Times Square Theater

The story

Two theaters once shared a single limestone face on 42nd Street, their symmetrical colonnade making them appear as one grand building. Designed by Eugene De Rosa and developed by brothers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, the Times Square Theater opened in 1920 alongside the now-demolished Apollo Theatre next door. Inside, a fan-shaped auditorium seated 1,155 people beneath silver, green, and black murals, with box seats and a shallow balcony. Today the city and state own the building, leased to New 42nd Street, with a proposed renovation set to expand it with a glass annex and raise the original facade.