On your right, you will see a wide red-brick building anchored by a dramatic double-height stone arcade with sweeping arches resting on octagonal columns. Welcome to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Back when it opened in nineteen twenty-four, it was called the Martin Beck Theatre, named after the vaudeville king who built it. You have to admire the confidence of a guy who names a theater after himself and builds it without taking out a single mortgage.
Most Broadway houses from that era look like little Greek temples, all neoclassical and proper. But Beck wanted something completely different. The architect, Gustave Albert Lansburgh, gave him this incredible Moorish and Byzantine palace. Even from the street, the building has a real three-dimensional depth, thanks to that massive arcade wrapping the entrance. And what is brilliant is how the facade masks both the auditorium and the stage house as one unified block, which was pretty rare for the time.
If you pull out your screen for a second, check out the original ticket box window. You can still see the words Martin Beck Theatre carved right into the stone, a quiet little ghost of the past hanging out by the box office.
Now, the inside is where things get truly wild. Originally, the color scheme was red, blue, and orange with gold accents, meant to outshine every other theater in the neighborhood. Take a glance at your app to see the magnificent ceiling over the auditorium. That is a massive octagonal canopy with a multicolored wooden dome suspended in the center by canvas strips, all painted in these vibrant geometric designs. You do not see ceilings like that every day.
The theater has seen some legendary runs over the decades. We are talking over a thousand performances of The Teahouse of the August Moon in the nineteen fifties, and massive hits like Into the Woods and Dracula. But let us talk about the name change. In two thousand and three, the venue was renamed for Al Hirschfeld, the iconic Broadway illustrator, to celebrate his upcoming one hundredth birthday. He actually knew about the honor before he passed away earlier that year. They even put up a new marquee featuring his famous self-portrait as an inkwell. Originally, they used red neon for the ink, but people thought it looked a little too much like blood dripping from his head, so they quickly swapped it to blue neon. Problem solved.
If you ever want to catch a show or just admire the lobby, the box office is usually open from ten A-M to eight P-M most days, closing a bit earlier on Sundays and Mondays. This block just would not be the same without this Byzantine beauty anchoring the street. Whenever you are ready to keep moving, we can head to our next spot.
