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| The New Amsterdam Theater, then and now. |
The New Amsterdam had been dangled in front of developers and producers for years by the city, but no one had the courage to seal the deal. But after the success of the stage version of "Beauty and the Beast" in 1992, the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Michael Eisner, was intrigued at the possibility of finding a theatrical venue that Disney could own, rather than relying on renting from other theater owners. A chance meeting on an airplane with New 42 chairperson Marian Heiskell convinced Eisner to take a look at the ruins of Ziegfeld's temple for himself.
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| Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and the George M. Cohan statue in Duffy Square. |
In April 1993, Eisner began a series of cautious and elaborate negotiations with the city to restore and rent the New Amsterdam. The cost would be an extensive $32 million, with $24 million covered by the city in the form of loans that were extremely advantageous to Disney; the company itself committed $8 million, with a carefully monitored schedule of overages. The terms of the lease would extend for 49 years. For reporters, critics, and mavens, the idea of Mickey Mouse on 42nd Street was a hilarious irony. For Eisner, it was a business decision fraught with catastrophic risk: what would it mean for a brand name of such wholesome family values to set up shop on the most decadent city block in the western world? He spoke with the new mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who had made his career as a federal prosecutor crusading against the mob.
I had a little concern about the adjacent nightlife, and he [Giuliani] looked me in the eye and he said, "It'll be gone," and I said, "Mr. Mayor, you know there is the American Civil Liberties Union, and I mean, they're just not gone." He said, "Look me in the eye." And I said, "What?" He said, "Look me in the eye." I said, "Okay." He said, "They will be gone." Scared me. I guess[ed] they were going to be gone. So that was that, and we said yes.
-- Michael Eisner
Disney's announcement that it would go ahead with the renovation of the New Amsterdam in the winter of 1994 opened the floodgates of redevelopment, just the way New 42 intended. By the end of 1995, the New Victory Theater for young audiences, beautifully restored, had opened. Even more remarkably, there was a cappuccino bar next door. Retail outlets began to sign leases in the Times Square area, new bright and elaborate electronic signage began appearing in the theater district for the first time since the beginning of World War II, and several business and communications firms announced plans to build new offices on or adjacent to West 42nd Street. Even the "zipper" was back, courtesy of NEW YORK NEWSDAY.
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| American Airlines Theatre. |
In the fall of 1997, Disney opened "The Lion King" at the New Amsterdam, the first new musical there since Sigmund Romberg's "Forbidden Melody" in 1936. The show got wildly enthusiastic reviews, as did the theater itself, the result of a loving four-year restoration masterminded by architect Hugh Hardy. Later that year, the Ford Motor Co., as a corporate sponsor, paid for the massive renovation of the Lyric and Apollo theaters, which merged the two defunct spaces into one enormous musical house. In 1998, the Ford Center for the Performing Arts debuted with the musical version of "Ragtime." That same year, the Empire Theatre on 42nd Street, which had housed musicals and burlesque shows, was physically rolled by engineers 168 feet farther west to begin life again as the 25-theater AMC multiplex. The renovation of the Selwyn Theater as the American Airlines Theatre (a home for the Roundabout Theater Company) and the addition of a multistudio rehearsal space next door burnished the transformation of the new 42nd Street.
There are moments in its history when the theater district is rudely awakened to the fact that it sits on some of the most desirable real estate in the free world. In 2004, you can exit the revival of "42nd Street" at the Ford Center and walk right onto the real 42nd Street. The show sings of "naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty 42nd Street," but the real thing is one of the most artfully developed urban centers in America.
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photo credits: Photofest, Nils Hanson, and Peter Tierney (© Disney)
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Disney CEO Michael Eisner describes first seeing the delapidated New Amsterdam Theater; critic John Lahr on Disney's impact on the musical; and hear a song excerpt from a hit show in the revitalized theater district, "Wicked."
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