Roseland Ballroom

Broadway at 51st Street location Roseland was founded initially in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1917 by Louis Brecker with financing by Frank Yuengling of the D. G. Yuengling & Son beer family. In 1919, to escape Philadelphia's blue laws, on the second floor of that five-story building, opening on December 31, 1919. Guests lined up to rub elbows with celebrities like Will Rogers and Florenz Ziegfeld. It was a segregated dance club called the "home of refined dancing," famed for the "society orchestra" groups that played there, starting with Sam Lanin and his Ipana Troubadours. The Fletcher Henderson band played at Roseland in the 1920s and 1930s. Luis Russell, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie (with his "Roseland Shuffle"), and Chick Webb followed with their orchestras. Other major-name bandleaders who played the venue included Vincent Lopez, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Sonny Burke. Many big-band performances were broadcast live from Roseland by radio networks; recordings survive of several NBC broadcasts of 1940, featuring the young Ella Fitzgerald fronting the Chick Webb band. Brecker popularized such stunts as marathon dancing (until it was banned), staged female prizefights, yo-yo exhibitions, sneezing contests, and dozens of highly publicized jazz weddings with couples who met at the club. As the club grew older, Brecker attempted to formalize the dancing more by having hostesses dance for a fee, with tuxedoed bouncers (politely known as "housemen") keeping order. Brecker sold the building in 1981 to Albert Ginsberg. Under the new owners the Roseland began regularly scheduled "disco nights", which gave rise to a period when it was considered a dangerous venue and neighborhood menace. In 1984, a teenager was shot to death on the dance floor. In 1987, a 34 year old Harlem man was fatally shot in the lobby. In 1990, after Utah tourist Brian Watkins was killed in the subway, four of the eight suspects (members of the FTS gang) were found partying at Roseland. As a result, Roseland discontinued the "disco nights". , built on the Roseland site Roseland's low-rise three-story structure on top of the quarter-acre dance floor in the middle of midtown Manhattan stirred concerns over its being torn down for redevelopment. In 1996, a new owner, Laurence Ginsberg, filed plans to tear down the venue and replace it with a 42-story, 459-unit apartment building. A spokesman for Ginsberg said the filing was to "beat a deadline for new, more stringent earthquake codes, which went into effect earlier" in 1996. The interior space was subsequently renovated. Demolition of the site began in 2014. The site was redeveloped into ARO, a 62-story apartment tower, with retail space built at the former entrance site. ==Closure==