The Ford Center for the Performing Arts

Ford Center for the Performing Arts, The (New York). One of Broadway's oldest and also newest theatres is actually two 42nd Street playhouses, the Lyric and the Apollo, that were combined into one and opened in 1998 as part of the 42nd Street Redevelopment. The Lyric Theatre was built by the Shuberts in 1903 as a musical house, and its design by Victor Hugo Koehler featured a Renaissance‐style atrium and lobby, entrances on both 42nd and 43rd Streets, and an elegant auditorium with eighteen ornate boxes. During the Depression it reverted to a movie house, then was refurbished in 1979 but closed in 1992. The Apollo was built as a vaudeville house and opened in 1910 as the Bryant Theatre. The Selwyn brothers bought the playhouse in 1920 and turned it into a legit venue for musicals, renaming it the Apollo. They found some success until the Depression forced the Apollo to become a movie theatre and then a burlesque house. In 1979 a remodeled Apollo opened as a legit venue once again, but an entrance was built on 43rd Street because patrons feared the seamy 42nd Street of the 1970s. It managed to find a few tenants before folding in 1983 and becoming a grind movie house once again. While the Ford Center (so named because of a considerable contribution by the Ford Motor Company) is a new 1,839‐seat theatre, it retains elements from both the Apollo and the Lyric, including the atrium, details from the boxes and proscenium, and the beautiful stone facade. The first tenant of the new theatre was Ragtime (1998), a large and impressive show that was fitting for the new‐old playhouse.