Palladium (New York City)

The Palladium (originally called the Academy of Music) was a movie theatre, concert hall, and finally nightclub in New York City. It was located on the south side of East 14th Street, between Irving Place and Third Avenue.

For other uses, see Palladium.
Not to be confused with Palladium Ballroom.

Palladium
Paul Simonon of the Clash performs at the Palladium on September 20, 1979
Former namesAcademy of Music
(1927–1976)
General information
TypeMovie palace, concert hall, and nightclub
Address126 East 14th Street
Town or cityNew York City
CountryUnited States
Opened1927
ClosedAugust 1997
DemolishedAugust 1998
Other information
Seating capacity3,400

Designed by Thomas W. Lamb, it was built in 1927 across the street from the site of the original Academy of Music established by financier Moses H. Grinnell in 1852. Opened as a deluxe movie palace by movie mogul William Fox, the Academy operated as a cinema through the early 1970s.

Beginning in the 1960s, it was also utilized as a rock concert venue, particularly following the June 1971 closure of the Fillmore East. It was rechristened the Palladium on September 18, 1976, with The Band live radio broadcast,[1] and continued to serve as a concert hall into the following decade.

In 1985, the Palladium was converted into a nightclub by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, after their success with Studio 54. Japanese architect Arata Isozaki redesigned the building's interior for the club.[2]

Peter Gatien owned and operated the club from 1992 until 1997.

The Palladium closed in August 1997 following its purchase by New York University.[3] In August 1998, the building was demolished in order to build a twelve-story residence hall that students affectionately referred to as Palladium Hall.[4] The residence hall typically houses 960 residents, primarily sophomores with approximately 120 MBA students.[5] Two floors in the basement and sub-basement house the Palladium Athletic Facility.[4]

Music venue

The Academy of Music opened as a movie palace at 126 East 14th Street. By the 1970s it had become a music venue for rock and roll acts. Seating 3,400, it was popular with both mainstream bands and upcoming acts which could open a major bill. Many bands performed at the Palladium in the middle of large arena and stadium tours, due to the prestige of the theater and the excellent acoustics. The theater featured a highly regarded sound system that was designed and installed by Richard Long of Richard Long & Associates (RLA).

Among the numerous rock concerts the Academy of Music hosted were The Rolling Stones 1st American Tour 1965, which played this venue on May 1, 1965,[6][7] the Allman Brothers Band on August 15, 1971,[8] Aerosmith's first concerts outside of New England, opening for Humble Pie and Edgar Winter's White Trash on December 2nd & 3rd, 1971, and the series of New Year's shows played by The Band on December 28–31, 1971 (recordings from which were released as the 1972 live album Rock of Ages). New Year's Eve 1973 featured the eclectic line-up of Blue Öyster Cult, Iggy Pop, Kiss, and Teenage Lust (which had recently backed up John Lennon). Genesis performed their NY concerts of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway there in 1974. And Renaissance performed there on May 17, 1974; the show featured Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash on guitar, and bootleg recordings are widely available.

The Grateful Dead played two extended stands at this venue. One was seven shows at the Academy of Music, from March 21–28, 1972. Excerpts of these shows, including some tracks with Bo Diddley as a guest, were officially released on Dick's Picks Volume 30 and Dave's Picks Volume 14. The other was 5 shows between April 29 and May 4, 1977. The complete April 30 show was officially released as Grateful Dead Download Series Volume 1, with 3 bonus tracks from the April 29 show.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band played six shows at the Palladium in October and November 1976, and three more in September 1978. Tickets for all three 1978 shows were sold out. Frank Zappa and his band performed on and around Halloween several times, including performances in 1977, which were included in the film Baby Snakes, a legendary series of shows in 1978, and a 1981 performance which was simulcast live on radio and MTV.

New York proto-punk musicians The Patti Smith Group, John Cale, and Television, performed at the Palladium on New Year's Eve 1976. The Bay City Rollers performed at The Palladium on January 8, 1977. A performance of the Ramones was recorded at the Palladium on January 7, 1978; and they returned for New Year's Eve 1979. Kiss played a warm-up show here, in 1980, before they kicked off their Unmasked Tour in Italy; it was Eric Carr's first live performance with the band. In 1991, Tin Machine performed at the venue during their It's My Life Tour on November 27 & 29; a portion of these performances were used for their live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby.

Blondie, fresh from their first European tour, performed songs from the Blondie and Parallel Lines albums, on May 4, 1978. Deborah Harry wore a long sleeve red shirt, with pink panties and red thigh high boots. Rockabilly legend, Robert Gordon along with master guitarist, Link Wray opened the evening performing classic songs from the likes of Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran among others.

On July 25, 1980, Kiss played the venue, their only North American concert in 1980, to introduce new drummer Eric Carr to the American press before heading overseas for their Unmasked Tour. Also part of the reason for having the concert was to help subsidize the rental of the Palladium for tour rehearsals with Carr.[9]

The venue was also where many British heavy metal acts made their initial impact in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Ozzy Osbourne, Humble Pie, and other participants of the so-called new wave of British heavy metal. The classic line-up of Motörhead, with "Fast" Eddie Clarke on guitar, performed its final show at the Palladium on May 14, 1982.

Many UK punk and new wave acts made their New York debuts at the Academy of Music, including The Clash, The Jam, The Boomtown Rats, The Fall, Graham Parker & The Rumour, Rockpile, U2, Duran Duran, The Undertones, and Roxy Music. American punk bands The Ramones, Blondie, and The Cramps also played there in the late seventies.

Chuck Berry played a New Year's Eve concert on 31 December 1988 recorded by WNEW-FM and available as "Chuck Berry Live At Palladium Theater, New York, WNEW-FM Broadcast, 31st December 1988".

The final concert held at Palladium was a sold-out performance by Fugazi on May 1, 1997.

Recordings

The version of "Nantucket Sleighride" heard on Mountain's Live: The Road Goes Ever On album at was recorded during their Academy of Music performance on December 14, 1971.

On December 21, 1973, Lou Reed recorded both Rock 'n' Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live at Howard Stein's Academy of Music, released during February 1974 and March 1975 respectively, featuring songs from his solo career and The Velvet Underground.

Zappa in New York is a live double album by Frank Zappa recorded during a series of concerts at the Palladium in December 1976.

Levon Helm and the RCO All-Stars recorded Live at The Palladium NYC, New Year's Eve 1977. The CD album, released in March 2006, features over one hour of blues-rock music performed by a star-studded ensemble featuring Levon Helm (drums/vocals), Dr. John (keys/vocals), Paul Butterfield (harmonica/vocals), Fred Carter (guitar/vocals), Donald "Duck" Dunn (bass), Steve Cropper (guitar), Lou Marini (saxophones), Howard Johnson (tuba/baritone sax), Tom "Bones" Malone (trombone) and Alan Rubin (trumpet).

The Clash played at the Palladium on September 20 and 21, 1979, as a part of their U.S. tour, and the iconic photo from the September 20 show of Paul Simonon smashing his bass would later be used for the front cover of the Clash album London Calling. Irish punk band The Undertones and American soul legends Sam and Dave were the opening acts for the shows.[10]

The photograph on the back of the Cramps' original 1979 debut EP, Gravest Hits, was taken at the Palladium.

Renaissance recorded Unplugged Live at the Academy of Music at the venue in 1985, although it wasn't released until 2000.

In 1992, C+C Music Factory recorded a song under the moniker S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. for the soundtrack to The Bodyguard (starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner). The song, "It's Gonna Be A Lovely Day", was the only song on the soundtrack performed by an artist other than Whitney Houston to be released as a single in the US. The remixes of the song, which were released via Arista Records on Compact Disc single, cassette single, and Double-12" vinyl single, were titled "The Palladium House Anthem I" and "The Palladium House Anthem II". At that time, C+C Music Factory member Robert Clivillés was the resident DJ at The Palladium.

In 2004, punk pioneers the Ramones reissued a live album they recorded at The Palladium. The album is called Live January 7, 1978 at the Palladium, NYC [LIVE], and was released by Sanctuary Records Group.

Club MTV, a live daily program, was also filmed there in the 1980s and early 1990s and starred Downtown Julie Brown.

Nightclub

The Palladium was converted from a music venue into a nightclub by former Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, and they hired Danceteria DJ Richard Sweret, DJ Patrick Anastasi and DJ Luis Martinez who saw the possibility of a much larger audience for a downtown ‘new wave music’, Euro and house music-oriented club. The architect in charge of the renovation was Arata Isozaki.[11] From its celebrity-studded opening in May 1985, through the end of the 80s, it was one of the major features on a vibrant New York club scene. The club was a mainstay on the New York club scene until it was bought out in 1997 by New York University (NYU) and demolished for a campus housing project.

Junior Vasquez's Arena party, held Saturday nights and Sunday mornings at Palladium between September 1996 and September 1997, was one of the most popular parties in the New York club scene at the time. Although the promoters billed Arena as "The Gay Man's Pleasure Dome", the party drew an eclectic mix of gay and straight from Manhattan and far beyond. Vasquez commemorated Arena in the titles of the remixes he produced that year.

References

Notes

  1. Rockwell, John "Refurbished 14th St. Palladium Opens With Program by the Band" The New York Times (September 20, 1976)
  2. Goldberger, Paul (May 20, 1985). "AN APPRAISAL; THE PALLADIUM: AN ARCHITECTURALLY DRAMATIC NEW DISCOTHEQUE". The New York Times.
  3. "Academy of Music/The Palladium". nycgo.com. Retrieved March 24, 2019.
  4. Uncredited, Uncredited (August 23, 1998). "POSTINGS: 16-Story, $80 Million Building on East 14th Street; From a Disco Palace To an N.Y.U. Dormitory". The New York Times.
  5. "Palladium Hall". nyu.edu. Retrieved March 24, 2019.
  6. Manning, Sean, The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience, Da Capo Press, Jan 2, 2007. Cf. p.22
  7. "Ticket Stub from Rolling Stones Academy of Music Concert, NY,NY 1965 Seat L 13
  8. https://www.allmanbrothersband.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Calendar&file=showCalendarMonth&tapers=&type=viewevent&year=1971&month=08&day=01&eid=1452,
  9. "KISS and Sell" by C.K. Lendt
  10. Seventies' Greatest Album Covers: London Calling at Super Seventies RockSite!
  11. L. Munuera, Ivan. "An Organism of Hedonistic Pleasures: The Palladium." Log, 41. Fall 2017
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