The Town Hall (New York City)

Town Hall is on 123 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue near Times Square, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The land lot covers , with a frontage of on 45th Street and a depth of . Nearby buildings include the Millennium Times Square New York, Hudson Theatre, Hotel Gerard, and the Chatwal New York hotel to the north; the Belasco Theatre to the northeast; the Bank of America Tower and Stephen Sondheim Theatre to the south; 4 Times Square to the southwest; and 1500 Broadway to the west. ==Design==

Town Hall was designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Georgian Revival style and constructed from 1919 to 1921 as a lecture venue. Teunis (Dennis) J. van der Bent of the firm was in charge of the overall design, and Russell B. Smith was the supervising engineer. The interior work was completed by Louis Jallade after the building opened. Wallace Clement Sabine has been popularly cited as a consultant in the design of Town Hall's auditorium, but he died before the building was completed. Town Hall was originally built for the League for Political Education. The Georgian Revival style was chosen for its connotations of grassroots democracy. The openings have limestone trim around them. Generally, the facade is nine bays wide and is designed to appear as a four-story structure. Base The first-story facade contains a blind arcade with seven arches containing double doors. There are three such canopies: one above each outermost arch and one above the center three doorways. The centers of the canopies' undersides have large spherical lamps, which are surrounded by smaller spheres. On either side are two empty niches surrounded by limestone frames. There are light fixtures at the bases of the niches, as well as on the sills of the round arches. Interior The Town Hall's lobby and auditorium are on the lower levels, and the offices are on the upper levels. The auditorium is semicircular in plan and is surrounded by the backstage and front of house areas. Two passageways, one each on the extreme west and east ends of the ground story, provide access from the street to backstage areas. Lobby The lobby is accessed from the five center doorways on 43rd Street. It has a largely rectangular plan, except for the north wall, which corresponds to the auditorium's rear wall. Every effort was taken to ensure that no seats had obstructed views, which led to the Town Hall's long-standing mantra "Not a bad seat in the house". The balcony is cantilevered from the structural framework, which obviated the need for columns that blocked audience views. The original seats were capable of unusually high levels of acoustic absorption; they were replaced in the 1980s by seats with similar acoustic qualities. The writer Harold C. Schonberg wrote that only the seating on the balcony had good acoustics, as the balcony's presence muffled the sounds at orchestra level. The lower sections of the side walls contain marble paneling, which is topped by a molding with a torus motif. Above that, the walls are made of artificial stone, carved in rusticated blocks. Each of the corners contains a fluted pilaster with a Composite-style capital. The cornice is supplemented by a band with Greek key fretwork and guilloche moldings. with 2,500 bulbs in total. The stage curves slightly outward from the proscenium, On either side of the stage are round-arched screens, which formerly framed the auditorium's organs. The organ pipes remain in place, but paintings were placed within the screens in a 1983 renovation. The fourth story, which corresponded to the penthouse, had a kitchen and space for employees and food storage. While the League's offices were occupied from the building's completion, the two upper stories were not furnished until the end of 1924. As ultimately completed, the third floor was equipped with two main dining rooms and four private dining rooms. In addition, the fourth floor contained a library decorated with American pine from floor to ceiling. The room, measuring , was described in the New York Herald Tribune as "probably the largest pine room in the country", containing three large pine columns and alcoves with space for 9,000 books. ==History==

Early history Eleanor Butler Sanders and five other prominent suffragists established the League for Political Education in 1894 to advocate for women's suffrage. The group held popular "town meetings" about social issues and had 600 members by 1899. The Economic Club and Civic Forum were both founded in 1907 as offshoots of the League for Political Education. In 1912, Anna Blakslee Bliss gave money to fund the construction of a dedicated clubhouse; The 49th Street clubhouse, which would likely have been designed by James E. Ware, was never built. for $425,000. At the time, Manhattan's theater district was in the process of shifting from Union Square and Madison Square to the vicinity of Times Square, with forty-three Broadway theaters being erected there from 1901 to 1920. That February, the League announced it would organize "a new club for men and women interested in civic problems", with a new clubhouse at 113 West 43rd Street. The plans for Town Hall were announced in April 1919. McKim, Mead & White had prepared plans for the building, which was expected to cost $500,000 and be completed by the next year. The structure was to house the League for Political Education, the Civic Forum, and the Economic Club. That July, Russell B. Smith began to raze the existing row houses. Work on Town Hall began on October 10, 1919. E. B. Roosevelt could not attend because she was sick, so her husband Theodore Roosevelt Jr. laid the cornerstone for Town Hall on January 24, 1920. At a June 1920 dinner of the Economic Club, real-estate operator Joseph P. Day raised $7,500 in subscriptions for Town Hall, then tried to compel its attendees to give $100 each by locking them inside a dining room. Opening and early years Town Hall was dedicated on January 12, 1921, with 1,600 audience members listening to speeches by John J. Pershing and Henry Waters Taft. At its opening, Town Hall hosted lectures during the morning, receptions during the afternoon, and mass meetings in the evening. A magazine from the building's completion wrote that McKim, Mead & White "are responsible for a very beautiful building, lovely in its graceful lines and simplicity". US President Woodrow Wilson and president-elect Warren G. Harding both sent congratulatory telegrams to celebrate Town Hall's opening. At the time, the League had 6,000 members in total. Some $1.25 million extended its programming to benefit New York City at large. As a venue, Town Hall was compared with the ideal of a New England town hall, as well as another writer, who said "New York's small town longings rise in the concrete". At the time of Town Hall's opening, its interior, aside from the lobby and auditorium, remained incomplete because there was not enough money. Town Hall sought extra donations to complete the work. Ely announced the following year that he would form a 100-person Town Hall Council and seek $1,000 pledges for each of the auditorium's 1,500 seats. James Speyer donated an organ to the auditorium in 1922. Anna Blakeley Bliss donated money to cover the estimated $500,000 cost of completing the interior in either 1922 In April 1924, Ely announced that Town Hall needed to raise another $600,000 to pay off its debts. Ultimately, more than three thousand people donated to fund Town Hall's development. The upper stories were completed by the end of December 1924. The club, which accepted both men and women, aimed to promote "a finer public spirit and a better social order". and architect Louis Jallade filed plans to expand the original structure by five stories, as well as develop a twelve-story wing at number 125. This addition was never completed, and Town Hall instead expanded its offices into the existing four-story building at 125 West 43rd Street. Eventually, Town Hall, alongside Carnegie Hall and the old Metropolitan Opera House at 39th Street, became one of New York City's top musical venues in its 20th-century heyday. The neighboring Aeolian Hall closed not long after Town Hall opened. Denny thought "an honest system of political education" was vital to the "safety of American democracy", and he believed that Americans should be exposed to multiple viewpoints. In 1934, Denny was inspired to create ''America's Town Meeting of the Air, a radio show to promote the free exchange of ideas; it became the first public-affairs media program. and Town Meeting'' premiered at Town Hall on May 30, 1935, to wide praise. When Town Meeting was not being broadcast, Town Hall continued to be used as a venue for speeches, musical recitals, and other events and performances. Town Hall was frequently called the "busiest theater on Broadway", though it was neither a Broadway theater nor physically on Broadway. Despite Town Hall's success, the League for Political Education still did not own Town Hall outright by 1936, as it still rented the auditorium and offices. but this was not carried out. The League formally reorganized as Town Hall Inc. in January 1938, with Denny as the new organization's president. The move reflected the fact that political education was no longer the League's priority, especially with Town Hall hosting Town Meeting over the last several years. Town Meeting was being broadcast on 78 stations by 1939; the show's own popularity was largely fueled by its setting within the Town Hall building. The Town Hall 50th Anniversary Committee, under Denny's leadership, started raising funds for a five-story expansion to Town Hall in 1940, though this was also not built. Town Hall also started a fundraiser in 1946 to pay off the $200,000 mortgage on the building. The venue was musically successful between 1946 and 1948, immediately after World War II. During October 1947 alone, the hall hosted 52 concerts. Town Hall was still used for many solo musical performances during the 1950s. While similar venues like Carnegie Hall saw similar decreases in recitals, Town Hall was particularly affected because it was smaller than other venues such as Carnegie Hall. Town Hall Inc. evicted the Town Hall Club from the building in April 1955 after falling into debt and failing to pay $9,500 of rent. The Town Hall Club filed for bankruptcy on April 6, 1955. It had only 650 members at the time, far below its peak of 1,900. Town Meeting ultimately ended in 1956. New York University operation In October 1955, the New York University (NYU)'s alumni club signed a five-year lease with Town Hall Inc. to use the upper floors formerly occupied by the Town Hall Club. The NYU alumni clubhouse opened on September 12, 1956. Concurrently, the university booked Town Hall for all evenings for the following several months, eliminating Town Hall's mounting debt load. NYU and Town Hall Inc. also signed an agreement in which NYU would take over Town Hall's programming, and NYU president Alvin C. Eurich became chairman of the Town Hall board in 1957. NYU fully acquired Town Hall in March 1958, and the venue became known as The Town Hall of New York University, an educational and cultural center directed by Ormand Drake. The annex at 125 West 43rd Street, which had been used for offices for Town Meeting, was sold in early 1959. The Town Hall of NYU held its first performances in October 1958. Within a few months, The New York Times had written that "Town Hall was much emptier than usual by too high a rent scale". This was worsened by the opening of Lincoln Center in 1962, which drew events away from Town Hall. For over a decade after NYU's takeover, Town Hall was "abandoned by the great names in music who had once made it a mecca for the finest in recitals and chamber music", according to the Times. The organ was removed by 1960. By the end of that decade, Lincoln Center had completed its new Alice Tully Hall, and Town Hall was largely supplanted in stature. This was evidenced by the number of bookings at both venues in 1969: while Tully Hall was nearly completely booked, less than half of available dates at Town Hall were booked. At the time, the lobby and marquee were being renovated; Ross resigned as director in 1974 and was replaced by Jesse Reese. By March 1975, the venue was in danger of closing permanently unless $365,000 was pledged by that August to support the programming over the next three years. The Shubert Organization granted $125,000 for Town Hall that May, and enough money was raised by August to sustain the venue for two years. A fundraiser was held that November to raise the remaining money. Still, NYU president John C. Sawhill warned in mid-1977 that there was not enough money to keep Town Hall open past 1978. Closure and preservation Town Hall had $5 in its bank account by 1978, and there were concerns that Town Hall could be demolished. With Town Hall's annual operating costs ranging from $50,000 to $100,000, NYU's board of trustees voted in February 1978 to close the auditorium within six months. The NYU Club and Alvin Ailey Dance Company would continue to use the upper stories, and NYU planned to hand over operation to "a responsible group" rather than demolish it. By then, the venue was mostly vacant during prime-time evenings and weekends, and the neighborhood had become dilapidated. After Town Hall's closure was announced, the Committee to Save Town Hall organized a campaign to preserve the venue. Despite the advocacy in favor of Town Hall, NYU's trustees closed the venue and planned to turn over the operation to the nonprofit Town Hall Foundation. In September 1978, Craig Anderson of the Hudson Guild acquired the lease to Town Hall at $1 per year. He created the Town Hall Theater Foundation and announced that the auditorium would be split into two smaller theaters. The Town Hall Foundation was to take title to the venue while the Town Hall Theater Foundation would operate it. Amid opposition to the plan, Anderson then said he would consider retaining the original 1,500-seat auditorium and erecting a new theater on the roof. The 1978 preservation effort led the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to consider the venue for city landmark status. Following the landmark designation, the electronic organ was removed. The venue saw a net loss of $138,000 in 1978 and $200,000 in 1979. Leffler, a metal-product manufacturer, received no salary from the foundation; Lawrence Zucker was hired as the director. NYU also provided a $70,000 subsidy, giving financial support to Town Hall for two years. which the foundation celebrated later that year with a concert and a plaque. To avoid running a deficit, the foundation planned performances only if there was funding for them. By 1981, Town Hall was finally profitable and was raising $2 million for operation and restoration. The foundation planned to install plaques on the auditorium's seats to honor donors who gave over $1,000. Larger donors would also get different parts of the building named after them; anyone who gave $1.5 million would get the entire auditorium named in their honor. Some $250,000 had been raised toward the proposed cost by April 1982. The work was to be performed over a five-year period in three phases. Town Hall was closed in July 1984 for a renovation spanning two and a half months. Leffler also sought to make the building wheelchair-accessible and relocate some of the rooms. Late 20th century to present When Town Hall reopened, it initially primarily hosted Town Hall Foundation presentations, along with event rentals. Rental income sometimes comprised 90% of the venue's budget during that decade. In the late 1980s, it began sponsoring a wider range of events, such as classical and vocal chamber music series. The NYU Club continued to occupy Town Hall's upper-story clubhouse space until 1989, when the club filed for bankruptcy. The clubhouse space was leased the following to the New Yorker Club, a majority-minority social club, which raised $800,000 to renovate the clubhouse space. The Town Hall Foundation received a $281,000 grant in 1992 to fund the restoration of Town Hall's marquee. The architect Bonnie Roche was also hired to replace the doors, add information kiosks, and make the venue wheelchair-accessible. Town Hall had become profitable by the late 1990s, with an attendance of 400,000 in 1996. The Town Hall Foundation was raising money for a roof replacement, seat refurbishment, and repainting of the interior. The Rockwell Group proposed replacing the lighting on the facade and marquee in 2019. ==Notable performances==

While the Town Hall was initially intended as a speaking hall, it quickly became known for musical performances and recitals, leading one New York Times writer to call it an "accidental concert hall". McKim, Mead & White had written in 1921 that the venue could be adapted to "concerts, moving picture exhibitions, and similar entertainment". Throughout its history, the Town Hall has hosted performances by hundreds of musicians and composers. 1920s and 1930s Town Hall hosted musical performances and other recitals initially as a way to gain revenue. That December, German composer Richard Strauss gave three concerts, an event the Town Hall Foundation described as giving "the hall christening as an ideal space for musical performances". followed the next month by a dance recital by Ruth St. Denis. Singer and actor Paul Robeson first performed Black spiritual songs at the Town Hall in 1927, guitarist Andrés Segovia first gave a recital in 1929, and Richard Tauber made his American premiere there in 1931. In its first decade, the Town Hall's other events included Edna St. Vincent Millay's public poetry reading debut in 1928 and a screening of amateur films in 1929. Town Hall sponsored the first season of the Town Hall Endowment Series in 1930. The series featured such figures as Mischa Elman, Margaret Matzenauer, John McCormack, Rosa Ponselle, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, who all appeared in the 1931–1932 season, The series originally had five performances per season, but this was changed in 1933 to eight performances. Outside of the Endowment Series, the Colonial Dames of America and the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America presented a play in 1932, which depicted the inauguration of George Washington as US president. Pianist Ruth Slenczynska made her debut at the Town Hall in 1933, aged eight. Antonia Brico's all-woman orchestra debuted at the Town Hall in early 1935, and contralto Marian Anderson made her Town Hall debut that December after facing discrimination against African-Americans at other venues. Alice Tully sang at Town Hall in 1936, and young violinist Isaac Stern debuted at Town Hall the next year. Other performers of the decade included Lily Pons in 1938 and the Von Trapp family the same year. 1940s to 1970s , Dick Cary, Louis Armstrong, Bobby Hackett, Peanuts Hucko, Bob Haggart, and Sid Catlett, c. 1947 The Kolisch Quartet gave the world premiere performance of Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 6 at Town Hall in 1941. Especially popular at Town Hall were performances of jazz music. Guitarist Eddie Condon began holding a series of jazz concerts at Town Hall in February 1942, and he began hosting a biweekly series of jazz concerts that November. By 1944, the performances were sold out, and NBC Blue broadcast the concerts under the ''Eddie Condon's Jazz Concerts'' radio program from 1944 to 1945. One such concert by Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Don Byas, Al Haig, Curley Russell, Max Roach, and Sid Catlett on June 22, 1945, was the first public performance of the jazz style that came to be known as bebop. Another jazz concert in 1946, featuring Billie Holiday's first solo appearance, sold out rapidly. Town Hall's musical popularity peaked in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1949, Burl Ives gave a folk-song concert, which was popular enough that the audience requested seven encore performances. Lotte Lenya gave a concert in 1951 in memory of her late husband, composer Kurt Weill. In April 1953, Anna Russell gave a performance of her humorous analysis of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, which was recorded. Duke Ellington performed for The Fresh Air Fund in 1957, and Carlos Montoya gave a guitar recital. The events in 1958 included Betty Allen's first New York City performance; the American Opera Society's presentation of The Coronation of Poppea; and the 25th Year Retrospective Concert of the music of John Cage. Igor Stravinsky gave the US premiere of his composition Threni in 1959. Nina Simone performed in September 1959, and the concert was released as Nina Simone at Town Hall, her first live album. Shows in the 1960s included a benefit for the Morningside Mental Hygiene Clinic in 1960, Bob Dylan's large-concert debut in 1963, and a Coretta Scott King Freedom Concert in 1964. Jazz composer and bandleader Charles Mingus held two concerts there, resulting in his live albums from October 1962 and April 1964. Bill Evans and his trio recorded a live album in 1966, Bill Evans at Town Hall. A panel debate between Norman Mailer and feminist activists Jacqueline Caballos, Jill Johnston, Diana Trilling, and Germaine Greer took place on April 30, 1971. Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker filmed the event and released Town Bloody Hall in 1979. 1980s to present In 1982, the Town Hall Foundation started to host the People's Symphony Concerts series. In September 2009, singer Whitney Houston chose the Town Hall for her first interview in seven years, appearing on Oprah Winfrey's season premiere; the Town Hall was where Houston performed for the first time at the age of 14. Peter Schickele, who gave his first concert at Town Hall in 1965, gave a 50th anniversary concert there in 2015. When hosted by Garrison Keillor, the radio show A Prairie Home Companion was often broadcast live from the Town Hall in its New York appearances while on tour. Its successor, Live from Here, hosted by Chris Thile, now appears most frequently in the Town Hall. The venue was announced as the home of Live from Here for its 2019–2020 season. == Other notable events ==

Recordings Over the years, several musical performances have been recorded at Town Hall, including: • 1947: Louis Armstrong Town Hall Concert • 1947: One Night Stand – The Town Hall Concert 1947, with Sarah Vaughan and Lester Young • 1954: Billy Taylor Trio at Town Hall, by Billy Taylor, Earl May, and Charlie Smith • 1959: The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall, by Thelonious Monk • 1959: Sammy Davis Jr. at Town Hall, by Sammy Davis Jr. • 1959: Nina Simone at Town Hall, by Nina Simone Speeches Various activists, politicians, artists, and other speakers have long preferred Town Hall for speeches, even before the ''America's Town Meeting of the Air'' era. as did social reformer Jane Addams. The authors Edna Ferber, Henry James, Thomas Mann, and Carl Sandburg have also spoken at Town Hall, as well as politicians including US presidents Calvin Coolidge, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, and British prime minister Winston Churchill. Anarchist Emma Goldman spoke at Town Hall while in the US on a visa preventing political lectures. In 1960, former US first lady Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at Town Hall to promote Adlai E. Stevenson II's presidential campaign, and an Africa Freedom Day rally was held. Town Hall also hosted what The New York Times described as "musical lectures", including an event in which Thomas Beecham spoke while playing the piano. George Denny moderated the discussions. Such episodes included discussions about the New Deal, and labor unions. During World War II, the broadcasts focused on wartime discussions, which tended to be controversial among the audience members. Other episodes of the 1940s included discussions on racial issues, with both Langston Hughes and Clare Boothe Luce; preventing world famine; the legality of communism, with Joseph McCarthy; and dependency on welfare, with Hubert Humphrey. Town Hall also hosted a summit in 2000 in opposition to globalization, as well as a 2016 debate between US presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Educational programs Educational programs were also provided at Town Hall. In 1941, Town Hall Inc. hosted the Town Hall Leadership School, a short course that taught adults to become certified teachers, and the First National Town Hall Conference, a forum and discussion group composed of leaders from across the US. A Red Cross defense course opened at Town Hall in 1943. Town Hall also began offering courses for adults in topics such as national politics, writing, philosophy, psychology, and world affairs in 1944. These courses attracted nearly 2,500 students in their first year. Memorials and commencements In 1929, the American Civil Liberties Union booked Town Hall for a memorial service for anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti after the memorial was rejected by venues in Boston. The actor John Drew was memorialized in 1932, as was Jane Addams in 1935. The short film St. Louis Blues premiered at Town Hall during a memorial for blues singer Bessie Smith on January 1, 1948. Town Hall has also hosted commencements from schools and colleges. In the venue's early years, those included local institutions such as the School for Printing Pressmen and the Mechanics Institute, De La Salle Institute, and Calhoun School. Commencements continued through the late 20th century, such as those for the City University of New York's Graduate Center in the 1990s. The Community Church of New York started using Town Hall as a house of worship in 1933, when the church's old building was demolished. The church relocated in 1948 to 35th Street. == Management and operations ==

Town Hall is managed by the Town Hall Foundation, Inc. The foundation was formed in 1973 as a fundraising arm of the Town Hall at New York University It also features programming in alliance with Theatreworks USA as part of its Arts in Education program. Since 1988, Town Hall has offered jazz programming with the Not Just Jazz series of concerts. In addition, in 2019, the foundation established the Lena Horne Prize for Artists Creating Social Impact, which is distributed annually to socially active artists and performers. ==See also==