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42nd Street review – frivolous fantasy given punch, precision and panache

Sadler’s Wells, London This classic song-and-dancer directed by Jonathan Church has a tight ensemble cast and sunny vibes throughout

T here’s a seam of bright positivity running through 42nd Street, originally a book and film dating from the midst of the Great Depression. It says buck up, lace up your dancing shoes, get out there and put on a show. And also, be young, pretty and ever so nice, and good fortune will come your way.

While some 20th-century musicals are being revised for modern times ( Oklahoma! , Carousel ), director Jonathan Church has kept this one firmly in place, with period detail from mild sexism to the nasally twangs of those high female voices, deco sparkle channelling Erté glamour (from designer Robert Jones) and black and white news footage of the desperate unemployed.

Where the 1933 film was more abrasive in tone, the stage show, created in 1980, is sweetly endearing, just like its accidental leading lady Peggy Sawyer (Nicole-Lily Baisden), the classic small town girl looking to make it in the big city, rolling into Penn Station with raw talent and a dream. Baisden, last seen in the smash hit Anything Goes , has a dazzling smile to light up Broadway and plays Peggy the naif with innocent enthusiasm and turbo-charged tap skills.

The plot, well, what does it matter, but there’s a make-or-break opening, ageing star Dorothy Brock (Ruthie Henshall) juggling the sugar daddy bankrolling her career and her true love, a few unnecessary misunderstandings, fabulous hoofing and a glut of excellent songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin. It’s those songs – along with the motoring rhythms of Bill Deamer’s choreography – that really drive the show. Just when you think it’s all getting a bit silly, then strikes up the classic Lullaby of Broadway, or Henshall singing the a cappella opening of I Only Have Eyes for You, and silly turns sublime. Henshall may be playing a faded star, but she’s still the commanding presence of this show. Bar one flat note, her singing’s on another level, the rich reeds of her voice and rounded tones in the lower registers especially. You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me is a real treat.

The other great voice in the show is the suave Sam Lips as Billy Lawler, with his strong, bright tenor. Adam Garcia puts in a solid performance as demanding director Julian Marsh, although for someone best known as a killer tap dancer, you’re just dying for him to come out hoofing. So sunny are the vibes that those characters who are supposedly caddish or cantankerous come out as decent chaps. And there’s good support all round from Josefina Gabrielle, Les Dennis, Michael Praed and Anthony Ofoegbu as the show’s writers and Dorothy’s love interests respectively.

The ensemble is tight in harmony and choreography, Deamer’s tap routines sharply drawn, with anticipatory tension in the dancers’ bodies and rhythms exacting enough to hear the silence between the beats, plus Astaire-esque lightness in the soft-shoe numbers. Rhianna Dorris, as Diane, is the chorus member really selling it, giving punch, precision and panache.

42nd Street is a frivolous show, utter fantasy, that bounces along very nicely; a paean to showbiz and the restorative power of a strictly rehearsed song and dance number.

At Sadler’s Wells, London , until 2 July. Then touring until 28 October.

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42nd Street tour

Currently touring until 4 May 2024

42nd Street is a timeless and inspiring showbiz fairy tale that combines breath-taking tap dance routines, backstage intrigue, classic romance and delightful comedy to dazzling effect.

42nd Street is hitting the road a brand new UK tour in 2023 – here’s all you need to know.

From 42nd Street tour tickets to all the upcoming dates and venues, this is your guide to the show on the road.

This iconic song-and-dance spectacular features a hit parade of toe-tapping songs, including the title number, We’re In The Money, Lullaby of Broadway, Shuffle Off To Buffalo and I Only Have Eyes For You.

42nd Street tour dates and tickets

• Birmingham , Birmingham Hippodrome 29 April 2024 - 4 May 2024 Book tickets ➤

Meet the cast and team!

The 2023 tour stars Samantha Womack will star as Dorothy Brock, alongside Michael Praed as Julian Marsh (to 23 September), Faye Tozer as Maggie Jones, Les Dennis (at select dates) as Bert Barry and Nicole-Lily Baisden as Peggy Sawyer.

The current tour cast is completed by Sam Lips as Billy Lawlor, with Erica-Jayne Alden , George Beet , Charlie Bishop , Kevin Brewis , Olly Christopher , Briana Craig, Jordan Crouch, Rhianna Dorris, Ashleigh Graham , Alyn Hawke , Aimee Hodnett, Connor Hughes, Deja Linton, Sarah-Marie Maxwell , Greta McKinnon , Ben Middleton , Benjamin Mundy , Anthony Ofoegbu and Jessica Wright.

This new production from Curve and Sadler’s Wells will be directed by Jonathan Church (Singin’ in the Rain, The Drifters Girl) with choreography and design by Olivier Award winners Bill Deamer and Rob Jones. Lighting design is by Ben Cracknell, sound design by Ian Dickinson and Gareth Tucker, video design by Jon Driscoll, musical supervision by Jennifer Whyte and orchestrations by Larry Blank.

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42nd Street on tour – new trailer released

The classic musical continues to showcase those dancing feet across the country

Exclusive: Take a look at the brand-new trailer for the current touring production of  42nd Street !

The show is on stage in Bristol this week, with further stops scheduled for Plymouth, Cardiff, Glasgow, Milton Keynes, Liverpool, Dartford, Woking, Southampton, Newcastle, Manchester, Belfast, Wimbledon, Edinburgh and Birmingham, with more venues to be announced.

The cast is led by Samantha Womack (as Dorothy Brock), Michael Praed (as Julian Marsh). Faye Tozer (as Maggie Jones), Les Dennis (as Bert Barry), Nicole-Lily Baisden (as Peggy Sawyer). Sam Lips (as Billy Lawlor) and Oliver Farnworth (as Pat Denning).

The company is completed by Erica-Jayne Alden, George Beet, Charlie Bishop, Kevin Brewis, Olly Christopher, Briana Craig, Jordan Crouch, Rhianna Dorris, Ashleigh Graham, Alyn Hawke, Aimee Hodnett, Connor Hughes, Deja Linton, Sarah-Marie Maxwell, Greta McKinnon, Ben Middleton, Benjamin Mundy, Anthony Ofoegbu and Jessica Wright.

42nd Street is directed by Jonathan Church, with choreography by Bill Deamer, design by Rob Jones, lighting by Ben Cracknell, sound by Ian Dickinson and Gareth Tucker, video design by Jon Driscoll, musical supervision by Jennifer Whyte and orchestrations by Larry Blank.

The musical tells the story of Peggy Sawyer, a young girl from a small town who arrives in New York City with dreams of becoming a star. It features such classic songs as “We’re In The Money”, “Lullaby of Broadway”, “Shuffle Off To Buffalo” and “I Only Have Eyes For You”.

Tickets for select dates are on sale below.

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• Jun 15, 2023

Review: 42nd Street (Sadler's Wells & UK Tour)

Review by Daz Gale

The annual big summer musical at Sadler’s Wells is always something to look forward to with South Pacific and Singin’ In The Rain entertaining audiences (and both blowing me away) over the past two years. For this year’s musical it’s a big production of a truly iconic show as 42nd Street returns to London before shuffling off on a huge UK and Ireland tour. It has some big (tap) shoes to fill though when compared with not just last year’s summer musical at Sadler’s but the still quite recent West End revival which remains one of my personal favourite shows I’ve seen. That said, I was keen to see what this new production could bring to an absolute classic – so let’s get on with it and meet those dancing feet.

The stage musical adaptation of 42nd Street was first seen on Broadway in 1980 and arrived in the West End four years later. Based on the 1933 movie (itself based on the 1932 novel by Bradford Ropes), it has seen multiple revivals in the decades since it premiered, most recently concluding a two-year run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 2019. The show tells the story of a brand new fictional musical ‘Pretty Lady’ as it embarks on its journey to the Broadway stage with its leading characters including Dorothy Brock – a star who isn’t quite as talented as the others on that stage, and new chorus girl Peggy Sawyer who is keen to get started in the industry but has no idea how big her star is about to shine.

Produced by Curve who are known for their high quality and often bold productions of well-loved musicals, with Billy Elliot and Beautiful two recent examples, this latest production of 42nd Street is no exception, exhibiting exceptional production value that will adapt itself for the size of the stages it visits on the tour that follows this London season. Robert Jones set design keeps a backstage aesthetic that effortlessly transforms into scenes from ‘Pretty Lady’ and back to various places backstage going from glitzy to drab in a mere moment, but always visually exciting. Roberts costume designs are equally beautiful, notably different enough from the most recent West End production but still distinctive in their appearance so they have no trouble fitting in.

Jonathan Church directs the action beautifully, making beautiful use of the space, but it is Bill Deamers choreography and musical staging that makes 42nd Street burst with life. While keeping certain elements of the show from Gower Champion’s original direction and choreograraphy, Bill has added his own creations into the mix to form fresh and new sequences that always keep the genius level he is known for but this time to even more jaw-dropping effect.

42nd Street is nothing without its dance sequences and here it is every bit as sensational as you would hope – from the title number ‘42nd Street’ to a quite possibly better than ever ‘We’re In The Money’, it’s these big dance numbers that really elevates this show into something special and the choices in this production are every bit worthy of the shows timeless legacy.

Every production element in 42nd Street is executed flawlessly with particularly inspired use of lighting from Ben Cracknell – especially in one musical number which sees an incredibly rapid use of spotlights from one cast member to the other, all delivered with expert precision. Jon Driscolls projection adds a new element to the show, transforming the stage in a way I imagine will suit it on the road around the UK, while the crystal clear sound design from Ian Dickinson and Gareth Tucker allows the glorious sound of the tap numbers to play out to its full potential.

42nd Street is a classic and a big part of that is due to its content. Michael Stewart and Mark Brambles book takes a fairly thin premise and squeezes it for everything it’s worth, fabulously balancing the show within a show structure without ever confusing matters. As for the music from Harry Warren and lyrics from Al Dubin, they are as timeless as it gets with many recognisable songs multiple generations have grown up with. ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, ‘Shuffle Off To Buffalo’ , ‘We’re In The Money’ and ‘Keep Young And Beautiful’ all performed phenomenally. As for ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ and ‘42nd Street’ itself, these are among some of the greatest musical theatre songs ever written and as such are obvious standouts during this show.

I’ve established the basic essence of 42nd Street is fantastic enough and this new production more than lives up to its high standard and, thankfully, the cast are also at the same level with some truly outstanding talents making up the characters in this production. Ruthie Henshall is at her fabulous best as Dorothy Brock. Having to reign in her own remarkable talents to reflect Dorothys less than blessed dancing abilities, she is an absolute marvel to behold – comic and captivating. A force to be reckoned with, she is suitably missed in the second act when she only makes a fleeting appearance.

Adam Garcia delights with an energetic performance as Julian Marsh. Played more likable than the last production I have seen with certain elements of his character toned down, Adam gives a commanding performance which culminates with him showcasing his own theatrical gifts at the climax of the show. Josefina Gabrielle and Les Dennis form a formidable double act as Maggie Jones and Bert Barry with precise comic timing and performances that never fail to raise a smile. Josefina in particular is a revelation, making the most out of a role that sometimes gets lost in certain productions but completely stands out in this one.

Nicole-Lily Baisden swaps one tap-dancing show for another. While she may have wowed audiences with her sweet performance in Anything Goes , she really gets to showcase her impressive talents here in a truly winning performance as Peggy Sawyer. An incredible dancer with bundles of charisma, she gives an assured and likable performance that easily eclipsed some of the bigger names in the cast and left no doubt who the true star of this production is and deservedly gave her the final bow (righting the wrong of the previous production).

Sam Lips gives a fine performance as Billy Lawlor, displaying a beautiful singing voice while Alyn Hawke is another standout as Andy Lee. A show like 42nd Street relies on its ensemble to bring it to life and with that in mind, every single performer in this cast is amazing in their own right. The ability to work together like a well-oiled machine, the precise nature of it is a testament to their abilities as performers in what must be one of the hardest working and greatest casts I have ever witnessed.

Markedly different from the 2017 West End revival but still distinctively 42nd Street , this latest production breathes new life into the show with inspired choices. All production elements come together seamlessly and flawlessly to create a show as spectacular as ever. When you factor in the truly stunning cast, you have a show that is impossible to fault. This is up there with the greatest productions of 42nd Street and in some respects might be better than ever before. Absolutely perfect, this is musical theatre at its very best.

42nd Street plays at Sadler’s Wells until 2nd July. Tickets from https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/42nd-street/

It then tours the UK and Ireland until 28th October with dates and tickets at https://www.42ndstreettour.com

Photos by Johan Persson

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Samantha Womack, Michael Praed and Faye Tozer to lead UK tour of 42nd Street

Womack ( The Addams Family , UK tour, South Pacific , Barbican/UK tour) will take on the role of Dorothy Brock, alongside Praed ( Aspects of Love , Prince of Wales Theatre, High Society , UK) as Julian Marsh and Tozer ( Singin’ in The Rain , Sadler’s Wells/UK and Canada tour, Me And My Girl , UK tour) as Maggie Jones. They will join Les Dennis ( Only Fools and Horses , Theatre Royal Haymarket, Hairspray , London Coliseum) as Bert Parry with Nicole-Lily Baisden ( Anything Goes , Barbican Theatre and tour, The Book of Mormon , West End/tour) as Peggy Sawyer and Sam Lips ( Singin’ in the Rain / Strictly Ballroom , UK/Canada) as Billy Lawlor.

The cast will be completed by Erica-Jayne Alden, George Beet ,Charlie Bishop, Kevin Brewis, Olly Christopher, Briana Craig, Jordan Crouch, Rhianna Dorris, Ashleigh Graham, Alyn Hawke, Aimee Hodnett, Connor Hughes, Deja Linton, Sarah-Marie Maxwell, Greta McKinnon, Ben Middleton, Benjamin Mundy, Anthony Ofoegbu and Jessica Wright.

Presented by David Ian for Crossroads Live and Jonathan Church Theatre Productions and directed by Jonathan Church ( Singin’ in the Rain , The Drifters Girl ), the tour will open at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury on 13 July. The production will then visit Leeds, Bristol, Plymouth, Cardiff, Glasgow, Milton Keynes, Liverpool, Manchester, Southampton, Newcastle, Woking and Belfast. Further locations will be added at a later date.

The creative team also includes Olivier Award-winning choreographer Bill Deamer ( Top Hat ), Olivier Award-winning designer Rob Jones ( City of Angels ), lighting designer Ben Cracknell, sound designers Ian Dickinson and Gareth Tucker and video designer Jon Driscoll. Musical supervision is by Jennifer Whyte and orchestrations are by Larry Blank.

Based on the 1932 novel by Bradford Ropes and the 1933 Warner Brothers film musical, 42nd Street is one of the most popular song and dance shows of all time. Debuting on Broadway in 1980, the musical has a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin. The original Tony Award-winning production was directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick.

Featuring musical theatre standards including ‘We’re in the Money’, ‘Lullaby of Broadway’, ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ and the title song ‘42nd Street’, the show tells the story of the chorus girl who steps into the spotlight when the leading lady is injured and becomes a star.

Angela Thomas

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42nd Street , Curve Leicester , Faye Tozer , Jonathan Church , Les Dennis , Michael Praed , Nicole-Lily Baisden , Sadler’s Wells , Sam Lips , Samantha Womack

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42nd Street

42nd Street has now come to the end of it's 2023 tour… Sign up to our Touring Alerts and we'll let you know when the show is back on the road!

42nd STREET UK TOUR

This tour has now concluded.

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WHAT IS 42nd STREET ABOUT?

42 nd  STREET  is a timeless and inspiring showbiz fairy tale that combines breath-taking tap dance routines, backstage intrigue, classic romance and delightful comedy to dazzling effect.

Fresh off the bus from small-town America, young and beautiful Peggy Sawyer arrives in New York City dreaming of her name in lights.

She quickly catches the eye of a big-time director and lands a spot in the chorus line of Broadway’s newest show…and when the leading lady gets injured, Peggy gets her shot at stardom.

The iconic song-and-dance spectacular features a hit parade of toe-tapping songs, including the title number, “ We’re In The Money ”, “ Lullaby of Broadway ”, “ Shuffle Off To Buffalo ” and “ I Only Have Eyes For You ”.

42 nd  STREET  is a larger-than-life, massively entertaining celebration of musicals and the irrepressible spirit of Broadway that’s guaranteed to lift anyone’s spirits. 

42nd STREET UK TOUR - 2023 CAST

The cast for the UK tour of 42nd Street is as follows:

• Samantha Janus  – Dorothy Brock
• Michael Praed  – Julian Marsh
• Fayze Tozer – Maggie Jones
• Les Dennis  – Bert Barry
• Nicole-Lily Baisden  – Peggy Sawyer
• Sam Lips  – Billy Lawlor
• Oliver Farnworth – Pat Denning
• Anthony Ofoegbu – Abner Dillon

The cast will be completed by Erica-Jayne Alden ,  George Beet ,  Charlie Bishop ,  Kevin Brewis ,  Olly Christopher ,  Briana Craig, Jordan Crouch, Rhianna Dorris, Ashleigh Graham ,  Alyn Hawke ,  Aimee Hodnett, Connor Hughes, Deja Linton, Sarah-Marie Maxwell ,  Greta McKinnon ,  Ben Middleton ,  Benjamin Mundy ,  Anthony Ofoegbu  and  Jessica Wright.

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’42nd Street’ at Theatre Royal Plymouth review 

The phenomenal ’42 nd Street’ is a joyful, uplifting rhythm and shoes musical. And the 2023 UK tour production and cast don’t disappoint, with the Plymouth audience clapping along in time to the breathtaking tap on opening night at the Theatre Royal. 

The tap dance fest must-see musical is set in New York’s Broadway district in April 1933 at the height of the depression. Musical legend Julian Marsh has lost his money four years earlier in the Wall Street crash, but realises he still has his talent, which he needs to make his latest show a success; the dancers and producers need this show’s weekly 32 bucks to eat. So far, so 2023. 

Wide-eyed ‘Allentown’ Pennsylvania chorus girl Peggy Sawyer’s youthful idealism and optimism drive the show’s upbeat hopeful feel, as she meets fellow dancers and crashes literally into Marsh and future leading man Billy Lawlor, all in the name of fame. Where this musical differs with its back stage antics is that character intent is inherently good as opposed to backstabbing – new friends taking her out for dinner “five cups of hot water and one tea bag” offer well-meaning advice for Peggy to watch out for the stars of the show; ‘he’s a tenor but he’s got base ideas’ and the leading lady is in love with Pat Jennings, though her Texan sugar daddy pays for her career. 

The plot is comparable to “Singin’ in the Rain”, which addresses a silent movie star and her unique voice not suitable for the “talkies” motion pictures, in that ’42 nd Street’s show-within-a-show has to work around leading star Dorothy Brock’s inability to dance. The theatrical phrase break a leg was never so apt. Marsh’s call to close the show is met head on by the cast who can’t afford not to work.  

The original music and lyrics for the 1933 film, by Warren and Dubin include the title song, ‘42 nd Street’, ‘Shuffle Off To Buffalo’, ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ and ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ and are just four very good reasons to see this show.  

’42 nd Street’ is as relevant today in the cost of living crisis, with ‘We’re In The Money’ opting to throw glitter (hotpants) on a dire financial situation as they celebrate finding a dime on the streets with a dynamic tap number.  If you’ve ever found a pound coin the day before payday you’ll understand how they feel.  The superb, sparkly and envy-inducing costumes belong to the show-within-the-show ‘The Pretty Lady’, while off stage the outfits are more authentic to depression-era New York – simple tea dresses, suits and hats.

Let’s mention for a minute going to the theatre in 2023, on the face of it, one of the most expensive nights out, with prices averaging £30-£70 a ticket. But factor in the incredible talent of the cast, writers, directors, producers, musicians, production team and customer service staff, the sheer energy and endorphin rush that comes from a two hour live show, and it helps to understand why the arts are essential to a lived life. Research theatre websites and the Internet for free or reduced tickets, opt for theatre tickets for birthday or holiday gift experiences, consider restricted viewing options; consider how many entertainment subscriptions you’re paying for.    

I also couldn’t help but compare ’42 nd Street’ with the endearing optimism and idealism that The Muppets give to the theatre, particularly in Muppets Take Manhattan. The by-gosh we’re going to save this show and we’re going to do it the right, fun and huge-production way;  at times the character of leading lady Dorothy Brock (played superbly by Samantha Womack) certainly had sow tendencies towards newcomer Sawyer. 

I’ve seen plenty of UK shows where a cast has to use an American accent, and it doesn’t always land as it should, yet every single voice on the stage transported me to 30s Manhattan. Even northern lad Les Dennis in his comedic turn as Bert Barry. Indeed, the whole cast performed ’42 nd Street’ with such professional exuberance that the two hours and ten minutes flew by almost as fast as their dancing feet. 

Cast: Samantha Womack, Faye Tozer, Michael Praed, Les Dennis, Nicole-Lily Basden, Olly Christopher, Oliver Farnworth, Anthony Ofoegbu Music: Harry Warren Lyrics: Al Dubin Additional Lyrics: Johnny Mercer and Mort Dixon Book: Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble Producers: Jonathan Church and David Ian Director: Jonathan Church Based on the novel by Bradford Ropes and the motion picture 42 nd Street owned by Turner Entertainment Co. And distributed by Warner Bros.  Running Time: 130 minutes Theatre: Theatre Royal, Plymouth Performance dates: 8 th – 12 th August 2023 

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Avenue of the Idealists:

A Walking Tour of 42nd Street

Forty-second Street, looking west from Park Avenue circa 1900. ( Detroit Publishing Co./Library of Congress )

An Interactive History of 42nd St.’s Dramatic Transformation

There are two 42nd Streets. West of Sixth Avenue, what was once an artery of sordid drear has been almost entirely remade in the last few decades, preserving a few token theaters wedged between towers of glass. Otherwise, renewal marches on: Work has finally ended on Snøhetta’s revamping of the Times Square plazas, the Port Authority hopes to tear down and replace its Eighth Avenue bus terminal, and the western end will eventually get a jolt of energy radiating from Hudson Yards.

East of Sixth Avenue, though, the old stone metropolis has survived, partly because the Landmarks law protects it, but also because buildings that were once advanced and daring have remained doggedly useful as they age. The behemoths of 42nd Street proclaim this city’s nimbleness, its ability to navigate the chaotic present without jettisoning either its history or its dreams.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15pt3sx003k0hp664931k5w@published"]{font-size:20px;line-height:1.1;padding-top:15px;margin-bottom:7px;text-align:center;font-family:Arial;color:#7f7f7f} Walk 42nd Street with Justin Davidson as your tour guide.

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This has long been New York’s most idealistic street, where fine instincts and modern technology fuse into a boulevard of high-minded civic aspiration. Even its roster of vanished landmarks is a testament to loftiness. This is where the press (the Daily News, the Herald Tribune, the Times, and The New Yorker ) has continuously tested the limits of the First Amendment, where pedestrians have reclaimed civic space from cars and dereliction (in Times Square), and where doctors tended to wounded veterans (the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled, which once existed between First and Second Avenues). Charity workers (at the Ford Foundation) tried to staunch the world’s worst ills, and a global financial institution (Bank of America) erected what was then the world’s greenest skyscraper. On 42nd Street, the curious can enter one of the world’s great research libraries and dive into virtually any published book. And half a dozen blocks east of the New York Public Library, diplomats from all over the world convene to hammer out intractable conflicts, not with weaponry but by sitting around a conference table and talking. When you think about it, 42nd Street isn’t just the epicenter of spectacle but also a boulevard of noble ambitions.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7153001e0hp6od9bf6eb@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7153001e0hp6od9bf6eb@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 1. Times Square

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l6bhi002a0hp617ud4nbk@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l6bhi002a0hp617ud4nbk@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} times square is a car heaven before it’s a heathen’s paradise..

ca. 1900 Longacre Square at Broadway and 42nd Street. The theater sign on the left advertises “burlesque, ballet, and varieties.”

Museum of the City of New York

ca. 1940 Even in its heyday of glamour, 42nd Street had a reputation for sordidness.

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1975 Times Square, a grindhouse movie theater at Broadway and 43rd Street, which is now near the location of 4 Times Square, where Condé Nast was headquartered until 2015.

Frederic Lewis/Getty Images

2015 Times Square, today.

Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images

These days, Times Square is perpetually clotted with pedestrians rushing to theater seats and office cubicles or ambling in an LED-ened daze. But at the turn of the 20th century, it was ground zero of car culture. In 1902, Studebaker, a carriage company that had nimbly retooled for the horseless kind, put up a ten-story factory with offices just off what was then called Longacre Square. The building, on Broadway at 48th Street, anchored a row of luxury automotive companies whose showrooms rivaled couturiers for chic. But even in its heyday of glamour, 42nd Street had a reputation for sordidness. From the Civil War to the 1990s, from the slaughterhouses along the East River to the rail yards by the Hudson, this stretch of pave­ment, pounded by hookers, con men, addicts, and pickpockets, knitted to­gether the most distasteful parts of urban life. By the 1960s, the area had became synonymous with sleaze. And yet it was still the city’s heart. In 1979, Madonna arrived in New York and told a cabbie to take her “to the middle of everything.” He dropped her at Times Square.

The Times Square of today, with its glass and glare, its polished granite benches and scarlet stairs, is the product of a protracted rescue operation. Determined to redeem it from crime and porn, the city turned it into a white-collar-and-entertainment complex, where lawyers, publishers, tourists, theater people, and reporters all shove past each other on expanded but still overflowing sidewalks. It is a place that everyone professes to hate but is always full.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k75v0001f0hp63xyx2ds2@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k75v0001f0hp63xyx2ds2@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:30px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 2. Bryant Park

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l755d002b0hp6xfwusfjw@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l755d002b0hp6xfwusfjw@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} america’s biggest building rises on the site of bryant park..

ca. 1853 Crystal Palace, built on today’s Bryant Park.

Fotosearch/Getty Images

ca. 1935 Bryant Park, after a reconstruction overseen by then–Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.

1983 By the mid-1970s, the New York Times was calling the park an “oasis rife with crime.”

Courtesy of Bryant Park Corporation

2015 Bryant Park, today.

sbostock/Getty Images

It’s July of 1853, and the Crystal Palace, all airy cast-iron lacework, topped with a great glass dome, is the largest building America has ever seen, built in just nine months to house the “Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations,” where according to the official catalogue, experts demonstrate “specimens of New-Orleans long moss for upholstery purposes,” immense, clanking steam engines, “an improved machine for breaking and dressing flax,” maps, window dressings, pistols, scythes, and “philosophical instruments.” Walt Whitman visits the exposition again and again. Nearly two decades later, he will write “Song of the Exposition,” which still quivers with the freshness of that first encounter with the industrial arts:

Around a Palace,

Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,

Earth’s modern Wonder, History’s Seven outstripping,

High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron façades.

And yet, the Crystal Palace barely lasted, collapsing in a quick and violent fire after just three years. A few decades later, the promise of the future underlying this very spot devolved into the kind of urban ghastliness that sent millions skedaddling to the suburbs. It’s not happenstance that in 1952 Ralph Ellison chose the street just outside Bryant Park as the setting for a viciously climactic moment in Invisible Man. Ellison’s narrator comes across the once-proud Brother Tod Clifton selling Black Sambo dolls on the sidewalk, making them shimmy in a grotesque minstrel dance at the end of a thread. When a policeman bears down on him for lacking a vendor’s permit, Clifton lashes out, effectively committing what we now call “suicide by cop.”

By the ’70s, these blocks formed a frightening caricature of urban threat. “It’s a dangerous park,” a groundskeeper told the Times in 1976. “There’s a crew in this park, all they do is walk around and mug people. It goes on all day.” A demoralized community-board chairman suggested that the only way to disinfect Bryant Park of crime might be to close it completely.

The 1990s cleanup of Times Square spread eastward, too. Now, out on the sidewalks beyond the park’s balustrades, New Yorkers move with a determined stride. The Bank of America Tower, a cream-white glass behemoth designed by COOKFOX Architects, disgorges lunchers. If you scooped up a shovelful of passersby at any given moment, you’d collect specimens from most of the world’s nations and the full economic spectrum from homeless person to plutocrat, with every gradation in between.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k78xc001g0hp6df7wmrwh@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k78xc001g0hp6df7wmrwh@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 3. New York Public Library

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l898x002c0hp6vsxhanb6@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l898x002c0hp6vsxhanb6@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} a freshwater reservoir becomes an intellectual repository..

1847 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue is in the foreground. The Croton Reservoir, as seen from the northeast side, is in the distance.

ca. 1850s The Croton Reservoir.

New York Public Library

1879 42nd Street at Fifth Avenue. The Croton Reservoir is on the right.

1908 The New York Public Library, a decade after construction began.

2012 The New York Public Library, today.

Victor Fraile/Corbis via Getty Images

Sunrise, July 4, 1842: A handful of early risers have gathered to witness a miracle of engineering. This island in a tidal estuary, laced with murky canals and surrounded by brackish currents, has been in dire need of clean, drinkable water. Here it comes, piped in from the Croton River, muddy at first, then clear and sweet. It rushes through 45 miles of tunnels that have been blasted and dug and lined with brick, crosses the Harlem River atop High Bridge and into the vast 86th Street reservoir (in what will later become Central Park), and flows into the great cistern at Murray Hill. From here, it will branch into narrower pipes and splash from public fountains and newfangled fixtures in private homes. The Croton Reservoir — a perfectly square, battlemented perimeter guarding a four-acre enclosure — is really just a holding tank, but it’s the most visible juncture in an immense new aqua-management system that will soon tip New York into a global metropolis. Over the rest of the day, 25,000 people will converge on the reservoir to watch it fill and to line up for a free drink of ice water.

The Croton Reservoir took years of planning and the then-colossal sum of $13 million to complete, and there was plenty of grumbling at the extravagance and delays. After all, New Yorkers were not accustomed to receiving much in the way of municipal services. The city still lacked a police force, garbage collection, with electricity decades away, and it had only the sketchiest form of public transit. Not everyone saw the need for those embellishments. But in July 1832, cholera attacked, killing thousands and inciting many more to flee. Three years later, fire decimated the mercantile core around Wall Street, destroying 700 buildings. On that frigid night, in December 1835, firefighters could only stand helplessly by, water frozen in their pumps, until they were finally able to stop the destruction by demolishing unburned buildings and creating a firewall of rubble. Suddenly an aqueduct looked like an instrument of survival. Its architecture invoked ancient Egypt, and its scale seemed eternal in a city destined for rapid change.

As it happened, it would last only 60 years, by which time a far more extensive web of pipes made the reservoir obsolete. That’s the thing about New York: Today’s unimaginable ambition becomes tomorrow’s quaint relic.

The New York Public Library sits right where the Croton Reservoir did, and it, too, wrestles with the challenge of keeping idealism up to date. Since the day the library opened in 1911, anyone, from the barely literate to the Nobel laureate, could pass between the friendly lions named Patience and Fortitude and climb the imperial-scaled stairs to the third-floor Rose Main Reading Room. With its profusion of sunlight and carved timber, and its great oak tables burnished by millions of elbows, the chamber expresses the democratization of earthly awe: Even people who live in joyless garrets have a right to grandeur.

While information increasingly lives in the ether, the New York Public Library’s headquarters is an intensely physical place. This iron-and-stone storehouse was built to enshrine knowledge in ink-on-paper form. But temples grow brittle. In 2014, one of the rosettes on the reading room ceiling broke off, failing to kill any patrons only because it happened in the middle of the night. The room closed for renovations for two years. There was also trouble in the stacks, where thickets of iron columns and seven levels of tightly gridded shelves support the upper floors, and where, until recently, 4 million volumes mold­ered away in a warm, damp fug.

Eventually, the volumes were moved for their safety, most of them to a newly renovated, climate-controlled vault deep beneath Bryant Park. But the old retrieval system endures, albeit in updated form: Whenever a call number is dropped (electronically, now) into the building’s bowels, library staffers — aptly called pages — unearth the requested titles and place them on a miniature train that hauls them up to the surface like hunks of coal from a mine.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7bvn001h0hp6jubpgxpf@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7bvn001h0hp6jubpgxpf@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 4. Grand Central Terminal

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15t7p3w00520hp6q3fkk7m8@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15t7p3w00520hp6q3fkk7m8@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} grand central is rebuilt (twice)..

ca. 1880 Grand Union Depot, built by Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Photo Collection Alexander Alland/Corbis via Getty Images

ca. 1900 The renovation and expansion of Grand Union/Central Depot is completed in 1900, henceforth the expanded building is called Grand Central Station.

ca. 1935 Grand Central Terminal, which first opened in 1913.

2016 Grand Central Terminal, today.

Tomas Sereda/Getty Images

In the mid-19th century, 42nd Street was lined with jerry-built train stations, serving a tangle of competing lines. But by 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt had bought up enough railroad companies and real estate to build a vast passenger’s palace. His Grand Union Depot opened in 1871, a great glass-ceilinged shed fronted by a brick château. In 1898, the building, now called Grand Central Depot, was overhauled, enlarged, and stylistically reshuffled into a French Renaissance showpiece — but a lethal accident four years later doomed it to instant obsolescence.

In the morning rush hour of January 8, 1902, two trains collided just outside the old depot on the site, filling the tunnel with boiling spray and coal smoke. Fifteen people were killed. The New York Central Railroad decided to switch to electric trains, which didn’t pump fumes into the air and so could run beneath the streets and enter the station from below. That meant demolishing the depot and replacing it with a multilevel terminal. Burying the tracks and decking over Park Avenue created vast quantities of freshly valuable real estate, unbesmirched by coal smoke and protected from noise. The company’s chief engineer, William J. Wilgus, realized that it could pay for an underground station by selling the right to build in the air. That incubated a colossal real-estate deal. Developers flocked to build hotels and apartment buildings that constituted Terminal City. And Grand Central Terminal became one of the world’s most high-tech facilities, dedicated to the era’s great mission: speeding people wherever they wanted to go.

In the rationalistic spirit of the age, the building was engineered down to the minutest detail, merging efficiency with beauty. Hallelujah shafts of sunlight angle through vast double windows and glass-floored walkways, heating the interior and minimizing the need for electric lighting. Early visitors rhapsodized over the ramps from street to tunnel. “The idea,” reported the Times, “was borrowed from the sloping roads that led the way for the chariots into the old Roman camps of Julius Caesar’s army.” To determine their precise angle, the architects made mock-ups and then recruited testers: “fat men and thin men, women with long skirts, women with their arms full of bundles.” The result is a complex of gentle slopes through which people move in a counterpoint of varying tempos. Thanks to that attention to detail, Grand Central was — and remains — one of the modern world’s most exquisitely complex and welcoming public palaces.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7ejn001i0hp6o3egdvac@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7ejn001i0hp6o3egdvac@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 5. The Chrysler Building

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l9nv5002d0hp6idjrkngj@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15l9nv5002d0hp6idjrkngj@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} a monument to the auto industry rises during the depression..

1928 The corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, the year before construction started.

Percy Loomis Sperr/New York Public Library

1929 The Chrysler Building, while still under construction. It was completed in 1930.

ca. 2015 The Chrysler Building, today.

Fernelis Lajara/EyeEm/Getty Images

Is there any human activity that architecture can’t elevate? In the early-20th century, the area around Grand Central Terminal was a rough and unglamorous neighborhood, crammed with three- and four-story tenements and businesses that produced an abundance of horse manure. Gradually, narrow-frontage houses made way for hotels like the Manhattan, the Belmont, and the Vanderbilt (later the Commodore) on the northeast corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. In the great burst of construction around 1930, even those recent buildings came down to make way for skyscrapers: the Chrysler, Graybar, and Chanin buildings and, farther east, the Daily News. The Chrysler Building, an auto company’s monument to itself that functioned as an urban-scale corporate logo, stamped the skyline with the glamour of driving.

It’s hard now to grasp the mixture of misery and dogged ebullience of those days, when a few towers raced glamorously toward the sky just as the U.S. economy was hitting rock bottom. In 1929, the Chrysler Building lunged past 40 Wall Street to become the tallest building in the world — until two years later, when the Empire State Building overtopped them both. The towers’ Art Deco energy emerged from the interaction of aesthetic fancy and legislation. In 1916, as new technologies threatened to turn Manhat­tan into a dark forest of high-rises, the city began reg­ulating the skyline. The law allowed greater height on wider streets and required buildings to recede as they rose, funneling sunlight to the sidewalk. Hugh Ferriss, the architect whose brooding renderings made him the Piranesi of New York, understood the romance embedded in the new zoning code. “We are not contemplating the new architecture of a city — we are contemplating the new architecture of a civilization,” he wrote. His rhetoric helped transform the zoning code into a spectacu­larly utopian tool. In 1929, he published his graphic manifesto, The Metropolis of Tomorrow, the book that shaped the dreams of architects, planners, comic-book illustrators, and Hollywood set designers. In a long essay with 108 drawings, he described a city of fantastical drama, in which pedestrians would move around by skyway and towers would have rooftop landing pads.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7gv3001j0hp6muskoclv@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7gv3001j0hp6muskoclv@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 6. The Daily News Building

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15t5x8x00510hp6spjkwvaj@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15t5x8x00510hp6spjkwvaj@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} the daily news puts its headquarters on the media’s main artery..

ca. 1928 42nd Street, as seen from the Second Avenue el, in the year before construction was to start on the News Building.

ca. 2015 The News Building, today.

The original plan for the Daily News Building called for a low-rise home for a rumbling printing press that might rattle nerves in a newsroom above but had no sleeping neighbors to disturb. Architect Raymond Hood reimagined it as a skyscraping tribute to the business of asking rude questions of powerful people. It started construction in 1929 and opened in 1931 in a burst of delusional confidence, as if the Depression were just another journalistic opportunity.

The man who paid for it was Captain Joseph Medill Patterson, the left-leaning scion of the McCormick family, which owned the Chicago Tribune. Patterson, a populist idealist, had spent time in England on his way to the front and fallen in love with the Daily Mirror, a cockney-flavored tabloid that kept Londoners supplied with salacious gossip, provocative pictures, and short, punchy stories. He decided to create a similar publication for New York. By 1926, its circulation was well over a million, making it the largest daily in the country. After a few more years of success, Patterson knew where to place a new printing press — on 42nd Street, close enough to the Times that he could beat the competition to the newsstand every day.

Patterson wanted a printing plant with a newsroom on top; Hood charmed him into building a 36-story skyscraper. Hood, like Patterson, was an avowedly practical man for whom money was — in theory, anyway — an infallible guide. In his mind, and in his rhetoric, the News Building was the manifestation of virtuous slide-rule thinking, which held that the most efficient way to design a building was inherently the most harmonious as well. Despite his declared pragmatism, Hood produced an artistic creation, a jazzy concoction of syncopated setbacks and white-brick stripes shooting toward the sky. In a city of flat façades, this was a sculpture to be appreciated from all sides. Hood claimed that he simply stopped the building when he ran out of floors, rather than capping it with some fancy crown, but in truth the corrugated shell extends well past the roof, hiding the mechanical equipment and defining the top with a straight, sharp horizontal line. Simplicity is not usually simple to achieve.

Like all good architects, Hood knew how to deploy his budget for maximum effect, concentrating all the sumptuousness where people could see it. The relief above the main entrance teems with New Yorkers of all kinds — flappers, construction workers, financiers, a young girl telling off an overenthusiastic dog — and an inscription abridges Lincoln’s aphorism “God must love the common man. He made so many of them.” (The News version includes only the second sentence.) The shiny black-and-brass lobby is even stagier, with its quartet of clocks set to various time zones and its giant globe, symbolizing the paper’s worldwide reach. The News eventually abandoned the building (and many of its global ambitions), but so completely did Hood’s design capture the urban drama of journalism that his tower had a starring role in the 1978 film version of Superman, playing the headquarters of the Daily Planet.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7iz2001k0hp64hzvj0hf@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7iz2001k0hp64hzvj0hf@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 7. Tudor City

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15lak5c002e0hp6xsdga9f8@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15lak5c002e0hp6xsdga9f8@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} one developer sees a middle-class oasis where once there were slums..

1863 42nd Street Between Second and Third Avenues, looking north.

New York Historical Society

ca. 1925 Tudor City, built in 1925.

Edwin Levick

ca. 2008 Tudor City, today.

Francesco Bittichesu/Getty Images

Walt Whitman, gazing east from the ramparts of the Croton Reservoir in the 1840s, imagined an orderly grid of private houses popping up as the city expanded, but the reality was more chaotic. A 1988 Landmarks Preservation Commission report, usually a dry research document, indulged in a vivid description of the afflictions of the neighborhood around East 42nd Street: “Bracketed to the west by the noisy Elevated Railroad and to the east by noxious abattoirs, meatpacking houses, gas works, and a glue factory, the area … had, by 1900, become a slum inhabited by ethnically diverse immigrants.”

Enter Fred F. French, a brawny Bronx kid who had dropped out of college and eventually became a bona fide mogul with a mantra that he’d rather make a small profit on a large business than a large profit on a small one. And the biggest real-estate business of them all was Tudor City.

Launched in 1925, Tudor City was the largest residential complex in the country. It was also a control freak’s fantasy, a hilltop enclave of 11 buildings with 2,800 apartments — practically a manufactured town. It boasted its own streets, hotel, a slightly cramped but fully operational 18-hole golf course, and two parks, each with a romantic gazebo. In building it, French placed the high-yield, high-risk bet that has enriched — or, often, impoverished — developers in every generation: He believed that middle-class people would choose to live in the city, rather than migrate out of town, so long as they could keep urban squalor and chaos at bay. He promised working stiffs an affordable bucolic refuge that didn’t require a long commute.

French fitted out his buildings with modern efficiencies (like refrigerators) and architectural flourishes evoking the days of monarchs in wide collars and rich brocades. Carved griffins, stained-glass windows, and ornate lanterns turned the oversize brick boxes into middle-class castles. The strategy worked. The development was stupendously successful, despite tiny apartments with almost no eastward-facing windows. Enjoying a river view would have had a disconcerting downside: a vista of charnel houses and the stench of blood and offal drifting in from neighbors like the Butcher’s Hide and Melting Association.

Today, the abattoirs, the el, and the slums are all gone. Tudor City’s claustrophobic layouts and phone-booth kitchens keep prices contained and children scarce. Though the city has evolved around it, a verdant retreat in midtown Manhattan still seems like an incongruous apparition.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7lep001l0hp6zhlowudn@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7lep001l0hp6zhlowudn@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 8. United Nations Headquarters

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15r9t9u004t0hp6vkq35j3h@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15r9t9u004t0hp6vkq35j3h@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} the u.n. is built on a slaughterhouse that used to be woodland..

ca. 1861 Turtle Bay Farm.

Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation

1949 The U.N. Secretariat, under construction.

Bettman/Bettmann Archive

2016 The U.N. Secretariat, today.

Dea/W. Buss/De Agostini/Getty Images

The U.N. occupies a cluster of structures, but the Secretariat, the hive of diplomacy’s worker bees, is the international body’s contribution to the New York skyline, a big glass brick standing upright on the edge of Manhattan. In the 18th century, it was Turtle Bay Farm, a wild patch of woods and ravines that sloped down to a bucolic cove. Then came industry: ironworks, coal companies, slaughterhouses, and breweries, which needed access to the river for transportation and dumping. Until the 1940s, the eastern end of 42nd Street had to be one of the least appealing corners of the city. It shot between the cliffs of Tudor City, passed First Avenue, and terminated at the Veal & Mutton Co., a vast terrain of organized slaughter in the shadow of a Con Ed power plant’s smokestacks.

After World War II, the United Nations came into being, and among its first tasks — before the partition of Palestine or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — was to shop for real estate. A scouting party examined various other sites, including the suburbs of Philadelphia, the Presidio in San Francisco, Fairfield County, Connecticut, and the site of the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens. But it was eventually decided that only Manhattan embodied the U.N.’s ideal of vigorous optimism. John D. Rockefeller, in a supreme gesture of noblesse oblige, offered to buy the reeking acres of riverfront from a local developer for $8.5 million (roughly $103 million today — still a spectacular bargain) and donate it to the organization. Wallace Harrison, Rockefeller’s architect — he had worked on Rockefeller Center and would later collaborate on Lincoln Center — helped broker the deal and hand-picked an international troupe of modernist architects to design the compound, taking for himself the role of ringmaster. Many contributed, not least two squabbling geniuses, the Swiss-French guru Le Corbusier and his Brazilian counterpart Oscar Niemeyer, who fought over the shape, number, and orientation of the buildings, whether the glass-curtain wall should include a sun-shading grid of stone, and — most ferociously — who got credit for what. The cocktail of haste, diplomacy, vanity, and genius might have yielded an architectural hangover. Instead, it produced the first monument of postwar modernism. Many critics found the complex soulless and its creators deluded in the idea that World War III could be averted by orderly administration. “If the Secretariat Building will have anything to say as a symbol, it will be, I fear, that the managerial revolution has taken place and that bureaucracy rules the world,” wrote Lewis Mumford in The New Yorker.

By 2010, the Secretariat had devolved into a decaying time machine. Rain seeped around ancient windows and leached asbestos from crumbling ducts. The lobby’s green marble walls sported the lovingly designed but now culturally unsuitable ashtrays. Architecture that once promised a more perfect world had now seen better days. A $2.1 billion overhaul begun in 2008 restored the original spare elegance. The Security Council’s 60-year-old chairs have been reupholstered in bright Naugahyde, water stains have been cleaned off limestone and marble panels, and decades of nicotine have been scrubbed away from buffed terrazzo floors. All the cosmetic improvements are icing on a high-risk rescue of a creaky modern landmark. When crews began removing the Secretariat’s exterior glass curtain wall, they found that it was barely hanging on. Windows were just a bad storm away from popping off. Then, in October 2012, Hurricane Sandy pounded through New York, causing $150 million in damage. It might have been easier — and possibly cheaper — to demolish everything and build anew. However, for an organization where precedent and symbolism govern every handshake, the historical meaning of the U.N.’s architecture still resonates.

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7ott001m0hp600t16dn8@published"]{font-family:'EgyptienneCondBold';font-size:43px;line-height:.8;text-align:center;margin:20px 0 0;padding-top:30px}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15k7ott001m0hp600t16dn8@published"]{font-size:65px;margin:39px 0 9px;line-height:.85}} 9. Ford Foundation

[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15lnusk002f0hp68kyh80j5@published"]{color:#999;font-family:'arial';font-size:17px;line-height:1.2;margin-top:7px;margin-bottom:15px;text-align:center}@media (min-width:600px){[data-uri="nymag.com/intelligencer/_components/clay-subheader/instances/cj15lnusk002f0hp68kyh80j5@published"]{font-size:19px;margin-top:0}} a foundation trying to save the world replaces a hospital for healing vets..

1912 New York Hospital for the Relief of Ruptured and Crippled.

Irving Underhill / Museum Of The City Of New York

1968 Ford Foundation Building, soon after its opening.

NY Daily News/Getty Images

2012 Ford Foundation Building, today.

Dario Cantatore/Getty Images

Along 42nd Street, one kind of civic ambition regularly forces out another. The construction of Grand Central displaced the New York Hospital for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled, the predecessor of today’s Hospital for Special Surgery. In an era of often-brutal medical intervention, the hospital specialized in gentler therapies: “sunshine and fresh air, along with diet, exercise, electrical stimulation, and gentle rehabilitation, known as Expectant Treatment.” In 1912, it moved toward Second Avenue and remained there until 1955, when it cleared out again to make way for the Ford Foundation, which was completed 13 years later.

Designed by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, it, like other mid-century office buildings, is made mostly of glass. But with its sunset-colored granite piers and weathered steel beams, the Ford Foundation has an imposing look of perpetuity. The foundation’s mission is to battle the full panoply of timeless injustices around the world, and its home base is a see-through fortress, braced for an endless war.

Today, green design is often a checklist of energy-saving features that soften a building’s environmental blow. Roche, however, created a work of environmentally sensitive architecture before the term had much currency. During business hours, anyone can step out of the cacophony of 42nd and into an indoor Eden. Walkways thread through an almost preposterously lush bower, designed by the landscape architect Dan Kiley (and closed in 2016 for a two-year renovation), which was meant to inculcate a sense of serene, almost monastic community in the foundation’s pencil-wielding professionals. “It will be possible in this building to look across the court and see your fellow man or sit on a bench and discuss the problems of Southeast Asia,” Roche predicted before construction had even begun, and he was right.

Ford gave up substantial floor area for the sake of trees, light, and air. That sacrifice made the building itself a magnanimous gesture, a gift of greenery to a city that has always been invited in to enjoy it. Part Victorian greenhouse, part modernist Crystal Palace, part corporate plaza, the landscaped atrium was a powerfully original idea, even though it later became a cliché. What better place to end a tour of civic aspiration than in this humanistic gathering place that distills 42nd Street’s dewy idealism?

This piece is adapted from Magnetic City: A Walking Companion to New York , to be published by Spiegel & Grau on April 18.

*A version of this article appears in the April 3, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.

Design and development: Jay Guillermo, Terri Neal and Ashley Wu

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• Pretty Woman Tour
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• Sing a Long a Greatest Showman
• Six the Musical Tour
• That'll Be The Day Tour
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Come and Meet Those Dancing Feet!

Fresh off the bus, small-town dancer Peggy Sawyer uses her naive charm to win a place in the chorus line of the biggest new show in town. And when the star gets injured, they need someone new to take the lead. Will Peggy’s raw talent be enough to win her a place in the spotlight? 42nd Street’s stunning score and thrilling choreography will have you humming along and tapping your toes to the “Lullaby of Broadway!”

Running Time

APPROXIMATELY

2 HOURS, 25 MINUTES

with INTERMISSION

Honorary Producers:

Kathy Baker Campbell, Harold R Brown Foundation

Associate Producers:

Jasmine P. Calzada, Evalyn M Bauer Foundation, Dr. David R. Federick, Dr. George & Celeste Macer, Kathy Choppin Wavell, Pete & Beth Young

Youth Performance Underwriters :

Don Black & Judy McNulty Black, Kelly Janousek, Marilyn Bates (in Memory of Ron Bates), Dr Jim & Karen Wells, Dr Wayne & Karen Freeman, Ellen Chase

This show is suitable for all audiences.

Reviews & Press

…it’s the song and dance that are the true stars of this production — and this is where musical theatre west’s production of “42nd street” absolutely shines., – anita harris , the lb post.

read article here

A darling, infectiously joyful confection of a show.

– michael quintos, broadway world, the choreography by cheryl baxter bursts onto the stage through a crisp and unified cast., – sean mcmullen, press telegram.

Photo Gallery

Phillip Attmore (Andy Lee) Broadway: Hello, Dolly!; Shuffle Along…; On The 20th Century; After Midnight; Irving Berlin’s White Christmas; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.   Off-Broadway/NYCC Encores!: Cheek to Cheek…; The Tap Dance Kid; I Married An Angel; Me and My Girl; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. TOURS/REGIONAL: Phillip Attmore: Moments Musicaux; Fosse; Stormy Weather; 42nd Street; Singin’ in the Rain. Film/TV: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; “James Corden”; “SYTYCD”; “The Bold and the Beautiful”; “Judging Amy”; “Sisters”; “Silent Tongue”; “Ellen”; “Maya and Marty”. Awards: NAACP Theatre Award Nominee; Three-time Astaire (Chita) Award Winner.

John Paul Bautista (Ensemble) is thrilled to be back at MTW and in such an amazing  show like this one. He trained at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) conservatory program in NYC and BFA in LA. Theatre credits: Bernardo in West Side Story, 42nd Street Beauty and the Beast (Candlelight), Sister Act, Something Rotten, The Little Mermaid (5 Star Theatricals), Damn Yankees, 42nd Street (SDMT), Sweet Charity, Kiss of the Spider Woman,   The Producers (Welk), Young Frankenstein, Newsies, Tarzan (Performance Riverside), Zoot Suit Riot, Chicago, In The Heights (Cabrillo). Spamalot (MTW). Film credits: “Murderville,” “Glee,” “In Vino,” “Waiting in the Wings.” Choreography credits include: Footloose, The Little Mermaid, Oliver, “Coco: Live at The Hollywood Bowl,” The Scarlet Pimpernel, Newsies, Matilda, Beauty and The Beast, “The Christmas Special” televised for OBCT. Many thanks to my representation team. @john_jpbfitness

Stephen Bishop (Pat Denning)  BROADWAY/NATIONAL TOUR/LOS ANGELES: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Grinch), JM Barrie’s Peter Pan (Hook/Darling), Beauty and the Beast (Gaston), Les Misérables (Javert), Camelot (Lancelot), Cabaret (Ernst). Countless Regional credits including King Lear, MacBeth, The Winter’s Tale, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Dracula, Noises Off, Man of La Mancha, 1776, Oliver, The Secret Garden, Wonderful Life and more. Guest Baritone soloist across the nation with acclaimed pops/symphonic orchestras and animated jingles. EDUCATION: Master’s Shakespeare Studies, Bachelor’s Performance Studies. Proud member Actor’s Equity, SDC, and SAFD.

Johnisa Breault (Ensemble) is thrilled to ‘Shuffle Off’ to her Musical Theatre West Debut! National Tour: Rudolph (Mrs. Donner, Dance Captain, Swing). Regional: The King and I (Angel George u/s | McCoy Rigby), 42nd Street (Anytime Annie u/s | Moonlight Ampitheatre), Joseph … (McCoy Rigby), Anything Goes (Hope u/s, Dance Captain | SDMT), On Your Feet! (Moonlight), Leonard Bernstein’s NY (NVA), Hello, Dolly! (Minnie Fay | 3DT), Catch Me If You Can (Dance Captain | SDMT), Seussical (Bird Girl | Candlelight), Oklahoma! (3DT). Love to her family, friends, and Marlon 🙂 @johnisabro

Ricky Bulda (Mac/Doc/Thug) is happy to return to MTW! Previous MTW shows include R+ H’s Cinderella, Damn Yankees, Catch Me If You Can, Big Fish, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Elf The Musical, and Bright Star. Recent credits include The King and I, Beauty and the Beast, Annie, School of Rock and The Count of Monte Cristo . Other theater companies include The Old Globe, La Mirada, LA Opera, La Jolla Playhouse, and many others. He thanks Cynthia, Wilkie, Cheryl and the MTW family. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association! www.rickybulda.com Instagram:@ricky_bulda

Kevin Carolan (Abner Dillon) has managed and grown a career as an award-winning entertainer for over 30 years, working with industry giants such as Mel Brooks and Martin Scorsese, to loudly name-drop just two. He’s appeared as author Tom Clancy in the Oscar-nominated film, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, been killed by The Riddler in “Gotham”, interrogated by Mariska Hargitay in “SVU”, created roles in Disney’s “ Newsies ” on Broadway/filmed live, and toured North America as Claude & others in Come From Away . More: kevincarolan.com

Ryan Cody (Ensemble/Dance Captain) thanks you for supporting tap dance and live theatre in Long Beach! Favorite credits include 42nd Street (REV, 3DT, PVPA), Singin’ in the Rain (MTW), White Christmas (MTW), The Addams Family (3DT), Young Frankenstein (MTW, 3DT, PVPA), and Funny Girl (3DT). He’s also appeared in several shows at Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Universal Studios Hollywood. Sincere thanks to Cheryl, Cynthia, Wilkie, Paul, and Bren. “Everybody secretly wants to tap dance. I believe that.” -Dianne Walker.

Ellie Cook (Ensemble) is a PNW Native excited to be making her SoCal Debut. Ellie has most recently been seen in the Ensemble of Elf the Musical at the North Carolina Theatre. Some of her favorite credits include being a part of the Inaugural Cast of Disney Cruise Line’s newest ship the Disney Wish, Flying Elf in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer National Tour, and Ensemble in Guys and Dolls at the Village Theatre. Much love to her friends and family! @elliejeancook

Quintan Craig (Billy Lawlor) “Q” is proud to be back home at Musical Theatre West! Recent Credits: An American in Paris u/s Jerry Mulligan (MTW), R+H’s Cinderella u/s Prince Topher (MTW), Beauty and the Beast (MRE), Ragtime (MTW), Something Rotten! (MTW). He can also be heard on MTI’s recordings of Chicago (Billy Flynn), West Side Story (Riff), and Newsies (Jack/Romeo). Quintan is a graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, TN. All my love to Vee and the Fam Bam. Hangin’ a star on this for Nana. @Quintan_Craig

Erin Dubreuil (Ensemble) is absolutely thrilled to be back at MTW after appearing in The Sound of Music (Liesl), R+H’s Cinderella, 9 to 5, the Musical, and The Wizard of Oz ! Other favorite credits include Carrie in Carrie: The Musical (UCLA), Ariel in The Little Mermaid (Candlelight Pavilion), and 42 nd Street (3D Theatricals and PVPA). Erin is a proud graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. Many thanks to her family and friends for always supporting her, and to the entire 42 nd Street creative team, cast, and crew!

Maggie Ek (Phyllis) is beyond excited to be making her Musical Theatre West debut! Regional credits include: Inga ( Young Frankenstein ) at La Mirada, Katherine ( Newsies ) and Myra Bruhl ( Deathtrap ) at the Woodstock Playhouse. Additionally, you can catch Maggie at the Pirate Dinner Adventure, Buena Park as Princess Anita and the evil pirate queen Treasure, or performing children’s stories with the Imagination Machine. Maggie would like to thank the cast and crew of 42nd Street , her agent Jim Keith at MTA, her family, friends, and the Sophie Dance community. maggieek.com @maggie.l.ek

Jonathan Blake Flemings (Ensemble) MTW debut! Recent credits: Zanna in Zanna Don’t at Conundrum Theatre, A Funny Thing… Forum at Pittsburgh Public Theatre, The Scottsboro Boys at The REP, A Chorus Line at Olney Theatre, Moonlight Stage, and Welk Theatre, Dreamgirls with Pittsburgh Musical Theater, Hairspray at Fingerlakes Musical Theatre Festival, CATS at Cortland Repertory Theatre, West Side Story, Joseph … and others at Norris Theatre. Other: Disneyland Resort, “Hollywood Loves Broadway, Sony”; “Elementary”, CBS; “The Polar Express”, Warner Bros. Point Park University – BFA Musical Theatre, Dance – @itsjblake

Kurt Kemper (Ensemble) is happy to be back at MTW after being apart of Grease and as Dwayne in 9 to 5, the Musical . Favorite credits include Willy Wonka in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (Tuacahn Amphitheatre), Butler in Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (La Mirada Theatre), and Jehan in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Tuacahn Amphitheatre). All the love to his family, friends, and his team at GO2 + CESD! Insta: @imatallglassofwater

Olivia Liddi (Student Ensemble) is thrilled to be making her MTW debut as a member of the student ensemble! She currently attends OCSA in the Commercial Dance Conservatory under the direction of Nicole Berger. Being a dancer since she was three years old, Olivia has been a proud member of Impact Dance Center where she has competitively danced in tap, lyrical, and contemporary for 8 years. She’s also performed theatrically in a multitude of shows including Annie in Annie , and Lucy in Charlie Brown . Please enjoy 42nd Street ! 

April Lovejoy (Lorraine) is thrilled to be back at MTW in her dream show, 42nd Str eet. Favorite credits include Beauty and the Beast (Silly Girl), Cats (Demeter), Singin ’ in the Rain (Girl in Green), and Aladdin: a Musical Spectacular . She was Assistant Choreographer for the film, “Haunting of the Queen Mary”, and can be seen regularly on stage at Knott’s Berry Farm. Thanks to Cynthia, Cheryl, Wilkie, Paul, Bren, and Ryan for this incredible opportunity, and to her family, friends, and husband Wesley for their love and support.

Robert Mammana (Julian Marsh) Broadway: ( Les Misérables), National Tours: ( Show Boat, Les Misérables, The Sound of Music ), Off-Broadway: ( The Twentieth-Century Way) , Regional: Denver Center ( The Constant Wife ), South Coast Repertory ( Sweeney Todd, Cloudlands ), Geffen Playhouse ( Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ), Portland Center Stage ( Fun Home, Ragtime, Guys and Dolls ), Pasadena Playhouse ( The Father, Casa Valentina, Sleepless in Seattle ), Alliance ( Beast on the Moon ).  TV/Film: “The Office” (as Sweeney Todd ), “NCIS,”“CSI,” “The Good Wife,” “How To Get Away With Murder,” “CSI:NY,” “Baby Money,” “Just Say Love,” “Flightplan” .   Awards: 2 LA Drama Critics, LA Weekly.  Nominations: Helen Hays, 3 LA Ovation, 3 LA Drama Critics.

Missy Marion (Ensemble) is so excited to return to Musical Theatre West! She was previously seen in 9 to 5, the Musical, R+H’s Cinderella , and White Christmas here at MTW. Regional: Young Frankenstein (Ensemble/ u/s Elizabeth/Dance Captain, La Mirada), Hairspray (Amber, Performance Riverside), Oklahoma! (Dream Laurey, 3DT), La Cage Aux Folles (Anne, Forestburgh Playhouse). For the last few years, Missy has been traveling the world as a featured singer and dancer aboard Regent Seven Seas Cruises. When not performing, Missy enjoys baking and decorating cookies. Check it out @missysquarantinecookies. Special thanks to the cast, crew, and production team for giving me this incredible opportunity. Endless love to my family and love, Trevor!

Evan Martorana (Ensemble) has just recently graduated from CSUF with a BFA degree in MT in the class of ‘23. He grew up in the Sacramento area town of El Dorado Hills where he learned musical theatre and Tap dancing from his Mother, Christine. Some noticeable roles he has portrayed were Tommy, The Who’s Tommy at Falcon’s Eye Theatre; Jack, Glimpse: A New Christmas Musical at CSUF; Andy, 42nd Street at Rose Center Theatre. He wants to thank his family and his mentors on this magical journey!

Makaela McCosar (Student Ensemble) Makaela is so excited to make her debut in Musical Theater West’s 42nd Street. She boasts 10 years of stage performance experience. Most recently having performed for Debbie Allen at the first-ever All Star Concert for the  Hollywood Tap Fest led by Chloe and Maud Arnold, her performance repertoire includes choreography by Valerie Rokey, Chloe and Maude Arnold, Caley Carr and more. She thanks her tap mentors Susan Janson, Rashida Khan, Parris Mann and Aaron Chavarria and dedicates her performance to them. Follow her on her journey IG: @makaelamccosar

Marisa Moenho (Ensemble) is proud to be making her MTW debut in 42nd Street ! She is a two-time Jimmy Award finalist and recently graduated from UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film & Television. Credits include: Elf the Musical (Theatre at the Welk); 42nd Street (Moonlight Amphitheater); Into the Woods (UCLA); The Light in the Piazza (CCAE); Memphis (Moonlight Amphitheater & Tibbies: Center Stage); Sweet Charity (UCLA); Hair (UCLA); Hairspray (SDMT & Tibbies: Center Stage).  @marisamoenho

Bree Murphy (Maggie Jones) is delighted to be returning to MTW to play alongside this incredible creative team! She was last seen on the MTW stage as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls . She has worked at many regional theatres from The Utah Shakespeare Festival to Swine Palace in Baton Rouge, as well as across the US and Canada for 2 years with the National Touring company of Les Misérables . She sends all her love and gratitude to her supportive family and fantastic agents at Firestarter Entertainment! Breemurphy.com

April Nixon (Dorothy Brock) is honored to be part of the cast of 42nd Street . April is an Olivier Award nominee for her work in Damn Yankees (opp. Jerry Lewis). She has also been nominated for an Audelco, Ovation, and Elliot Norton Awards. April’s B’way & Nat’l Tour credits: The Dancer’s Life (opp. Chita Rivera), Smokey Joe’s Cafe, 9 to 5, FOSSE, The Wiz, Cats, Tommy, Mamma Mia, Sistas, Crowns, Sweet Charity, Caroline or Change, and Dreamgirls . TV: “Law & Order SVU”/“Criminal Intent”, “The Dave Chapelle Show”, “The Wire”, Film: “Malcom X”, “Man On The Moon”, “The Perfect Find” (opp. Gabrielle Union-Netflix), “Two Degrees” (opp. Vanessa E. Williams). April has worked with Anna Deveare Smith, Spike Lee, Regina Taylor, Gwen Verdon, Walter Bobbie, Sheldon Epps, Jack O’ Brien, Jerry Zaks, Des McAnuff, Graciela Daniel, Ann Reinking, George Faison, and Michael Peters. April starred in a tour of “Yemanja” (opp. Grammy winner Anjelique Kidjo). Stay tuned for April’s new web series “BlackStageStories & FindingMyLola’s” on YouTube.

IG-@maggiehunter51, FB-April L Nixon, Twitter (X)-@Aprellnixon

Emma Nossal (Peggy Sawyer) MTW debut! Emma is elated to step into Peggy’s tap shoes for a 3rd time after playing the role at Moonlight Stage Productions in 2023 and Candlelight in 2017. Favorite credits: Elf the Musical (Jovie), Nunsense (Sister Mary Leo), Theatre at The Welk; Singin’ in the Rain (Kathy Selden), New Village Arts; Ragtime (Evelyn Nesbit), A Chorus Line (Maggie), Moonlight; Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Nat’l Tour (Swing), Right Angle Entertainment; Rock of Ages (Regina), Cygnet; Hairspray (Penny Pingleton), SDMT. Love to family, Drew, & FSE! emmanossal.com.

Jane Papageorge (Annie Reilly) recently concluded a successful run of A Christmas Story at the Ahmanson. Preciously, Val Clark in A Chorus Line at The Rev Theatre Company. Catch her as a pole dancing Sarah Palin in @44obamamusical (check socials for updates!). Past credits include: Hollywood Bowl’s productions of  HAIR  and  A Chorus Line , Jamie Leigh Lee in  Scary Musical the Musical! , original cast member of  Frozen: Live at the Hyperion  (Princess Anna), April in  Company , Lulu u/s Sally in Cabaret ,  Spamalot , “General Hospital”, and short film “Butterflies of Love”.  KMR Talent  @janepapageorge

Noelle Roth (Ensemble) is thrilled to be part of 42nd Street with MTW!! Her credits include R+H’s Cinderella (MTW), The Marvelous Wonderettes (Suzy), 42 nd Street (Ens/Peggy u/s), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Alice), Shaking Up Shakespeare (Ophelia), and Pirates of Penzance (Ens). Winner of BroadwayWorld’s Next On Stage: Dance Edition and the LaDuca Achievement Award for Excellence. Noelle has worked closely with Broadway star Nikki Snelson to create and perform in two original musicals. Huge thank you to my family for their support! Seeking representation.  IG:@noellerothofficial TikTok:@noellerothofficial

Grace Simmons (Ensemble) is beyond excited to be back on 42nd Street , making her MTW debut! Some past credits include 42nd Street (Ensemble) and The Wedding Singer (Ensemble) at Moonlight Amphitheater this past summer. She also performs year round at Knott’s Berry Farm. Grace received her performance education at Fullerton College, where she played roles such as Maggie in A Chorus Line and Lucy Grant in Bright Star . Grace sends all her love to family and especially to her tap teacher, Monie Adamson.

Cole Sisser (Ensemble)  Musical Theatre West Debut! Cole is so excited to be in his first production here at MTW. Regional: In The Heights , Cinderella . BA Theater UCLA ’23. For my mom, dad, sister, family, and friends. Thank you to James and Bloc LA for their support. @colesisser

Helen Tait (Ensemble) is happy to be making her Musical Theatre West debut in such an iconic show! Recent work includes “The Polar Express Train Ride” and the 2023 season at Moonlight Amphitheatre. Some favorite credits include Saturday Night Fever (Ensemble), Victor/Victoria (Ensemble), and The Little Mermaid (Mersister). Helen has a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Redlands. She sends love and thanks to her friends, family, and Tiera at FSE! @helengabii

Ariel Tello (Student Ensemble) Making her Musical Theatre West debut in 42nd Street ’s Student Ensemble, Ariel is a student at OCSA’s Commercial Dance Conservatory led by Director Nicole Berger. She has been tap dancing since age two under the guidance of Catherine Gray. In 2021, Ariel joined Leah Silva’s Reverb Tap Company. Ariel competed with Team USA in Germany under Coach Shawn Kurilko in 2023. She dedicates her performance to her mentors: Director Nicole Berger, Catherine Gray, Leah Silva, Shawn Kurilko, Sarah Burke, Delaney Prescott and Aaron Chavarria.

Jamie Torcellini (Bert Barry) MTW: Coco in Hot Mikado , Pseudolous in A Funny Thing Happened… Broadway: CATS  (Mr. Mistoffelees) , Little Johnny Jones  (Standby to Donny Osmond) , Me and My Girl (Standby for Jim Dale) , Jerome Robbins Broadway, Man of La Mancha  (Barber) , Beauty and the Beast  (LeFou) ,  and Billy Elliot. Regionally and on tour , Jamie has starred in George M!, Little Shop of Horrors, La Cage Aux Folles, Fiddler on the Roof, Crazy For You, How To Succeed…, Where’s Charley?,  The Mystery of Irma Vep (Ovation Nomination) , over 15 productions of Me and My Girl. Television and Film: Law and Order, ER, Mrs. Santa Claus, The Jamie Foxx Show, and Disney’s Tarzan, Pocahontas, and Aladdin. 

Elizabeth Weber (Student Ensemble) i s so excited to make her Musical Theatre West debut in the show 42nd Street , as a part of the student ensemble. Elizabeth has been tap dancing since she was 3 years old, and recently just joined OCSA’s Commercial Dance Conservatory, which is led by Director Nicole Berger. She dedicates her journey and performance to her wonderful instructors: Catherine Gray, Aaron Chavarria, Shawn Kurilko, and Nicole Berger.

Emma Rose Williams (Student Ensemble) is delighted to perform in 42nd Street as her first Musical Theatre West production. She is a sophomore at Orange County School of the Arts in the Commercial Dance Conservatory and is a seasoned dancer among the competition circuit. Although she spends the majority of her time in the dance studio or at the ballet bar, she also enjoys drawing, painting, and playing a wide range of instruments. Recently, she was accepted into the Walt Disney World Dreamers Academy and will be heading to Florida in April.  Having recently performed in Spain and France, she feels blessed to once again share the stage with her sister Sophia Grace. She dedicates this performance to her youngest sister Lily Hope and to her Mom, who is her biggest fan. “Listen to the lullaby of old Broadway!” @ emmarosewilliams66

Sophia Grace Williams (Student Ensemble) is thrilled to make her Musical Theatre West debut in 42nd Street. She is a junior at Orange County School of the Arts in the Commercial Dance Conservatory. Originally from the Bay Area, she has always been an active performer in musical theatre and dance competitions. Now in Orange County, she has expanded her focus to include assistant teaching and choreography. She recently danced in Spain and France and has been selected to showcase an original piece at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. When not dancing, she enjoys playing the upright double bass and culinary arts. She is grateful to be dancing next to her sister Emma Rose and dedicates this performance to her youngest sister Lily Hope & her tap dancing Mom. “Come and meet those dancing feet!” @dancebyphiag

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tour or driver to vladimir & suzdal - Moscow Forum

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tour or driver to vladimir & suzdal

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My husband and I will be in moscow and wanted to take a side trip..understand Vladimir & Suzdal is quite nice. Do you prefer that to Sergiev Posad? Do you know any agencies that provide group tours or private tours to Vladimir & Suzdal? I understand that Patriarshy Dom is not operating its group tour during this time. Please advise. Any information you have to share would be helpful.

Vladimir & Suzdal are close to each other. you can use vladimir as base and also visit suzdal.

I will give you some links ( sorry i am out on tour and can't do more research).

http://gotorussia.vand.ru/ ( this is a tour operator offering 1 day tour from moscow to Vladimir , Suzdal or both) there are also combo tours with sergiev Possad with any of the above towns.

In order to organize tours from Vladimir, there are 3 major sites where you will get infor about the tours operating from Vladimir, how to reach there etc.

1. http://www.tour.vladimir.ru

2. http://www.vladimir-city.ru ( official site)

3. http://www.museum.vladimir.ru ( my recommended site)

<< go to english version / select option "services" / tours & excursions

My sugestion would be to go to Vladimir by train from moscow in the evening, take rest and then join a full day tour of vladimir - suzdal and return at night or next day morning. The train takes 2-3 hrs. Details available at http://www.poezda.net ( in english) .You can even book online

Trains are clean and safe. Hotel Vladimir at Vladimir is ok. near the train station. you can find the contacts in google. ( book the tickets in advance.)

You can visit sergiev possad ( quite near to moscow) using the moscow based tour agency mentioned above. They offer day trips to Sergivev possad.

If you want to search the net further, go to http://www.yandex.ru ( russian website) and type in "vladimir tour" or "suzdal tour" in ENGLISH. This will give you many sites with english option

have a nice trip

will you consider a DIY trip?

from moscow to vladimir take a long-distance train or a suburban (electrichek) train from kursky station. there are several in the daytime/early evening. certain long-distance trains are faster and can arrive in 2 hours. suburbans take 3 hrs. probably less complicated to buy suburban ticket than one of a long-distance train (where you need passport, specify what type of seat, which train number...) and also cheaper

once in vladimir you can walk around for 1-2 hours or even have your dinner there. then take a bus (avtobus) at the bus station just up a slope from the train station. the bus runs every 30-60mins till late. i took the one around 8-9pm. and the evening buses go directly into city centre of suzdal. the trip is about 40-60mins

the tricky part is if you reserve your accomodation in suzdal with a guesthouse/B&B, it may not be easy to locate. the one i had booked did not have a sign hanging at the door. i walked around for about an hour and at last had to find a local to talk to my host over phone and then she kindly led me to the right wooden house

This topic has been closed to new posts due to inactivity.

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