Palace Theatre

Stand still for a moment and listen. Taxi horns, a street preacher, the hiss of a bus kneeling at the curb, a crowd of strangers all speaking different languages at once. This is the top of Times Square, where Broadway and Seventh Avenue cross. Somewhere in this wall of glass, screens, and steel is one of the most important stages in American entertainment. You could walk past it and never know.

This is the Palace Theatre. It opened in 1913, built by the vaudeville producer Martin Beck. Vaudeville, for anyone who did not grow up with it, was a kind of live variety show. One evening's bill might hold a singer, a comedian, a dog act, a juggler, a dramatic sketch, and an acrobat. Each act had its few minutes, then the next one came on. For several decades, it was the most popular form of entertainment in the country.

The Palace became the summit of that world. Performers had a phrase for it: "playing the Palace." It meant you had arrived. A comedian could tour for years through small towns and mid-sized cities, and the dream at the end of every road was this stage on Broadway. Many of the great names of early twentieth century comedy and song passed through here, including Fanny Brice. The famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt appeared here in the theatre's early years.

The start was not easy, though. Early reports describe a weak opening, with critics and audiences unconvinced. Then the bookings improved, the big names arrived, and within a short time the Palace was the place every vaudevillian wanted to be. That is a surprise worth keeping in mind. A theatre now remembered as a legend began as a gamble that nearly failed.

Vaudeville could not survive the arrival of sound films and radio. By the early 1930s, the old variety circuits were collapsing across the country. In 1932, the Palace turned largely to motion pictures, with live acts squeezed in alongside the films. For decades it worked mainly as a movie house. The stage that once held the best acts in America now sat behind a screen.

Then came a famous return. In 1951, Judy Garland brought a concert engagement to the Palace. It ran for weeks and became one of the most celebrated runs in the theatre's story. Garland came back more than once in later years. Her performances helped revive the idea of the Palace as a place for great live performance, and not only a cinema.

In the mid-1960s, the theatre was bought by the Nederlander Organization, a family company that still operates many Broadway houses. They restored the interior and reopened the Palace as a home for full Broadway musicals. The first big show of this new life was the musical "Sweet Charity" in 1966. Since then, large-scale musicals have filled this house again and again, among them "La Cage aux Folles" and Disney's "Beauty and the Beast."

Now look at the building in front of you. Here is something most visitors miss. You cannot really see the old theatre from the street. In the late twentieth century, a tall hotel tower was built around and above it. The original front was hidden. Today, the Palace sits inside a modern complex, its auditorium wrapped in newer construction, reached through an entrance that sits among bright shopfronts and screens.

And here is the second surprise — perhaps the strangest story in Broadway history. A few years ago, as part of a major redevelopment of this block, engineers lifted the entire historic auditorium upward. They raised it roughly thirty feet, slowly and carefully, using hydraulic jacks. The goal was to create new space at street level beneath it. Picture it: a century-old theatre, with its plaster ceilings and balconies intact, rising into the air, inch by inch.

Why go to all that trouble rather than simply rebuild? Because the interior is protected. New York City designated the Palace interior as an official landmark in the 1980s. That means the auditorium itself — its shape, its decoration, its sense of space — must be preserved. So instead of losing the room, the city and its builders moved it. The theatre closed for several years during this work and later reopened to audiences.

Theatres collect stories, and the Palace has its share of ghost tales. Locals and stagehands say the building is one of the most haunted on Broadway. According to one popular legend, the spirit of an acrobat who fell during a performance still appears near the stage. Others claim to have glimpsed Judy Garland. These are folklore, not documented history. But they say something true about how deeply performers feel the weight of this stage.

If you have a ticket tonight, notice the shift as you step inside. The noise of Times Square drops away behind you. The air changes. The light softens from neon to warm gold. Inside, the auditorium rises in tiers, with balconies curving toward the stage. Sit for a moment before the show and look up. You are sitting in the same room where vaudeville's best once waited for their turn under the lights.

And if you are only passing by, take one more look before you go. Above you, screens flash advertisements that change every few seconds. Around you, people hurry toward dinner, toward the subway, toward their own shows. Behind all of this, lifted into the air and kept safe, is a quiet room built for applause. As you walk away down Broadway, listen again to the noise of the square... and remember that for more than a century, people have come to this corner hoping to hear their name called on that stage.