Built in 1906 by Oscar Hammerstein I as the Manhattan Opera House to rival the Met, the room hosted the last occasion on which David Bowie sang his own songs in public, three numbers at a benefit in November 2006.
As a converted opera auditorium rather than a fixed-seat theater, the main floor is general-admission standing, with two low balconies above for anyone who wants a seated overview.
Oscar Hammerstein I opened this as the Manhattan Opera House in December 1906, staging grand opera at prices the Metropolitan would not match. It worked well enough that the Met bought him out in 1910 on condition he present no opera in New York for a decade. The architect is not settled: some accounts credit William E. Mowbray, who filed the plans, others J. B. McElfatrick and Son.
The building's afterlife is stranger than its opera years. The Shuberts reopened it for vaudeville in 1911. In 1922 the Scottish Rite Masons bought it and added the seventh-floor Grand Ballroom, still a separate room in the same building and often confused with this one. In 1926 Warner Bros. rented the hall to record the New York Philharmonic for the Vitaphone soundtrack of Don Juan, the first commercially released feature with recorded music. It was renamed Manhattan Center around 1939, bought by the Unification Church in 1976, which still owns it, and the old opera auditorium reopened as the Hammerstein Ballroom in 1997 with its hand-painted ceiling restored.
Standing on the floor, you are in a flat thirty-five-thousand-square-foot box with an opera ceiling over it. Two balconies ring the room, unusually low and only gently raked, holding around 1,200 seats between them; a third balcony was stripped of seats and is no longer used. The low first balcony is the best-value seat in any large standing room in the city — close enough to read the stage, high enough to see all of it.
On November 9, 2006 David Bowie sang three songs here at a Keep a Child Alive benefit, closing with Changes alongside Alicia Keys. It is often called his final performance; more precisely it was the last time he sang his own songs in public. He appeared onstage once more, in May 2007, singing a comic number to introduce Ricky Gervais at the theater beneath Madison Square Garden, also on this list.
311 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001 · Official site ↗
The Hammerstein Ballroom is a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) ballroom located within the Manhattan Center at 311 West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The capacity of the ballroom is dependent on the configuration of the room; it seats 2,000 people for theatrical productions and musical performances, and several thousand for events held within a central ring. The floor of the ballroom is flat. The two main balconies – which are unusually close to the ground and gently sloped – seat a total of 1,200. The third balcony has been stripped of seats and is not used.
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