How NYC’s massive Palace Theater was lifted into the air: ‘An inch an hour’

Putting up a Broadway show is hard enough. 

But try lifting a 111-year-old, 7,000-ton Broadway theater 30 feet in the air. 

That’s just what a group of intrepid engineers and designers have done to the Palace Theater, the iconic 47th Street venue that’s played host to such luminaries as Judy Garland, her daughter Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler and classic musicals like “Sweet Charity” and “La Cage Aux Folles.”

During a painstaking process that took nearly nine years from signing the contracts to the May 2024 opening night of Ben Platt’s concert residency, the massive building — which has also acted as a vaudeville house and an RKO movie theater — was dramatically jacked up two stories to make room for a new 669-room hotel and retail spaces below.

The Palace itself also got a much-needed spruce-up. The lobbies, backstage areas and, most vitally, the bathrooms, are totally new.

“We might argue, and some may agree, that it’s the most famous theater in the city of New York,” Nick Scandalios, Executive Vice President of the Nederlander Organization, told The Post.

“And we’re really proud that at the end of this, it’s still the pinnacle of that.” 

After the Palace shuttered in 2018 with the closing of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” the long process of prepping the theater for the move began. That step alone took several years.

While the famous site is landmarked by the city, a designation that can lead to permissions hurdles, the team got lucky with a quirk.

“The Palace is very unique because it was an encased brick box with no facade,” Scandalios said of the venue that previously had only a tiny marquee that was far newer than the house.

“Many of our landmarked theaters are landmarked both inside and outside. But there was no outside to the Palace,” he added.

At the same time that the attached Double Tree hotel was demolished above, 116 cement-cased hydraulic lifts were placed beneath the foundation of the building. The actual lift, however, didn’t begin until February 2022.

Jim Seger of PBDW Architects said that over the course of two weeks, the Palace moved up at a slower-than-a-snail’s pace of “about an inch an hour.”

Added preservation architect Brigitte Cook: “The pigeons on the roof couldn’t feel it moving.” 

“It was like surgery,” Seger added. “There were teams on call at all times. Everything was being watched very carefully.”

Once the Palace achieved its taller stature — with no major issues — the remodel really began. The entrance is now prominently visible on 47th Street, there are sparkling lobbies and modernized backstage facilities.

And behold — the Palace now has the largest women’s bathroom of any Broadway theater. For matinee ladies, it’s practically the ninth wonder of the world.

Inside the theater, illuminating its dark blue palate with gold accents, is an elegant new chandelier inspired by the only photo of the long-gone original fixture.

“You used to look up at the ceiling and the dome had these recessed lights because there was no chandelier, and you couldn’t look up without being blinded,” Cook said. “We took the original chandelier size and shape, but added art moderne [style] in a contemporary way.”

One historic feature beloved by Broadway buffs that had to stay was the iconic Judy Garland Staircase. 

“Judy Garland had very famously appeared from the back of the auditorium at times,” Scandalios said. “And there is a staircase she used that could connect you from the backstage to the back of the auditorium.”

So, the team ensured that future divas could still walk in Dorothy Gale’s footsteps.

“It’s slightly more circuitous, but there is a path that can go from backstage, through that staircase and then enter the auditorium,” he said.

For James L. Nederlander, president of the Nederlander Organization, the Palace project was a deeply personal one.

“My father bought it 1964,” he said of his dad James M. Nederlander, who died in 2016.  

“I grew up there. A lot of memories. That’s another reason I’m glad it’s back online. I hope he’s up there saying, ‘Boy, I’m proud of you guys.’”