Longacre Theatre

The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theater at 220 West 48th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Opened in 1913, it was designed by Henry B. Herts and is named for Longacre Square, the former name of Times Square. The Longacre has 1,077 seats across three levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. Both the facade and the auditorium's interior are New York City designated landmarks.

The ground-floor facade is made of rusticated blocks of terracotta. The theater's main entrance is shielded by a marquee. The upper stories are divided vertically into five bays, which contain niches on either side of three large windows. The auditorium contains ornamental plasterwork, a sloped orchestra level, two balconies, and a coved ceiling. The balcony level contains box seats topped by flat arches, and the proscenium opening is also a flat arch. In addition, the Longacre contains two lounges, and the top story formerly had offices.

Theatrical personality Harry Frazee acquired the site in 1911 and developed the Longacre Theatre to accommodate musicals. The Longacre opened on May 1, 1913, with the play Are You a Crook?, but the theater housed several flops in its early years. Frazee, who co-owned the theater with G. M. Anderson, sold his ownership stake in 1917 to focus on baseball. The Shubert brothers acquired the Longacre in 1924 and operated it for two decades before leasing it as a radio and television studio in 1944. The Shuberts returned the Longacre to legitimate theatrical use in 1953. The theater gained a reputation for hosting few successful productions in the late 20th century and was nearly converted to a court in the early 1990s. The Longacre was renovated in 2008.

The Longacre Theatre is on 220 West 48th Street, on the south sidewalk between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, near Times Square in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. The square land lot covers 9,990 square feet (928 m²), with a frontage of about 100 feet (30 m) on 48th Street and a depth of 100 feet. The Longacre shares the block with the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre to the west, the Ethel Barrymore Theatre to the south, and the Morgan Stanley Building to the east. Other nearby buildings include the Eugene O'Neill Theatre and Walter Kerr Theatre to the north; Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan to the northeast; 20 Times Square to the east; the Hotel Edison and Lunt-Fontanne Theatre to the south; and the Lena Horne Theatre and Paramount Hotel to the southwest.

Before the Longacre Theatre was developed, the surrounding area generally had a mixture of low-rise residences and industrial buildings. The site of the Longacre Theatre was previously occupied by a row of four residences, each of which was three stories high. At the time of the theater's construction, the site to the east contained a carriage factory, while the Union Methodist Church was across 48th Street.

The Longacre Theatre was designed by Henry B. Herts and constructed for baseball personality Harry Frazee. Herts had designed several Broadway theaters with his partner Hugh Tallant, including the New Amsterdam Theatre and Lyceum Theatre, but the partnership dissolved in the early 1910s. The Longacre was one of the first Broadway theaters that Herts designed alone.

The main elevation of the facade faces north on 48th Street and is arranged symmetrically with classical French details. Early news articles about the theater described it as having a facade of gray limestone and terracotta, with the terracotta pieces being painted in several colors. A contemporary New-York Tribune article compared the theater to the Whitehall Palace, while a New York Times article said the theater's exterior "gives a cheerful touch of snap and cheer to the old-time structures formerly characteristic of this block". The west and east elevations contain brick walls with window openings and fire escapes.

At ground level along 48th Street, there is a water table made of granite, above which are rusticated blocks of terracotta. The ground level contains five doorways, separated by sign boards. The three center openings are each approached by a single step; each opening contains a metal-and-glass double door topped by a transom. On either side of the central doors is a recessed doorway containing metal double doors. A frieze decorated with foliate moldings, as well as a horizontal band with facets, runs above the first floor. Above all of these openings is a metal marquee. The stage door is to the left of the main entrance doors. According to early photographs, the ground-floor facade was originally composed of colored terracotta tiles, the color of which complemented the upper stories.