Last Call for Panorama Participants! The Challenge is This Friday!
Prove your NYC Bona Fides
**Curious About Fantasy Coffins (and Other Funerary Traditions)?**
Journalist Sarah Murray Shares Her Experiences
**What's New in our Making A Museum Exhibit?**
A Piece of Theater History and a Broadway Grand Dame
**It's Your Last Chance to be Part of the 12th Annual Edition of the Greatest NYC Trivia Contest!**
[General Admission Tickets: $15 advance](https://www.artful.ly/store/events/17121) / $20 at the door
[City Reliquary and Queens Museum Members: $12 advance](https://www.artful.ly/store/events/17121) / $15 at the door
Local reporting stalwart Gothamist calls our Panorama Challenge one of the [Best Things to do in NYC](http://gothamist.com/2019/02/25/best_events_nyc_feb_2019.php) this week, and we heartily agree! THIS FRIDAY, 6:00 PM, QUEENS MUSEUM, get your advance tickets at the links above.This year promises to be the best yet! We're cooking up something very special for the Halftime Quiz. We've got limited edition Panorama Challenge swag. We'll have a variety of beers from our friends at [Brooklyn Brewery](http://www.brooklynbrewery.com) available for purchase. And best of all, it looks (knock wood) like we won't be contending with a snow cyclone like we had last year. Will the [Triboros](https://levysuniqueny.com/blog/panorama-challenge-11-final-results/) again be immortalized on the Panorama Challenge Trophy, or will a new Pro team bring home the glory? See you Friday when it all happens.
**A Special Talk by Author Sarah Murray!**
[March 22, 2019 - 7:00 p.m. - Museum open until 9!](https://www.facebook.com/events/630831467370647/)
Alert readers of the City Reliquary's email newsletters and recent Reliquary visitors are no doubt familiar with [author Sarah Murray's](http://makinganexit.net/) Ghanaian fantasy coffin in the shape of the Empire State Building, [now on view](http://www.cityreliquary.org/whats-new-in-our-making-a-museum-exhibit-empire-state-building-fantasy-coffin/) in our *Making A Museum* exhibit. If you'd like to learn more about how that coffin came to be - and about more fascinating funerary traditions from around the world - be sure to attend her talk at the Reliquary on Friday, March 22 at 7:00 p.m.!
Ms. Murray will share stories and photos from her book [*Making An Exit*](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250015655), an exploration of the extraordinary creativity unleashed when we seek to dignify the dead. Her research took her around the world and brought her to create a unique plan for her own eventual send-off.
The event will be free with admission to the City Reliquary Museum! We'll be open special late-night hours from 6-9 p.m. so there will be plenty of time to check out all our exhibits and new additions before and after Ms. Murray's talk at 7 p.m. Refreshments will be available by donation.
Alert readers of the City Reliquary's email newsletters and recent Reliquary visitors are no doubt familiar with [author Sarah Murray's](http://makinganexit.net/) Ghanaian fantasy coffin in the shape of the Empire State Building, [now on view](http://www.cityreliquary.org/whats-new-in-our-making-a-museum-exhibit-empire-state-building-fantasy-coffin/) in our *Making A Museum* exhibit. If you'd like to learn more about how that coffin came to be - and about more fascinating funerary traditions from around the world - be sure to attend her talk at the Reliquary on Friday, March 22 at 7:00 p.m.!
Ms. Murray will share stories and photos from her book [*Making An Exit*](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250015655), an exploration of the extraordinary creativity unleashed when we seek to dignify the dead. Her research took her around the world and brought her to create a unique plan for her own eventual send-off.
The event will be free with admission to the City Reliquary Museum! We'll be open special late-night hours from 6-9 p.m. so there will be plenty of time to check out all our exhibits and new additions before and after Ms. Murray's talk at 7 p.m. Refreshments will be available by donation.
| [RSVP on Facebook!](https://www.facebook.com/events/630831467370647/) |
**What's New in our Making A Museum Exhibit?**
The City Reliquary is taking visitors inside our processes of acquisition, research, and preservation of our collection. As we redesign our permanent collection and bring out some of our rarely exhibited holdings, we’re also adding new objects, studying their history. Every week we’ll be working on new additions, and we invite you to journey with us as we learn new stories of the city.
The original Helen Hayes Theater once stood on 46th Street near Broadway. Built in 1911 - one of [nearly 80 theaters](https://ny.curbed.com/2017/3/9/14833004/broadway-theaters-closed-times-square-history) to be built in the Broadway district between the IRT's opening in 1904 and the stock market crash of 1929 - it was originally [envisioned as an NYC version](http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON037.htm) of the risqué Parisian venue Follies Bergère, with dancers roving among the audience seated at supper tables, but soon switched to a standard seating configuration and changed its name to the Fulton. In 1955, the theater was renamed the Helen Hayes to honor the EGOT winner and ["First Lady of the American Theater."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hayes)
While in operation, the Helen Hayes/Fulton Theater hosted the [initial run of many classic Broadway plays and musicals](https://www.ibdb.com/theatre/helen-hayes-theatre-1154): *The Jazz Singer* in 1925, *Dracula* (starring Bela Lugosi) in 1928, *Arsenic and Old Lace* in 1941, *Gigi* (starring Audrey Hepburn) in 1952, *Long Day's Journey Into Night* in 1956, and *Equus* in 1976, among many others. But by the 1970s, [Times Square and the theater business had both changed substantially](https://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-great-theatre-massacre-of-1982-five-broadway-stages-faced-the-wrecking-ball-for-a-marriott/). Many live theaters had long since been converted to movie houses or turned to seedier entertainment. Theatergoers were increasingly uncomfortable attending shows in a notorious part of town.
In 1973, developer John Portman proposed a massive new hotel development on Broadway between 45th and 46th, on property where the Helen Hayes and four other classic-era theaters stood. Mayor Ed Koch [strongly supported new development](http://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/helen-hayes-morosco-theatres/) to revitalize the area, and under political pressure the Landmarks and Preservation Commission voted against designating the theaters. Actors, producers, and preservationists [rallied with the goal of saving Broadway](https://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-great-theatre-massacre-of-1982-five-broadway-stages-faced-the-wrecking-ball-for-a-marriott/), staging numerous public protests and temporarily enjoining construction. But these efforts ultimately failed, and on [March 22, 1982](https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/23/nyregion/court-stay-lifted-and-demolition-begins-at-two-broadway-theaters.html), destruction of the theaters commenced.
In April of that year, Scott Edelman, friend of the Reliquary and theater fan, reached through the construction fence surrounding the site of the future [Marriott Marquis](http://themidtowngazette.com/2011/11/what-ever-happened-to-helen-hayes/) and retrieved a brick from the pile of rubble on the site of the Helen Hayes Theater. In 2015, he generously donated that brick to the Reliquary, and his accompanying letter to us shows his authentic love for this forgotten palace of the stage. You can see both in our exhibit.
[Some have persuasively argued](https://ny.curbed.com/2017/3/9/14833004/broadway-theaters-closed-times-square-history) that the Broadway Massacre of 1982 was ultimately crucial in saving live theater in New York. The protest organizers redoubled their calls for protection of classic Broadway theaters and [succeeded in landmarking 46 theaters](http://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/helen-hayes-morosco-theatres/) and passing zoning to protect the historic Theater District while still allowing new mixed-use development. Continuing new investment, following Portman, and vastly reduced crime rates in Times Square have made it a top tourist attraction that draws significant revenue for the city and hundreds of thousands of visitors each year (sometimes, it seems, all on the same day!), attracting new demand for live theatrical productions.
While in operation, the Helen Hayes/Fulton Theater hosted the [initial run of many classic Broadway plays and musicals](https://www.ibdb.com/theatre/helen-hayes-theatre-1154): *The Jazz Singer* in 1925, *Dracula* (starring Bela Lugosi) in 1928, *Arsenic and Old Lace* in 1941, *Gigi* (starring Audrey Hepburn) in 1952, *Long Day's Journey Into Night* in 1956, and *Equus* in 1976, among many others. But by the 1970s, [Times Square and the theater business had both changed substantially](https://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-great-theatre-massacre-of-1982-five-broadway-stages-faced-the-wrecking-ball-for-a-marriott/). Many live theaters had long since been converted to movie houses or turned to seedier entertainment. Theatergoers were increasingly uncomfortable attending shows in a notorious part of town.
In 1973, developer John Portman proposed a massive new hotel development on Broadway between 45th and 46th, on property where the Helen Hayes and four other classic-era theaters stood. Mayor Ed Koch [strongly supported new development](http://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/helen-hayes-morosco-theatres/) to revitalize the area, and under political pressure the Landmarks and Preservation Commission voted against designating the theaters. Actors, producers, and preservationists [rallied with the goal of saving Broadway](https://keithyorkcity.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-great-theatre-massacre-of-1982-five-broadway-stages-faced-the-wrecking-ball-for-a-marriott/), staging numerous public protests and temporarily enjoining construction. But these efforts ultimately failed, and on [March 22, 1982](https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/23/nyregion/court-stay-lifted-and-demolition-begins-at-two-broadway-theaters.html), destruction of the theaters commenced.
In April of that year, Scott Edelman, friend of the Reliquary and theater fan, reached through the construction fence surrounding the site of the future [Marriott Marquis](http://themidtowngazette.com/2011/11/what-ever-happened-to-helen-hayes/) and retrieved a brick from the pile of rubble on the site of the Helen Hayes Theater. In 2015, he generously donated that brick to the Reliquary, and his accompanying letter to us shows his authentic love for this forgotten palace of the stage. You can see both in our exhibit.
[Some have persuasively argued](https://ny.curbed.com/2017/3/9/14833004/broadway-theaters-closed-times-square-history) that the Broadway Massacre of 1982 was ultimately crucial in saving live theater in New York. The protest organizers redoubled their calls for protection of classic Broadway theaters and [succeeded in landmarking 46 theaters](http://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/helen-hayes-morosco-theatres/) and passing zoning to protect the historic Theater District while still allowing new mixed-use development. Continuing new investment, following Portman, and vastly reduced crime rates in Times Square have made it a top tourist attraction that draws significant revenue for the city and hundreds of thousands of visitors each year (sometimes, it seems, all on the same day!), attracting new demand for live theatrical productions.
As a community museum, new exhibitions and programming are only possible with your support.
| [Support the Reliquary Today](https://www.artful.ly/the-city-reliquary/store/donate) |
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