Early History of The Building
From 1915 to 1917, Vincent Astor spent $750,000 of his personal fortune on the Astor Market, a two-story mini-mall of stands occupying the southwest corner of 95th and Broadway. The intention was to sell fruit, meat, fish, produce, and flowers at inexpensive prices, achieved through large economies of scale. As was common with Astor's building projects, flamboyance dominated the architecture, including a 290-foot William Mackay sgraffito frieze depicting farmers bringing their goods to market.
The market proved a failure. In 1917, Astor sold the market to Thomas J. Healy. The stalls were demolished and the main space was converted into the Crystal Palace, a skating rink, and the smaller basement area became the Sunken Gardens, a restaurant. Both were eventually turned into movie theaters. The rink became Symphony Theater and in 1931 the restaurant was turned into Thalia Theater.
Symphony Theater had an undistinguished history, and by the 1970s was used for boxing and wrestling. The site was used for Wall to Wall Bach, and led Sheffer and Miller to lease the building and form Symphony Space.
Read more about this topic: Symphony Space
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