The iconic Roseland Ballroom in New York will soon close its doors for good, after serving as a beacon for the City’s music scene for nearly a century - with appearances by Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, The Rolling Stones, Madonna and - as the closing act - Lady Gaga. The famous venue, sometimes billed as ‘The World’s Greatest Ballroom,’ with its relatively small capacity of 3,000 people, is one of the last relics from the by-gone era of legendary Manhattan nightclubs such as Studio 54 and CBGB. The Ballroom opened its first New York location in 1919, after the Club’s founders, Louis Brecker and fiancee Dorothy Faggen, decided to relocate the dance hall they had established in 1917 in Philadelphia - where so-called ‘Blue Laws’ prohibited the sale of alcohol on Sundays, according to the New York Times. In the 1920s the Ballroom rose to fame by hosting events such as a jazz wedding and a dance marathon - which had to take place on a ship at sea, to avoid breaking local laws banning competitions lasting longer than 12 hours. While the Club opened as a ‘whites-only’ ballroom in 1919, iconic African-American jazz singer Louis Armstrong made his New York debut there in 1924; and in 1926 the venue hosted a most unique contest. “That Event has gone down in jazz history – it was the first time that a great ‘white’ band battled a great ‘black’ band,” Loren Schoenberg, Art Director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem told the New York Times. In 1956 the Ballroom moved to its current location, a former skating rink at Broadway and 52nd Street, only a few blocks away from Times Square. The Club kept up with the changing music scene: it hosted disco sessions, which then gave way to performances by Metallica, The Rolling Stones and Madonna. As a closing act, Lady Gaga performed seven consecutive shows at the ballroom over a week, leading up to the very last show on Monday (April 7) night. The decision to close the Ballroom, announced in November 2013, came as a surprise to many, especially since the its current owner did not explain why. In New York, where the price of property has skyrocketed in the past decades, historic buildings are often transformed into less lofty establishments: the legendary CBGB became a men’s clothing store; while Paradise Garage, a disco famous for its influence on pop and dance music, is currently used by a mobile phone provider. What then will become of Roseland Ballroom, with its prime location in Manhattan?
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