Hotel Beacon (New York City, New York)

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266-foot, 24-story Beaux-Arts/Renaissance-revival hotel and attached theater completed in 1929. Designed by Walter W. Ahlschlager, the 3-tiered, 2,894-seat theater was intended for motion pictures аnd vaudeville. The theater has an address of 2124 Broadway, while the hotel's is 2130. The Beacon Theatre was originally conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin in 1926 as part of a projected chain of deluxe New York City movie palaces, to be called the Roxy Midway Theatre. However, the collapse of Lubin's fortunes doomed the Roxy scheme and the Midway was never opened. The nearly completed theater sat vacant for a time and was eventually acquired by Warner Theatres to be a first-run showcase for Warner Bros. films. Later operated by Brandt Theaters, the Beacon continued as a primarily first-run movie theater into the early 1970s. In 1974, Steven Singer bought the theater to present live pop concerts promoted by Stephen Metz. They were followed by Marvin Getlan and Allen Rosoff who bought the theater in 1976 and continued its new life as a major presenter of live concerts. In 1987, an effort to convert the theater into a nightclub was blocked in court on the grounds that it would irreparably damage the theater's historic and protected architecture. Subsequently, the theater underwent a revival in its concert hall business, filling New York's low-to-mid-sized venue notch between the larger Radio City Music Hall and various smaller clubs and ballrooms. The Madison Square Garden Company began operating the Beacon in 2006.

The hotel section is angled on the west side to follow Broadway, and the top floors are similarly angled on the east as well, rising above the theater's roof. The hotel is clad in buff-colored brick and has a 2-story limestone base, painted grey at the ground floor. The theater entrance, clad in bronze, is at the south end on Broadway, with a recessed, rounded area with four sets of bronze-and-glass double-doors arranged around a central ticket box. A large metal marquee with digital signage on all three sides covers the entrance. To the north are five bays of storefronts housing the Beacon Bar and part of the hotel lobby. The next bay has the hotel entrance, with glass sliding doors below a rounded, black canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. There are four more storefront bays at the north end. The ground floor is capped by the same band course with wide dentils as on the theater's ground level.

The 2nd floor along Broadway has 11 bays of tall round-arched windows with black clamshell canopies, and shorter square-headed end bays with carved bearded faces at the top of the moldings; the southern one has a metal vent in place of the window. The upper floors have 11 bays of double-windows and end bays of single-windows, with three of the double-window bays at the 3rd floor having stone surrounds topped by shallow rounded pediments above carved faces. The 5th floor has stone surround with ogees at the sides, small cartouches at the bottoms, and ornamented stone brackets at the same bays, as well as the double-window bays closest the ends. The 5th floor is capped by a dentiled band course. There is a brief segment of dentiled band course above the northern double-window bay on the 6th floor. The 8th floor has shallow projecting stone balcony railings fronting four of the double-window bays, each carried of five squat brackets and decorated with a stylized eagle. The southern end bay terminates at the 15th floor, as do the two northern bays, with the double-window bay having a stone balcony railing on four brackets.

The 10 remaining bays continue up to the 24th floor; four of them have stone balcony railings with angled ends at the 23rd floor. The roof line is marked by stylized capitals at each pier, except near the north end, where a 3-bay section extends up to a mechanical penthouse disguised by additional ornament. This includes a large stone arch in the center, with a projecting stone sill and quoins along the sides, surmounted by a giant cartouche. On either side of the tall arch are tall window openings with stone surrounds, and oversized stone medallions above them.

The ground floor of the north facade on 75th Street has three aluminum-and-glass storefront bays at the west end. To the left is a glass door and then two more storefront bays. The east end, closer to the junction with the theater, there is a metal service door, two large bay of black metal infill with two metal doors, and two smaller freight entrances. The 2nd floor has eight bays of round-arched windows, and a west end bay with a shorter square-headed window matching the end bays on the west facade. The arched windows also have clamshell canopies like those on the west facade. The upper floors have seven bays of double-windows, and single-window end bays. At the 3rd floor the center bay has a stone surround flanked by stone piers; above is a keystone wrapped with elaborate garlands and ogee moldings; a smaller stone surround is at this bay on the 4th floor, with a cartouche and dentiled cornice at the top. Two of the other bays on the 3rd floor have surrounds with rounded pediments like those on the west facade, and there are four bays on the 5th floor with surrounds and ornament matching those on the west facade. The dentiled band course above the 5th floor continues onto this facade as well. There are three short dentiled band course segments above three of the bays at the 6th floor, and shallow stone balconies fronting three bays at the 15th floor, with the floors above set back.

A narrow, 2-bay section bridges the junction between the hotel and the theater, clad in brick above the ground floor. It has single-windows in both bays up to the 10th floor, with an extra window in the middle at the 2nd floor. The band course above the 5th floor doesn't cross over this section. There are three larger openings with beige metal infill at the 11th floor, above a sill course, and a projecting stone balcony at the 12th floor, below a single round-arched window. This section terminates one floor below the setback on the hotel's main north facade.

The upper section of the north facade has a recessed center section with a bay of paired windows. The west section has double-windows, and the east section has paired windows spaced closer together. Both end sections have a balcony below the 23rd floor. The crowning mechanical penthouse is similar to the design on its west elevation, but with two of the tall arches topped by cartouches, and a pair of tall windows in between.

The east elevation above the theater roof is angled to follow Broadway, like the west side, and has eight bays of double-windows (the southern two ending at the 15th floor, with a single-window bay at the north, where a small wing juts out to the east. The south elevation of this wing has a bay of single-windows, and the west elevation has a bay of double-windows. The mechanical penthouse rises above this wing, with a rounded, projecting chimney on this side.

The hotel takes its name from an actual airway beacon built by the Sperry Gyroscope Company that was installed on a high steel tower on the roof. The hotel has 278 guest rooms. The theater was the site of the 2011, 2012, and 2016 Tony Awards. The northwest corner of the ground floor is occupied by Viand Cafe.

www.beacontheatrenyc.com/