Roseland Ballroom

The Roseland Ballroom (also referred to as Roseland Dance City) is a catering hall/music venue/dance hall in a converted ice skating rink with a colorful ballroom dancing pedigree in New York City's theatre district on West 52nd Street.

The venue according to its website can accommodate 3,200 standing (with an additional 300 upstairs), 2,500 for a dance party, between 1,500 and 1,800 in theatre style and 800-1,000 for a sit-down dinner. [ [http://www.roselandballroom.com/special_pricelist.html Roseland Ballroom NYC ] ]

The quirky venue has hosted everything from a Hillary Clinton birthday party to annual gay circuit parties to movie premieres to musical performances from all genres, including Madonna, Paul McCartney, Nirvana, Ramones, the Rolling Stones, Alanis Morissette and Phish. [ [http://www.gotickets.com/venues/ny/roseland_ballroom.php Roseland Ballroom Seating Chart, Roseland Ballroom Tickets, Roseland Ballroom Maps ] ]

The rear of the venue faces West 53rd Street and the Ed Sullivan Theater. It is seen virtually every time that comedian David Letterman has outside antics during taping of the Late Show with David Letterman beside his theater (prompting various attempts to paint the industrial-looking wall to make it look better on national television).

History

51st Street location

Roseland was founded initially in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1917 by Louis Brecker with financing by Frank Yuengling of the D. G. Yuengling & Son beer family.

In 1919 they moved the venue to 1658 Broadway at 51st Street in New York. It was a "whites only" dance club called the "home of refined dancing", famed for the big band groups that played there, starting with Sam Lanin and his Ipana Troubadours. Couples danced the jitterbug, Lindy Hop, and Charleston under the Roseland's famed star-studded ceiling.

Orchestras that played the venue included Vincent Lopez, Harry James, Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller. The appearance by Count Basie was a turning point in his career and a break though in the all-white atmosphere of the club. One of his songs was to be the "Roseland Shuffle".

Brecker popularized Marathon dancing until it was banned, staged female prizefights, yo-yo exhibitions, sneezing contests, and dozens of highly publicized jazz weddings with couples who met at the club. cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Romp at the Met |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,808924-2,00.html |quote=When a public dance hall named Roseland opened on Broadway in 1919, smart young people had recently deserted the waltz for the foxtrot, were just beginning to master the delicate nuances of the shimmy. Sam Lanin and his Ipana Troubadours were on the bandstand, thumping out such Ziegfeld Follies hits as Mandy and You Cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake on Tea. Since that distant New Year's Eve, generations of stag-line Romeos and their girls have bunny-hugged Lindy-hopped, Charlestoned, big-appled black-bottomed and jitterbugged under Roseland's star-studded ceiling. At 1 o'clock one morning last week the stars winked out for the last time; the following night Roseland reopened in glittering new quarters, billed as 'a magnificent metropolis of melody and merriment.' |publisher=Time (magazine) |date=January 7, 1957 |accessdate=2007-06-21 ]

As the club grew older, Brecker attempted to formalize the dancing more by having hostesses dance for 11¢ a dance or $1.50 a half-hour with tuxedoed bouncers (politely known as "housemen") keeping order. It was to work its way into stories by Ring Lardner, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John O'Hara.

Current 52nd Street location

The original New York Roseland was torn down in 1956 and it moved to its new venue on West 52nd, a building that Brecker earlier had converted from an ice-skating rink to a roller-skating rink. It had been built in 1922 at a cost of $800,000 by the Iceland ice-skating franchise. A thousand skaters showed up on opening night at the 80-by-200-foot rink on November 29, 1922. Iceland went bankrupt in 1932 and the rink opened as the Gay Blades Ice Rink. Brecker took it over in the 1950s and converted it to roller-skating.

"Time" magazine described the new Roseland's opening interior as a "purple-and-cerise tentlike décor that creates a definite harem effect." Brecker attempted to maintain its ballroom dancing style, banning rock and roll and disco. In 1974 Brecker told the "The New York Times", "Cheek-to-cheek dancing, that's what this place is all about."

Brecker sold the building in 1981. Under the new owners the Roseland began regularly scheduled "disco nights", which gave rise to a period when it was considered a dangerous venue and neighborhood menace.

In 1984 a teenager was shot to death on the dance floor. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=18-Year-Old Is Killed In Roseland Ballroom |url= |quote= A Staten Island teen-ager was fatally shot yesterday morning at the Roseland ballroom in midtown Manhattan, the police said. The victim - Robert Dudley, 18 years old, of 62 Roxbury Street - was shot once in the chest at 3:26 A.M. and was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Clare's Hospital and Medical Center. The police said they had not established a motive for the slaying. |publisher=New York Times |date=November 11, 1984 |accessdate=2007-06-21 ]

In 1990, after Utah tourist Brian Watkins was killed in the subway , four of the eight suspects (members of the FTS gang) were found partying at the Roseland. As a result, Roseland discontinued the "disco nights". [ [http://www.scientitian.com/articles.html Discoterror ] ]

Its low-rise 3-story structure on top of the quarter-acre dance floor in the middle of midtown Manhattan has stirred concerns over it being torn down for redevelopment. In 1996, a new owner, Laurence Ginsburg, filed plans to tear down the venue and replace it with a 42-story, 459-unit apartment building. A spokesman for Ginsburg said the filing was to "beat a deadline for new, more stringent earthquake codes, which went into effect earlier" in 1996. The interior space has been subsequently renovated. [An Old-Fashioned Dance to the Music of Time - New York Times - October 13, 1996]

Notable performances

*My Bloody Valentine - September 22 and 23, 2008
*Phish - February 5, 1993; May 23, 2000.
*Sonic Youth - August 10, 1990
*Smashing Pumpkins - Tuesday, November 23, 1993
*Motley Crue - June 23, 1997 Live Swine listening party performance
*Metallica - November 24, 1998
*Madonna with special guest Justin Timberlake, "Hard Candy" promo tour- April 30, 2008
*Nirvana - July 23 and November 15, 1993
*Portishead - September 1997
*Todd Rundgren - December 4, 1993
*The Rolling Stones - September 30, 2002

Recordings at the venue

Movies

*"Roseland", directed by James Ivory and starring Christopher Walken.
*"Malcolm X" directed by Spike Lee has a dance scene at the ballroom.

Music

*"Evil or Divine", live album and DVD by Heavy Metal artist Dio
*"Roseland NYC Live", live album by Portishead
*"Live Scenes from New York" and "", live album and DVD by Dream Theater
*"Live from Roseland Ballroom", a 1996 live album from Gov't Mule

ee also

*Hammerstein Ballroom
*Audubon Ballroom

References

External links

* [http://www.roselandballroom.com/ Official Website]
* [http://www.newyorkcitytheatre.com/theaters/roselandballroom/theater.html Guide to events at Roseland Ballroom]
* [http://www.funkthisentertainment.com/newyork_roselandballroomnyc.html Event Space Layout of Roseland Ballroom]
* [http://www.ukula.com/EventCalender.aspx?AVenueID=86 Monthly Event Listings]