New Victory Theater (New York City, New York)

5-story, Venetian-style, 500-seat theater completed in 1900. Designed by Albert Westover for Oscar Hammerstein, the New Victory Theater opened as the Theatre Republic on September 27, 1900 with Lionel Barrymore in the play Sag Harbor. Two years later it was leased by David Belasco, who renamed it for himself and produced a series of plays starring George Arliss, Mary Pickford, and Lillian Gish. In 1910, when Belasco renamed his Stuyvesant Theater on West 44th Street for himself, the name Theatre Republic was reinstated. Its most famous tenant was Abie's Irish Rose, which ran for 2327 performances between 1922 and 1927.

Billy Minsky converted it into a burlesque house in 1931, and it remained as such until 1941. It became a movie house called the Victory in 1942. The neighborhood gradually disintegrated, and by the 1970s it was one of several porn palaces lining the street. The City and State of New York took possession of the Victory in 1990. In 1992, it was one of six 42nd Street theaters to fall under the protection of The New 42nd Street, Inc., a not-for-profit set up to oversee the redevelopment of these historic theaters. The Victory was the first theater to be restored in an effort to revitalize 42nd Street and Times Square, and between 1994 and 1995 it underwent an $11.4 million renovation headed by the architectural firm of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. The restoration replaced the double staircase on the exterior that had been removed by Minsky, and returned the rest of the theater to the way it appeared during the Belasco era. On December 11, 1995, the refurbished theater, renamed The New Victory Theater, opened as a venue for family entertainment, including concerts, dance recitals, circus performances, and puppetry, and educational programs.

The facade is clad in light-grey brick above a brownstone base. At the center of the ground floor is a wide, projecting, sideways-oriented double-staircase with wrought-iron railings and ten wrought-iron multiple lamp posts on brownstone plinths. There are two lamp posts framing the lower end of the stairs at each side, two pairs fronting the central landing, and two more lamp posts at the back of the landing, flanking the twin doorways. These entries have wood-and-glass doors and transoms, and are framed in brownstone, with an entablature at the top featuring two carved putti figures flanking a lyre, in turn flanked by a pair of carved drama masks and eagles. Below the landing, the central area of the projecting staircase has three recessed entries, with brass-and-glass doors, and lettering above them spelling out "THE NEW VICTORY THEATER". At the far ends of the ground floor, there are secondary entrance with wooden doors.

The brownstone cladding of the lower level ends halfway up the doorways atop the staircase; the 4-story section above is clad in brick, and outlined in a thin band of blue LED lights. The 2nd-4th levels are organized into five bays. At the 2nd floor, where the central entrance is, the end bays have brownstone-framed windows with paneled pilasters supporting triangular pediments. The next level up has four round windows, framed in brownstone, flanking the ornament atop the central entrance. The 4th level has double-windows in the middle bay and single-windows in the other four bays, all framed in brownstone, with projecting keystones. The top floor is set off by a brownstone band, and has a central segmental-arched window set in a square brownstone panel with an inscribed circle, elaborately ornamented at the bottom with a face and acanthus leaves. At the upper corners at the numbers 19 and 00, for the date of completion. To either side are four round-arched windows with stone sills and keystones, separated by thin, projecting brick pilasters with stone bases and caps. The facade is crowned by a projecting, bracketed, black metal roof cornice surmounted by a lit sign in yellow lettering spelling out the name of the theater. There are also lit, vertical, purple-and-yellow sign bands on both edges of the facade, from the 3rd-5th floors, and a projecting, yellow oval sign intersected by a "V" (the theater logo) mounted in front of the central double-window on the 4th floor.

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