New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama, and the New York City Center 55th Street Theater[2]) is a performing arts center at 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Developed by the Shriners between 1922 and 1924 as a Masonic meeting house, it has operated as a performing arts complex owned by the government of New York City. City Center is a performing home for several major dance companies as well as the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), and it hosts the Encores! musical theater series and the Fall for Dance Festival annually.
The facility was designed by Harry P. Knowles and Clinton and Russell in the Moorish Revival style and is divided into two parts. The southern section houses a main auditorium, with 2,257 seats across three levels; this auditorium could originally fit over four thousand people, but it has been downsized over the years. Immediately beneath the main auditorium are two smaller theaters, one of which is used by MTC; these occupy what was originally a banquet hall. This section contains an ornate sandstone facade with an alfiz–like entryway made of terracotta, as well as a dome measuring about 104 feet (32 m) across. The northern section is much simpler in design, with a largely windowless brick facade, and contains four rehearsal studios and a 12-story office tower.
The Shriners decided in 1921 to construct the 55th Street building after having outgrown their previous headquarters, and the new building was dedicated on December 29, 1924. The Great Depression prompted the Shriners to downsize their activities in the 1930s and relocate out of the building entirely by 1940. New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia and New York City Council president Newbold Morris established the City Center of Music and Drama Inc. (CCMD) to operate the building as a municipal performing-arts venue, which reopened on December 11, 1943. In its early years, City Center housed the City Opera and City Ballet, as well as symphony, dance theater, drama, and art companies. After the City Opera and Ballet relocated to Lincoln Center in the 1960s, the CCMD continued to operate the building until 1976, when the City Center 55th Street Theater Foundation took over operation. City Center largely hosted dance performances during the late 20th century, although it also began hosting off-Broadway shows when the MTC moved to City Center in 1984. The venue was renovated in the 1980s and again in the 2010s.
^"National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
^White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. p. 267. ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5.
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