Unspecified/General

The oldest surviving Broadway theatre still in use for legitimate theatre, the New Amsterdam stands on 42nd Street and opened in 1903. A masterpiece of Art Nouveau design, with around 1,700 seats, it was the most lavish playhouse of its day and the original home of the famous Ziegfeld Follies, the extravagant revues that defined an era of New York entertainment. Its early decades were glittering. Designed by the architects Herts and Tallant, the theatre dazzled with sinuous floral ornament, murals and sculpture throughout its public spaces and auditorium, and a rooftop garden theatre hosted late-night shows above the main hall. The Follies and other spectacles drew the city's elite, making the New Amsterdam a centre of Broadway's golden age. Decline followed. As 42nd Street fell on hard times in the mid-twentieth century, the theatre was converted to a cinema and then abandoned, left to decay for years until it was a ruin open to the weather. Its revival came in the 1990s when the Walt Disney company took it on and undertook a painstaking restoration, returning the Art Nouveau interiors to their original splendour as part of the wider regeneration of the street. Since reopening, it has been a flagship for Disney's stage productions, hosting long runs of its musicals, and the restored building is regarded as one of the most beautiful theatres in the city. For audiences the New Amsterdam combines a polished modern production with a genuinely historic and ornate setting, and its restoration is part of the appeal. Tickets are sold through the resident show, performances run several times a week, and its location in the heart of the rebuilt 42nd Street places it among the bright lights and crowds at the centre of Times Square. Guided tours run on select dates for those wanting to admire the restored Art Nouveau detailing without attending a show, and the building is widely cited as a triumph of historic preservation. Its rooftop once hosted a separate cabaret theatre high above the street, a glamorous touch from its Follies heyday that speaks to the lavish scale of the original design.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: 214 West 42nd Street, New York City, NY, United States

Capacity: 1702

Opening Date: 26/10/1903