ZIEGFELD THEATER. Northwest corner of 6th Avenue and 54th Street. Architects: Joseph Urban and Thomas A. Lamb. Opening: February 2, 1927; Rio Rita.
Until the mid-1920s, 6th Avenue was a street of 3-story brownstones under a permanent shadow of the elevated train. When the 6th Avenue El was torn down in 1927, the real-estate market, driven by a bearish Wall Street, boomed. Speculators abounded, and parcels of the thoroughfare were acquired quickly in the new land rush.
Producer Florenz...