This section is almost entirely covered by an enormous black metal fire escape with two sets of staircases and wide landing in between. There is another, smaller fire escape over the western two bays at the west side of the facade.