Ed Sullivan Theater

The Ed Sullivan Theater was built in nineteen twenty-seven as a deliberate tribute to the man known as the father of Times Square, the opera impresario Oscar Hammerstein the First. His son, Arthur Hammerstein, commissioned the prolific theater architect Herbert J. Krapp to design the venue as a memorial. Unlike the standard neoclassical or Adam style theaters common in New York at the time, Krapp created a neo-Gothic space intended to evoke the solemn grandeur of a cathedral. This interior still features its original leaded glass light fixtures and intricate polychromatic ceramic tiles, elements that remain rare survivors from the era of grand Broadway playhouses.