Embassy Five Theatre
Embassy Five Theatre was a Broadway theater at 1547 Broadway in Times Square, New York City. It opened in 1909 as the Gaiety Theatre and was demolished in 1982 to make way for the New York Marriott Marquis. It was renamed the Victoria Theatre in 1943, and in its last two years it was known as the Embassy Five Theatre.
The office building above the theater, the Gaiety Building, was nicknamed the Black Tin Pan Alley because many African-American songwriters rented space there. The theater, designed by Herts & Tallant and owned by George M. Cohan, introduced innovations like a sunken orchestra and a layout without pillars blocking sightlines to the balcony.
The Gaiety opened on September 4, 1909 with Fortune Hunter. In 1914 it produced Daddy-Long-Legs, helping Ruth Chatterton become a star. Its big early hit was Lightnin’, which ran for 1,291 performances starting August 16, 1918.
After 1933 it became a Minsky’s Burlesque house, hosting acts by Ann Corio, Gypsy Rose Lee, and comedy teams like Abbott and Costello. In 1943, after a crackdown on burlesque by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, it became the Victoria with vaudeville, including Stepin Fetchit. It was converted to a movie theatre in September 1943. United Artists leased it for movies in 1944, and in 1949 Edward Durrell Stone redesigned the interior, expanding to 1,050 seats. A rooftop sign stretched toward the nearby Astor Theatre and was said to be the largest in the world. It mainly showed films and later became famous for Budweiser advertising.
In 1980 the theatre was renamed Embassy Five (Embassy 5), the fifth theater in the Embassy chain in Times Square. In 1982 it was torn down to build the New York Marriott Marquis. The office building above the theatre was popular with black composers who couldn’t get into the Brill Building, including Harry Pace, W. C. Handy, Clarence Williams, Perry Bradford, Bert Williams, and Will Vodery; Andy Razaf collected his mail there.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:25 (CET).