Effort to lift Times Square's Palace Theatre 30 feet off the ground finally accomplished
NEW YORK -- The slow and steady effort to lift a massive Broadway theater 30 feet off the ground is finally accomplished.
The Palace Theatre was in the way of a project to put retail space on the ground floor, but instead of destroying the landmark, developers got creative and saved it.
Construction crews toiled for months to make the century-old Broadway theater appear to vanish, but not by knocking it down. It now is up above, raised 30 feet, fully intact.
Robert Israel, executive vice president of L&L Holding Company, calls it "an engineering marvel."
Israel walked CBS2's Dave Carlin around the new TSX Broadway, with a high-rise hotel, retail, plus the Palace and other performance spaces at 47th and Seventh Avenue.
The Palace dates back to the days of Vaudeville. Later in the mid-1950s, Judy Garland famously played there, and more recently, Liza Minnelli packed them in.
"We wanted to make sure that the Palace stayed the jewel that it is," Israel said.
The work began by detaching the Palace from its foundation, then ringing it with six feet of concrete and 34 high-tech columns worked to inch all 14 million pounds of it up and up, slowly.
"It just lifts very smoothly. It's like a very small, strong piston," Israel said.
The gem of a theater remains sealed off, for now.
"What's also at this level is the stage that we are creating out to Times Square," Israel said.
Other landmark buildings have been moved, but laterally. This is a unique project in that it lifts the structure. Now, there's a new stage area with an incredible view of Times Square.
Back at street level, the exterior shows the line of red brick façade that used to be at your feet side are now way up over your heads.
Seeing just what's possible these days will lift your spirits.