Henry Beaumont Herts

Herts, Henry B[eaumont] (1871–1933), architect. A native New Yorker, he was graduated from Columbia in 1893, then spent seven years in Europe studying architecture at Paris's Beaux Arts and the universities of Rome and Heidelberg. Between 1900 and the outbreak of World War I Herts designed over thirty theatres and is credited with perfecting the principles of cantilevered arch construction that eliminated the need for pillars to support balconies. Among his New York playhouses were the Booth, the Fulton (later Helen Hayes), the Gaiety, the Liberty, the Lyceum, the New Amsterdam, and the Shubert, as well as the Brooklyn Academy of Music.