Aah Broadway, the most famous theatre district in the world.
Glitz, glamour, the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd.
Nowhere in New York embodies the history of The Great White Way more than the iconic
Palace Theatre. It’s hosted greats like Harry Houdini, Liza Minelli and… Spongebob Squarepants.
After more than a century of entertaining audiences in Times
Square, it’s getting a well deserved facelift.
Millions are being spent restoring the interior, remodelling the elaborate plaster work,
creating new light fittings and.. What we’re doing is taking a 100
year old landmark theatre and raising it up 30 feet
Wait, what?
The theatre lift consists of lifting a 1,700 seat theatre in its entirety,
30 feet from its current elevation.
That’s right. More than just the curtain is being raised in this
plan to build the biggest and most cutting edge entertainment venue in Times Square.
So if you’re wondering how and why an historic theatre is being lifted nearly
10 metres into the air, grab some popcorn and take your seat - the show is about to begin.
Our story starts here: Times Square in 1913
where impresario Martin Beck wanted a grand theatre to show off the greatest acts of the day.
It gives people a feeling of, you know, event to come into a space like that where it's a beautiful
place. And the palace was meant to be a kind of palace. Right?
The combination of big name acts and a luxurious interior were an instant hit and the Palace
became one of the most successful theatres in the district, loved by performers and audiences alike.
Jeffrey Eric Jenkins [00:17:02 - 00:17:21] Sarah Bernhardt made USD $7,000 a week.
That's more money than by a thought, by a factor of about four, I think,
for what the president of the United States made at that time.
But the good times were not to last…
By the 1980s Times Square was seeing major redevelopment and when plans were announced
to build a new hotel on the site of the Palace, it looked like it was curtains for the theatre.
But it’s not over till the fat lady sings and at the last minute the Palace was given City
Landmark Status, the same designation given to buildings like The Empire State and the
Guggenheim Museum – it prevents demolition and sets strict rules on any alterations.
Undeterred, in 1987 the plans for the hotel went ahead anyway but instead
of knocking the Palace theatre down, the hotel was just built around it.
Fast forward 30 years and this time it’s the hotel which has outstayed its welcome.
The 1980s structure is being demolished to make way for this.
We're going to have a hotel development,
a retail development and an actual Broadway theatre all contained within our property
The 170 metre tower clearly wants to make a statement. But to steal
the limelight in the middle of all this you need to do something pretty special.
And that something is this, a showstopping outdoor platform for musicians and live events
hovering nine metres above 7th Avenue. And in case that doesn’t catch your eye,
you’ll get to see performers on Times Square’s largest and most advanced display screen.
What makes our site unique is we actually designed two large 15 by 15 foot door lifts so that when
the doors are in the closed position, it will appear as there is no doors, it will just appear
as a regular LED sign. When the doors are in the open position, they will open inwards that will
enable bands, concert performers to not only be the audience is actually live in Times Square, but
we're going to hopefully be broadcasting out to the to the to the larger public via the Internet.
Connected to this will be two floors of what’s promised to be the latest in experiential retail
To make the most of this incredible location,
this gallery space will sit at ground floor on one of the busiest street corners in America…
exactly where the registered City Landmark Palace Theatre has sat for over a hundred years.
Let’s rewind a bit. The landmark designation which saved the Palace in the 80’s only applied
to the inside of the theatre. Everything but the stage and the auditorium was knocked down
when the building was absorbed into the hotel. This gave the TSX Broadway developers an idea.
Robert Israel [00:03:58 - 00:04:38] When we bought the property,
the Palace Theatre existed at the ground level. We needed to move the theatre out
of the way. With that in mind, we said, okay, what if we lifted the theatre box in order to
open up and activate the ground floor and the other retail potential of this project?
Right so that’s the why, now what about the how?
First the existing tower was partly demolished and a structure was put
in place to support the remaining floors. The basement was then made ready for the
lift and the steelwork above the theatre was cleared to give it room to move into.
At least the site isn’t – you know – right next to one of the busiest and most photographed
public squares in the world that never takes a moment’s pause. No pressure guys.
Chris Speckenbach [04:27 - 05:06] Typical job in Manhattan. You come in,
your foundation, guy's going to start, he leaves, superstructure comes in you know,
one at a time. This job had four alphas on the job at the same time. And they all had to work
together. And you have urban foundations the entire time down below all of this
trying to get this accomplished. One of the most challenging parts of
the construction was clearing the basement of the theatre to allow the installation of some
34 specially designed lifting posts while not undermining the
48 storey building that remained overhead You come in there, you have to basically
take the overburden out, chop a little bit of the rock, but you can't go too
deep because you can't undermine the existing foundations and then put a drill rig in there
after we created the head room, obviously, step by step, one by one, we went across, we drilled the
40 inch holes, set a 36 inch casing in there, and then we dropped what in essence was the
lifting mechanism in the can, which was this is where all the work is. This was the hardest part.
The first phase began in January when it was lifted
just over seven centimetres to test the equipment.
Tilt metres ensured the theatre stayed level during the lift and an array of
monitors were in place to spot any damage to the theatre as it rose up through the structure.
That was the biggest risk around the theatre, was making sure that the theatre was lifted safely,
making sure there was no damage to the landmark internal fabric of the theatre
The one thing that the lift had is that had extensometers, which were little devices that
were wired on each jack, and that went back to like a main hub. So if you're pushing up
on theatre, it could monitor that we weren't getting one area was going faster than another,
you know, pushing the theatre out of plumb.
As well as the heavy duty equipment, a small army of specialists worked on the lift.
Three different teams of structural engineers were employed to focus on the foundations,
the lifting apparatus and the theatre itself.
Once the team was happy with how the equipment performed the main phase began on February 14th.
The hydraulic jacks lifted the theatre box in 12 centimetre “strokes”
after each of these movements a team of consultants performed a thorough
inspection of the structure, before any work continued.
After seven painstaking weeks the lift was finally completed on April 5th.
To see the theatre rise… yes, it was very difficult. That made everybody sort of nervous.
But ultimately, as the theatre raised, it was just an awesome, awe inspiring
moment for myself, the team, the consultants.
Now the theatre has been hoisted into position it’s getting a facelift from a team of
specialist restoration workers. On opening night, theatregoers will enter through a brand new lobby
and be treated to a theatre that’s been restored to its former glory.
The theatre may have started life as a Palace but now it’s part of something even bigger.
all of those back and house support areas which are very usually obviously play second fiddle to
the performance areas are now going to be state of the art 21st century and everybody's going to want
to play the palace. They wanted to play it before, but now it's going to be even more enticing
So will this do justice to the venue that’s hosted everyone from Judy Garland to Frank Sinatra
and will lifting the theatre be enough to bring the house down?
Obviously, the new palace design is not an old style palace. But,
you know, I think that's going to be okay.
It's going to be interesting. I'm really I'm kind of excited to see how it all plays out.
Before the theatre reopens for the next generation of stars, there’s another group
who need to take a bow for raising the roof. So it's a testament… to the team, to my team,
the consulting team, to the construction team that we were able to do this and do it safely.
The show must go on, and for the Palace Theatre it will do so thanks to the skill of
the modern construction industry, so here’s a standing ovation to all those involved.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a ticket to the hottest show in town
If you enjoyed this video and would like to get an encore from the definitive
video channel for construction, and puns, subscribe to The B1M.