Architectural blog The B1M looks at how engineers in New York City raised the landmark Palace Theater in Times Square 9 meters (30 feet) into the air to make way for a brand new TSX experiential performance space. Robert Israel of L&L Holding Company stated that they wanted to update the corner but did not want to demolish the theater.
When we bought the property The Palace Theatre existed at the ground level…In order to create the retail footprint, we needed to move the theatre out of the way. Landmark status means we cannot either demolish or remove the theatre. With that in mind, we said, ‘okay, what if we lifted the theatre box in order to open up and activate the ground floor?
And so the plan was put in place. This amazing feat began on February 14, 2022, and was completed on April 5, 2022. It took seven weeks from the start.
Once the team was happy with how the equipment performed the main phase began on 14 February 2022. The hydraulic jacks lifted the theatre box in 12 centimeter “strokes” after each of these movements a team of consultants performed a thorough inspection of the structure, before any work continued. After seven painstaking weeks the lift was finally completed on April 5th.
Here’s a timelapse of that raise.
