Seeing a Broadway Show
My younger daughter recently visited New York, and we decided to see a show: Sunset Boulevard. I was to meet her at the St. James theater where it was showing. My plan was to take the train to Grand Central Terminal and then walk west until I got to the theater at 246 West 44th Street (between 7th Ave./Broadway and Eighth Avenue. If I saw anything interesting, I’d try to take some photographs. It was a very cold day, made worse by the strong winds and I didn’t expect to get much…but you never know – particularly in New York City. I expected to be early and planned to get some lunch before the performance. If she had any time after the show, we’d figure out what to do later.
On To Bryant Park -The Winter Village
I intended to make my first stop at Bryant Park.
Bryant Park is a 9.6-acre (3.9 ha), privately managed public park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. The eastern half of Bryant Park is occupied by the Main Branch of the New York Public Library. The western half contains a lawn, shaded walkways, and amenities such as a carousel, and is located entirely over an underground structure that houses the library’s stacks. The park hosts several events, including a seasonal “Winter Village” with an ice rink and shops during the winter.
The first park at the site was opened in 1847 and was called Reservoir Square due to its proximity to the Croton Distributing Reservoir. Reservoir Square contained the New York Crystal Palace, which hosted the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in 1853 and burned down in 1858. The square was renamed in 1884 for abolitionist and journalist William Cullen Bryant. The reservoir was demolished in 1900, and the New York Public Library’s main branch was built on the site, opening in 1911. Bryant Park was rebuilt in 1933–1934 to a plan by Lusby Simpson. After a period of decline, it was restored in 1988–1992 by landscape architects Hanna/Olin Ltd. and architects Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, during which the park was rebuilt, and the library’s stacks were built underneath. Further improvements were made in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. (Wikipedia)
The above mentions: “a period of decline”. That doesn’t quite tell the full story. By the 1960s, Bryant Park had deteriorated badly. When I arrived in New York in 1974 it had been taken over by drug dealers and the homeless. In was considered to be somewhere that ordinary people and visitors should avoid.
The park was substantially renovated and rebuilt during the 1980s and re-opened to acclaim in the early 1990s. The dramatic improvement in the park led to an equally dramatic rise in real estate values in the surrounding area. By 1993, the area had become a highly desirable office area, and formerly vacant office space around the park was being filled quickly. The Park is used mostly as a passive recreation space. It is one of the world’s busiest public spaces. Now more than 12 million people per year visit the park and enjoy gardens with seasonal displays, free daily amenities, cultural programming, exercise classes, and much more!
Skaters at Bryant Park
Bryant Park Ice Rink is New York’s largest ice rink with free admission – bring your own skates. I can neither ice-skate (nor roller skate for that matter) so I don’t see me using it any time soon. Still, it was fun watching the skaters.
The W. R. Grace Building
The W.R. Grace building stands directly across 42nd Street from Bryant Park.
The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft. It has 50 floors, is 630 feet (190 m) tall, and features a parking garage beneath the building for 185 vehicles. One of the aesthetic attributes of the building is the concave vertical slope (seen above) of its north and south facades, on 42nd and 43rd Street, though only the 42nd Street side has an entrance. A reception area on the 47th and 48th floors was designed by Duffy Inc.
The Grace Building uses the original, rejected design for the facade of the Solow Building, another Bunshaft creation. The sloping facade is also similar to the Chase Tower in Chicago. The exterior of the building is covered in white travertine, which forms a contrast against the black windows and makes the building appear brighter than those surrounding it. The Grace building has faced backlash on its design since its opening in 1974, with many criticizing its addition to the skyline, the unusual shape, and question the space taken up by the surrounding plaza. In fact, the company searched for a student design following the opening of the building to improve the design of the plaza.
Around 42nd Street
“Running west to east across Midtown Manhattan, 42nd Street is New York City’s all-singing, all-dancing entertainment hub. Part of the Times Square intersection and Broadway Theater District, the famous street draws visitors with its shows, shops, bright lights, and architectural landmarks” (Viator).
It’s a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, spanning the entire breadth of Midtown Manhattan, from Turtle Bay at the East River, to Hell’s Kitchen at the Hudson River on the West Side. The street has several major landmarks, including (from east to west) the headquarters of the United Nations (my employer for 38 years), the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Terminal, the New York Public Library Main Branch, Times Square, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
The street is known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square where these pictures were taken. This area is known as the Theater District.
West 42nd Street prospered as a theater and entertainment district until World War II, but from 1946 the street declined.
Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley‘s 1933 film musical 42nd Street, starring 30s heartthrobs Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, displays the bawdy and colorful mixture of Broadway denizens and lowlifes in Manhattan during the Depression. In 1980, it was turned into a successful Broadway musical which ran until 1989, and which was revived for a four-year run in 2001. In the words of the Al Dubin and Harry Warren‘s title song, on 42nd Street one could find:
Little nifties from the Fifties, innocent and sweet,
Sexy ladies from the Eighties who are indiscreet,
They’re side by side, they’re glorified,
Where the underworld can meet the elite
Naughty, gawdy, bawdy, sporty, Forty-second Street!
From the late 1950s until the late 1980s, 42nd Street was the cultural center of American grindhouse theaters, which spawned an entire subculture. The book Sleazoid Express, a travelogue of the 42nd Street grindhouses and the films they showed, describes the unique blend of people who made up the theatergoers:
depressives hiding from jobs, sexual obsessives, inner-city people seeking cheap diversions, teenagers skipping school, adventurous couples on dates, couples-chasers peeking on them, people getting high, homeless people sleeping, pickpockets…
While the street outside the theatres was populated with:
phony drug salesman … low-level drug dealers, chain snatchers … [j]unkies alone in their heroin/cocaine dreamworld … predatory chickenhawks spying on underage trade looking for pickups … male prostitutes of all ages … [t]ranssexuals, hustlers, and closety gays with a fetishistic homo- or heterosexual itch to scratch … It was common to see porn stars whose films were playing at the adult houses promenade down the block. … Were you a freak? Not when you stepped onto the Deuce. Being a freak there would get you money, attention, entertainment, a starring part in a movie. Or maybe a robbery and a beating.
For much of the mid and late 20th century, the area of 42nd Street near Times Square was home to activities usually considered unsavory, including peep shows.
In the early 1990s, city government encouraged a cleanup of the Times Square area. In 1990, the city government took over six of the historic theatres on the block of 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, and New 42nd Street, a not-for-profit organization, was formed to oversee their renovation and reuse, as well as to construct new theatres and a rehearsal space. In 1993, Disney Theatrical Productions bought the New Amsterdam Theatre, which it renovated a few years later. Since the mid-1990s, the block has again become home to mainstream theatres and several multi-screen mainstream movie theatres, along with shops, restaurants, hotels, and attractions such as Madame Tussauds wax museum and Ripley’s Believe It or Not that draw millions to the city every year. This area is now co-signed as “New 42nd Street” to signify this change.
Around Times Square
According to Wikipedia (which provides additional information)
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent Duffy Square, Times Square is a bowtie-shaped plaza five blocks long between 42nd and 47th Streets.
Times Square is brightly lit by numerous digital billboards and advertisements as well as businesses offering 24/7 service. One of the world’s busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days. The Times Square–42nd Street and 42nd Street–Port Authority Bus Terminal stations have consistently ranked as the busiest in the New York City Subway system, transporting more than 200,000 passengers daily.
Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the then newly erected Times Building, now One Times Square. It is the site of the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop, which began on December 31, 1907, and continues to attract over a million visitors to Times Square every year, in addition to a worldwide audience of one billion or more on various digital media platforms.
Times Square, specifically the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, is the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States for motorized vehicles. Times Square is sometimes referred to as “the Crossroads of the World” and “the heart of the Great White Way”
An Interesting Doorway
This picturesque doorway is in the Paramount Building:
1501 Broadway, also known as the Paramount Building, is a 33-story office building on Times Square between West 43rd and 44th Streets in the Theater District neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Rapp and Rapp, it was erected from 1925 to 1927 as the headquarters of Paramount Pictures. The building is designed in the Art Deco and Beaux-Arts styles. The office wing on Times Square contains numerous setbacks as mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution, while the rear wing housed the Paramount Theatre from 1926 to 1967. Newmark & Company owns 1501 Broadway.
The facade is mostly designed with brick walls, though the first five stories are ornamented with limestone piers. The main entrance is on 43rd Street. There is also a five-story arch on Broadway, facing Times Square, which leads to a Hard Rock Cafe; it is an imitation of the former Paramount Theatre entrance. Atop the building is a four-faced clock, with two large faces and two small faces, as well as an illuminated globe that could display the time. The ground floor historically had an ornate lobby leading to the theater, which had 3,664 seats over four levels. The modern building contains office space in both the original office wing and the theater wing.
Paramount predecessor Famous Players–Lasky proposed the theater in 1922, but Rapp and Rapp had revised the plans to include an office tower by 1924. The theater opened on November 19, 1926, though the offices did not open until the following year. The clock and globe on the roof were blacked out during World War II. A group led by David Rosenthal converted the theater to offices in 1967 and removed the theater’s original arch. The Paramount Building’s facade became a New York City designated landmark in 1988. The arch, clock, and globe were restored starting in the late 1990s, and the main entrance was relocated in another renovation in the 2010s.
The building has a much more spectacular entrance, which now serves as the entrance to the Hard Rock Cafe. I didn’t take a picture of it because I already have pictures from an earlier visit.
For more information, and some lovely historical photographs) of the Paramount Building see here.
Lunch at the Playright Celtic Pub
I was now feeling a little tired (from the walking) and hungry. It was also quite cold and very windy, so I decided to go somewhere warm and have something to eat. The Playwright Celtic Club was conveniently near to the theater where the show was being performed.
Finally at the Show
I met my daughter outside the theater, and we were, finally, ready to see the show.
Did I enjoy it? Well, first a little history. I saw the movie many years ago (and loved it). When the show first came out in 1993 it opened first in London. Since I was in New York I wasn’t able to see the show, so I bought the original cast recording instead. I loved that too. Eventually I saw the show in London. I’ve seen a lot of shows in New York and for some of them I didn’t care for the production. But I’ve never seen a poor performance. The depth of talent in New York City is incredible. When I saw the show in London the production was good, but the performances (particularly of the female lead) were less so. I was a bit disappointed, but I hoped to see it again sometime.
Fast forward to the present day. The performances were wonderful, especially those of the male and female leads. Nicole Scherzinger was particularly impressive despite the fact that she was rather too young, and perhaps too attractive to play the part. But what a fantastic voice.
Unfortunately, I have mixed feelings about the production. There were no sets. The earlier production I saw had realistic period (1940s) sets and costumes. This one had neither: just a pretty much empty stage and uniform black/grey costumes. It was a bit dreary, and at times could potentially cause problems. Near the end some asks something like “Who’s Norma Desmond?”. In the earlier production the walls were covered with pictures of her (showing how narcissistic she was). The male lead answers by pointing at pictures in turn and saying “That’s Norma Desmond! That’s Norma Desmond! That’s Norma Desmond!”. Of course, in this production there are no pictures to point at. Seemed a little strange. I could give other examples. I also thought the giant screen, although effective at times, was used too much. Finally, I find Norma to be a very sad person. Although the original production had a certain amount of humor, I felt this one poked too much fun at Norma’s expense. It was a bit like kicking a homeless man.
Still, I shouldn’t be so critical. You can’t always repeat the same production over and over again. It was a valiant attempt, which I felt didn’t quite work. Just the same I enjoyed it immensely!
After Show Meal with My Daughter
After the show we stopped at a fairly new restaurant in Grand Central Terminal.
It’s called Grand Brasserie, and the New York Times described it as follows:
Rick Blatstein, having sold OTG, his airport restaurant company with hundreds of outlets, continues to think big. His new company, Vizz Group, has taken over the landmark Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal, previously run by City Winery, and the adjacent dining room, formerly Cornelius. Grand Brasserie is an airy 400-seat restaurant and bar, open during the terminal’s hours. The Rockwell Group’s design with Art Deco and Beaux Arts accents and splashes of scarlet on tabletops and seats reflect the style of many Parisian brasseries and railway terminals.
About three weeks ago I’d had lunch there with her husband who was there on business