Academy of Music

My Home-Away-from-Home

If there’s an afterlife for deceased music venues, I hope Google Maps provides directions to the Academy of Music. During its seventy-one years on this side of the rainbow, the Academy was a movie palace, vaudeville showplace, and rock-'n'-roll concert hall. Rechristened the Palladium in 1976, it was transformed into a nightclub and performance space whose luminous dance structure was erected inside the theater’s ornate 104,000-square-foot shell.

If I make it to the Academy/ Palladium’s final resting place, I hope there’s a seat waiting for me in second-row, center mezzanine—the vantage point from which I witnessed many a rock concert in the 70s. The theater was my home-away-from-home, having mastered the algorithms of Ticketron to procure the best seats from which to see and hear some of the great bands and artists of the era. (For the record: The balcony railing obstructed views from Row 1.)

Located at 126 E. 14th Street between Union Square and the East Village, the Academy was built in 1927 by William Fox, founder of the Fox Film Corporation. It was designed by Thomas W. Lamb, one of the foremost theater architects of the 20th century. Together, they created a lavish venue for Lower East Siders that rivaled those of Times Square. No expense was spared.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum—a Depression.

A Great Depression.

William Fox’s theater empire crumbled.

Bankruptcy proceedings ensued. Fox was forced to sell the E. 14th Street property.

The court-appointed receiver: Skouras Theaters Corp.

The most that can be said about Skouras is that it managed to keep the Academy’s doors open. The theater chain and its progeny (National Theatres Corporation, United Artists Theaters, and others) would not win any Oscars for housekeeping. As movie-going habits changed in the post-World War II years (read: television), the seven-story-tall edifice devolved into a grindhouse.

Rock to the Rescue

In the early-1960s, Murray Kaufman (“Murray the K”), a legendary NYC radio DJ, saw the timeworn venue’s potential and booked it for a live “Gigantic Christmas Show/Twist Party.” The December '61 extravaganza was headlined by Johnny Mathis, Bobby Vee, and Dion. Supporting acts included Jan & Dean, the Isley Brothers, and Gary U.S. Bonds. Two generations later, Dion (Dion DiMucci, a 50s/60s hit machine with "Runaround Sue," “Teenager in Love,” “In the Still of the Night,” and "The Wanderer") and the Isley Brothers (careers spanning seven decades) would be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Isleys and Mathis—still kicking, still performing—have Grammys for Lifetime Achievement.

The Gigantic Christmas Show/Twist Party ran for 11 sold-out days. Its success prompted Murray the K to move the series the next year to the Fox Theater, an even larger, grander auditorium in downtown Brooklyn.

The drawing power of the Academy, however, was not lost on other promoters, including Sid Bernstein, who brought the Beatles to America. With the onset of Beatlemania in the mid-60s, Bernstein booked the Academy for concerts by the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Herman’s Hermits, and other British invaders. The Beatles, if you’re wondering, debuted on a different stage—The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964—drawing the largest national television audience of its day. When they set out to tour, the Fab Four opted for Carnegie Hall, the first rock act to play the esteemed venue.

Move Over Fillmore

Fast forward to the early-70s. Following the June 1971 closure of the Fillmore East and Bill Graham’s escape from New York, the Academy found life again as a rock-'n'-roll destination. Howard Stein, who promoted shows at the Capitol Theater in suburban Port Chester with occasional forays into NYC’s outer boroughs, seized the opportunity to take center stage in Manhattan.

With a thousand more seats than the 2,654-capacity Fillmore, the Academy was the ideal size for ascendant rock bands and for big-name artists who sought a theater gig in the middle of large arena and stadium tours. Never mind the Academy’s disrepair—the auditorium had the aroma of buttered popcorn and its floors were like flypaper from spilled CocaCola and Raisinets—the theater had excellent acoustics and great sightlines.

Stein followed the Fillmore’s proven formula. He presented concerts two or three nights a week. Double- and triple-bills, with opening acts that sometimes outshone the headliners. Early shows at 8 p.m. Late shows at 11:30 or midnight. If there were multiple encores, night would encroach upon day.

Like Graham before him, however, Stein grew frustrated with the risks/rewards of staging rock events in New York. Musicians, managers, and moguls are a toxic brew.

In 1976, Stein exited stage left.

Palladium Era

Enter: Ron Delsener, impresario of the highly-successful Schaeffer Music Festival in Central Park.

On September 18, 1976, Delsener assumed booking duties. The Academy was rechristened the Palladium. Delsener launched the new era with a live radio broadcast by The Band that was the basis for a double-album, Live at the Palladium.

The name atop the marquee was new and the promoter was different, but the format remained the same: Weekend concerts. Multiple acts. Two shows a night.

And, thus, the Palladium rocked on for another decade…

…until 1985, when the theater fell into the hands of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the duo behind the iconic Studio 54 nightclub. Just when New Yorkers thought they had seen it all, Rubell and Schrager set forth to turn the Palladium into the mothership of Manhattan night life. They hired famed Japanese architect Arata Isozaki to transform the concert hall into a cavernous dance club and performance space.

Party Time

Isozaki’s design featured a grid of illuminated boxes and banks of pulsating video monitors that moved up and down over the dance floor. The structure gazed out at a giant Keith Haring mural and was embedded inside the Palladium’s 1920s skeleton, beneath the theater’s ornamental dome, encircled by its balcony and mezzanine, and topped by a “Michael Todd” VIP lounge on the upper level. The enclave served as a canvas for Jean-Michel Basquiat, while other 1980s NY artists embellished the hallways, stairwells, rest rooms, and phone booths. Plaster here, paint brush there.

Theater preservationists were outraged. For partygoers, it was outrageously theatrical.

I don’t get a vote. I had taken my act to San Francisco in '78, a topic—East Meets West—for another conversation. It didn’t take long for me to discover the Warfield Theatre, an unscathed 2,300-seat version of the Academy/Palladium that embraced rock in 1979 and still rolls with it. (FYI: I recommend sections 101 and 102 in the Warfield’s Lower Loge, unless you prefer to duke it out in the mosh pit. If so, be warned—elbows get what elbows give.)

But I digress…

The Last Dance

Back in New York, the Palladium became the quintessential Manhattan nightspot of the late 80s. It tapped into the post-disco zeitgeist, trading on new wave, industrial, goth, techno, trance, house, salsa, hip-hop and other unfolding music, fashion, and performance. But there was darkness on the edge of town: the onset of HIV/AIDS, which would take its toll on the club scene. In '89, one of its casualties was Palladium co-owner Rubell.

In 1992, the Palladium lease was acquired, on brand, by Peter Gatien, whose curriculum vitae includes the Limelight (a deconsecrated Episcopal church), Tunnel (a converted railroad terminal whose train tracks ran through a sunken area of the dance floor), and Club USA (nightclub-cum-funhouse). It would take a book to chart the course the Palladium followed. Actually, there is a book—Gatien’s autobiography, The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife. And there’s a film—Limelight—documenting the highs and lows of the nocturnal empire, produced by Gatien’s daughter Jen.

Long story, short: The Palladium and its siblings became victims of their own success. They breathed new life into the Lower East Side, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, then ran up against gentrification as real estate values soared and residents squawked about late-hour disturbances. And there was a new sheriff in town—Mayor Rudy William Louis Giuliani—whose “broken windows” policies had zero tolerance for aberrant behavior. Nightclubbers and their decadent pleasures were easy prey.

Club culture is free-wheeling. The Limelight and Tunnel came under scrutiny for drug activity and liquor-law infractions. Blowback against hip-hop nights also played a hand. Bent on snaring a high-profile figure, authorities accused Gatien of operating a pharma’s market—club traffic driven by drug trafficking. Prosecutors constructed a racketeering and conspiracy narrative using government snitches and turncoat employees who told tales of the agony and the Ecstasy.

A federal jury had just two words: Not Guilty.

But tell that to the NY State Dept. of Taxation and Finance and to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The state harvested evidence from the trial to pursue Gatien for tax evasion (some employees had been paid off the books). The INS then used the state findings to deport Gatien to his native Canada.

The government does not like to lose.

Which brings us back to the Palladium. Owing beaucoup de taxes and with legal bills mounting, Gatien needed to raise cash. The land and air rights to 126 E. 14th Street were worth a fortune. When New York University made a rumored eight-figure offer, it was curtains for the Palladium.

Lacking landmark protection, the theater was demolished in 1997 to make way for a 16-story residence hall.

NYU shamelessly named it Palladium Hall.

Lost to History

You can bulldoze a theater, but you can’t obliterate its memory. The bad news: Recordings and videos of '70s and '80s Academy/Palladium performances are few and far between. The good news: Film crews were present to capture Frank Zappa’s Halloween shows in '77 and '81, the latter simulcast on radio and MTV. Even better: I was on hand (in second row center mezzanine, thank you) for Lou Reed’s December 21, 1973 concert that was immortalized in a live recording for his Rock n Roll Animal album. Cameras weren’t rolling, but there’s a mash-up of Sweet Jane on YouTube that dubs the New York soundtrack over the tour’s performance in Paris.

Who? When? Where?

Chronologies of Academy/Palladium concerts are riddled with holes. I’ve scoured web sites, wikis, memoirs, advertisements, and blogs to take me back in time to the Stein/Delsener days. I regret not keeping ticket stubs, which also would have helped when I relived other forays to The Bottom Line, Max’s Kansas City, Madison Square Garden, Felt Forum (amphitheater beneath the Garden), Fillmore East, Carnegie Hall, Wollman Rink/Central Park, Beacon Theater, Bitter End, Knitting Factory, CBGB, Capitol Theater in Passaic NJ, Criterion Theatre in East Rockaway NY, and My Father’s Place in Roslyn LI. At $5 to $7.50 a pop (Lou Reed was $5 and $6), concert tickets were affordable in the 70s.

One thing is certain: I attended nearly every New York/New Jersey appearance of Fleetwood Mac, including a bogus group their renegade manager sprung on an Academy audience after claiming rights to the band’s name. And I have a bootleg audio tape to vouch for my presence at a Bruce Springsteen gig at My Father’s Place a month before Lou Reed’s Academy concert. Have ticket, will travel.

In assembling the accompanying chart, I’ve highlighted artists and bands whose Academy/Palladium appearances would have commanded my attention, if not attendance (several dozen). If I missed them on E. 14th Street, hopefully I’ll catch them in the hereafter.

TIMELINE

Shout-outs

Cue up the closing music….

I’d like to give shout-outs to the curators of the Rock Tour Database and Concert Archives who track concerts past and present. I paired their compilations with information from artist web sites and from advertisements in the weekly Village Voice—the go-to source for music listings.

Retrieval of the newspaper ads from microfiche was the work product of the blog site It's All the Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago (live acts during the Palladium dance era are largely undocumented).

And a tip of the hat to the theater enthusiasts on Cinema Treasures and elsewhere who have shared pictures and reminiscences.

Lastly, a round of applause for the late Howard Stein and for Ron Delsener, who presided over the Academy/Palladium in the '70s when it rocked my world. While I’m on the fence about the Palladium’s reimagining in the mid-80s by Rubell and Schrager, I have no mixed feelings about the stewardship of Peter Gatien. He inherited the Palladium and sustained it while the Calvinists demonized Limelight and Tunnel. Gatien fought the law, but the law won. Or did it? You’ll have to read his book, The Club King: My Rise, Reign, and Fall in New York Nightlife, which the author says will be coming to the Big Screen.

Too bad the screen will not be the Academy of Music.