Manhattan Center

311 West 34th Street | also 316 West 35th Street, 315 West 34th Street | Hudson Yards | built 1906

Open on the map11 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1906

    December 3

    Oscar Hammerstein opens the Manhattan Opera House

    Oscar Hammerstein I opens his Manhattan Opera House at 311 West 34th Street on December 3, 1906, with a performance of Bellini's "I puritani." Designed by architect William E. Mowbray, the neo-Classical house is built to rival the Metropolitan Opera, and a critic soon praises its acoustics as an improvement over the older houses.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1907

    January 11

    Nellie Melba's debut draws a carriage jam outside the opera house

    Soprano Nellie Melba makes her house debut on January 11, 1907, drawing such a crowd that Hammerstein telephones police headquarters for help managing the crush; 510 carriages arrive outside that evening.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1911

    Otto Kahn pays Hammerstein $1.2 million to leave New York opera

    Metropolitan Opera chairman Otto Kahn pays Hammerstein $1.2 million in 1911 on condition he stay out of the opera business in New York for ten years, ending the Manhattan Opera Company's run as the Met's rival.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1919

    Oscar Hammerstein dies and his widow inherits the Manhattan Opera House, which keeps staging grand opera

    Oscar Hammerstein died on August 1, 1919, and the Manhattan Opera House passed to his wife, Emma Swift Hammerstein. The house kept offering grand opera that season, opening with Aida and following with La Boheme. Her daughters, Stella H. Pope and Rose H. Tostevin, bought the building from Emma in 1921.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1922

    March 11

    Scottish Rite Masons buy the building and add a rooftop ballroom

    The New York Consistory of Scottish Rite Masons buys the former opera house for $600,000 and hires architects Harrison G. Wiseman and Hugo Taussig to remake it, adding a new 34th Street facade and a rooftop assembly hall -- the future Hammerstein Ballroom -- that seats 1,200 for dinners.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1926

    Warner Bros. rents the ballroom to record the New York Philharmonic for the film Don Juan

    Warner Bros. rented the seventh-floor ballroom and set it up as a studio for its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. There it recorded the New York Philharmonic for the film Don Juan, which became the first commercial feature released with a recorded musical soundtrack.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1942

    March 28

    A two-day Communist congress at the hall demands Earl Browder's release

    On March 28 and 29, 1942, the building, by then called the Manhattan Center, hosted the National Free Browder Congress. The two-day mass meeting aimed to pressure the government to free Communist leader Earl Browder from an Atlanta prison. Trade unions, fraternal societies, religious groups and youth organizations were urged to send delegates.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1946

    A Rally for Democratic Japan meets in the hall soon after the war

    A January 26, 1946 report in the New York Age described a Rally for Democratic Japan at the Manhattan Center, sponsored by the Japanese American Committee for Democracy. The group argued that Japanese who sympathized with American ideals should be used to rebuild a democratic Japan.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  9. 1976

    The Unification Church buys the building for $3 million

    In 1976 the Unification Church bought the building at 311 West 34th Street for $3 million, and it remains the owner. Manhattan Center Studios was formed in 1986 to turn the building into a multimedia center, and recording and television studios were later built and connected to the ballrooms.

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 1993

    January

    WWF begins broadcasting Monday Night Raw from the Hammerstein Ballroom

    Professional wrestling promotion WWF starts airing its weekly "Monday Night Raw" program from the Hammerstein Ballroom in January 1993, part of the hall's growth into a busy concert and event venue under Manhattan Center Studios, organized in 1986.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  11. 2018

    January 22

    Monday Night Raw marks its 25th anniversary with a broadcast from its original home

    On January 22, 2018, WWE's Raw 25th anniversary special was co-hosted from two venues, the Manhattan Center, where the show first aired, and Brooklyn's Barclays Center. WWE executive Paul Levesque, known as Triple H, helped plan the show. He recalled that the live format of the first episode, on January 11, 1993, had seemed a game-changer.

    Source: rollingstone.com

Further reading

Nearby

All 27 buildings with stories in Hudson Yards