Longracre Theatre's Renovation

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

The interior of the Longacre Theater after its renovation, which cost $12 million and took two years.
- Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

By The New York Times

The play’s [“Boeing-Boeing”] Broadway home, the Longacre Theater at 220 West 48th Street, has had “a gut renovation,” in the words of Keith Marston, the facilities director for the Shubert Organization, the building’s owner. “This is our opening night too,” he said of the 400 restorers, carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers and other workers who have toiled over the last two years to complete the $12 million reconstruction.

The project has been one of the more extensive and grimy renovations that Shubert has ever done, said Mr. Marston’s boss, John P. Darby, the company’s vice president of facilities.

The Longacre, which opened in 1913, is the latest of the 17 Broadway theaters owned and operated by Shubert to be completely redone, following the $9 million renovation of the Ethel Barrymore Theater on 47th Street in 2004 and the more than $12 million refurbishment of the Winter Garden Theater on 50th Street and Broadway in 2001.

The Longacre is described in its New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designation as “one of the historic theater interiors that symbolize American theater for both New York and the nation,” and both its exterior and interior are recognized as landmarks.