Tammany Hall
44 Union Square East | also 100 East 17th Street, 44 Union Square | Gramercy | built 1929
Open on the map11 entries
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.
- 1929
Tammany's 99-year-old grand sachem lays the cornerstone of its new hall
On January 8, 1929, John R. Voorhis, the society's 99-year-old grand sachem, ceremonially laid the cornerstone of the new Union Square headquarters. Mayor Jimmy Walker, Judge George Olvany and former Governor Al Smith stood with him as fellow sachems. The county Democratic committee had already moved into its offices on January 2, and the ceremony marked the finished exterior; the formal dedication followed at the July Fourth celebration.
- 1929
Tammany Hall dedicates its new headquarters on Union Square
Architects Thompson, Holmes & Converse and Charles B. Meyers design a neo-Georgian clubhouse for the Tammany political machine, built of Virginia brick meant to recall Federal Hall. Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and former Governor Al Smith, who had long opposed the organization, both speak at the building's July 4, 1929 dedication.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1943
LaGuardia jokes at the union dedication that Tammany's hall went broke on his watch
When Local 91 of the garment workers' union formally opened the building on December 18, 1943, both Jimmy Walker and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia attended. LaGuardia said it was his first visit and remarked that the hall had gone up under Walker's administration and been ruined by his own. He added that the Tammany name should stay as a permanent reminder of a powerful machine losing its home to an organization of the people.
“This building was built under the Walker Administration and put out of business −or on the bum −by the LaGuardia Administration.”
- 1943
Tammany Hall sells its clubhouse to a garment workers' union
Unable to meet its mortgage after years of declining influence, the Tammany Society sells the building in the summer of 1943 to Local 91 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. The union enlarges the auditorium and, in 1947, renames the 1,000-seat space the Roosevelt Auditorium to honor Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1968
Teachers meet in the Roosevelt Auditorium to authorize a strike over Ocean Hill-Brownsville
After Local 91 dedicated its auditorium to Franklin Roosevelt in 1947, other unions used it for their big meetings. The United Federation of Teachers gathered there in 1960 to end a citywide walkout, and again in October 1968, when members authorized a strike during the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis. Newspaper unions also called their 1953 and 1966 citywide strikes from the same hall.
- 1985
The Roundabout Theatre cuts the ribbon on a 499-seat house in the old Tammany auditorium
After leasing the building in June 1984, the Roundabout Theatre spent about $850,000 splitting the former union auditorium horizontally, cutting capacity to 499, and deepening the stage. The ribbon-cutting on February 1, 1985 drew Kate Burton, Jim Dale, Marsha Mason, Tovah Feldshuh and E.G. Marshall. The first production, Playboy of the Western World, opened on February 13.
“The ribbon cutting ceremony took place on February 1, 1985 and was attended by Roundabout stars Kate Burton, Jim Dale, Marsha Mason…”
- 1994
The Union Square Theatre reopens with Vanessa Redgrave in Vita and Virginia
Producers Alan Schuster and Mitchell Maxwell, who also owned the Minetta Lane Theater, began leasing the auditorium in spring 1994. After refurbishing the interior, they reopened it in November with the American premiere of a play by Eileen Atkins on Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Zoe Caldwell directed, and Atkins and Vanessa Redgrave starred.
“…reopened in November with the American premiere of Vita and Virginia, Eileen Atkins's play about Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, directed by Zoe Caldwell…”
- 1994
The New York Film Academy leases space in the former hall
The New York Film Academy, founded two years earlier by producer Jerry Sherlock, leases space in the building in 1994. It follows the brief run of producer Raymond L. Gaspard's Union Square Theatre, which staged eight productions in the auditorium after the Roundabout Theatre Company's residency here ended.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2002
Edward Norton stars in a Signature Theatre revival of Burn This at the Union Square Theatre
Among the prize-winning productions at the auditorium was the Signature Theatre Company's 2002 revival of Lanford Wilson's Burn This. Edward Norton won an Obie Award in 2003 for his part in it. Other shows in the room's off-Broadway years included Bat Boy: the Musical in 2001 and Slava's Snowshow, which ran from 2004 to 2007.
“Signature Theatre Company's revival of Lanford Wilson's Burn This (2002), for which Edward Norton won an Obie Award in 2003…”
- 2013
The city landmarks the former Tammany Hall building
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the 1929 Tammany Hall building in October 2013. A subsequent four-year, $67 million renovation preserves its historic facades while converting the interior to office and retail use and adding a glass dome honoring the Native American sachem Tamanend, Tammany's namesake.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2016
A $50 million renovation guts the old Tammany auditorium and adds a glass dome
After the Landmarks Commission rejected a first dome design in 2014 and approved a scaled-back one the next year, work began in July 2016 under BKSK Architects. The landmarked facades were detached from the steel frame and braced while the auditorium and interior were demolished and rebuilt in reinforced concrete. The dome, roughly 150 by 75 feet, was structurally complete in July 2019.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 44 Union SquareWikipedia
- The 1929 Tammany Hall -- No. 100 East 17th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
Nearby
- W New York Union Square201 Park Avenue South | 10 entries
- G. Schirmer Building108 East 16th Street | 4 entries
- Everett Building200 Park Avenue South | 3 entries
- Daryl Roth Theatre20 Union Square | 11 entries
- Century Building33 East 17th Street | 11 entries
- Parker Building225 Park Avenue South | 4 entries