Palladium (music venue)

The Palladium was a concert hall and later a nightclub in New York City. It was located on the south side of East 14th Street, between Irving Place and 3rd Avenue.

Designed by Thomas W. Lamb and originally called the Academy of Music, it was built in 1927 as the successor to an earlier venue of the same name. From the 1930s to the 1970s it was a movie theater; beginning in 1971 it was also utilized as a rock concert venue to fill a gap left by the closure of the Fillmore East. It was rechristened the Palladium in 1976, and continued to serve as a concert hall into the following decade.

In 1985 the Palladium was converted into a nightclub by Steve Rubell, after he was forced to sell Studio 54. Rubell soon sold the Palladium to Peter Gatien, under whose ownership the club achieved renown.

One of the more noteworthy weekly parties held at the Palladium was Arena, an afterhours party that lasted from 10pm Saturday through noon Sunday, which featured DJ Junior Vasquez, known for his remixes and progressive house music sets.

The Palladium closed in 1998. The building was sold to New York University (NYU), and subsequently demolished. NYU's aptly-named dormitory, "Palladium Hall," now stands on the site.

Music

The Palladium was a major venue in New York for rock bands whose audience was too large for clubs but not big enough for arenas like Madison Square Garden.

Frank Zappa and his band performed on and around Halloween several times, including performances in 1977 which were included in the film "Baby Snakes", a legendary series of shows in 1978, and a 1981 performance which was simulcast live on radio and MTV. As the Academy of Music, the venue hosted numerous rock concerts in the early '70s; among these were the series of New Year's shows played by The Band on December 28-31, 1971; recordings from these shows were released as the 1972 live album "Rock of Ages".

Hundreds of bands played shows at the Palladium, including many UK punk and new wave acts who made their New York debuts there, including the Clash, the Boomtown Rats,] , The Fall, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Rockpile and the Undertones.

In 2004, punk pioneers the Ramones reissued a live album they recorded at The Palladium. The album is called "Live January 7, 1978 at the Palladium, NYC [LIVE] " and was released by Sanctuary Records. During this same era, the photo which would later be used for the front cover of the Clash album "London Calling" was taken from their September 21, 1979 show at the Palladium. [http://www.superseventies.com/ac21londoncalling.html] The photograph on the back of the Cramps' original 1979 debut EP, "Gravest Hits", was taken at the Palladium.

Several music videos were filmed inside the Palladium, among them the video for "Because Of You" by The Cover Girls (#27 Billboard Hot 100, #47 R&B, #16 Dance/Club Play).

In 1992, C+C Music Factory recorded a song under the moniker S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. for the Soundtrack to movie The Bodyguard (starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner). The song, "It's Gonna Be A Lovely Day", was the only song on the soundtrack performed by an artist other than Whitney Houston to be released as a single in the US. The remixes of the song, which were released via Arista Records on CD single, cassette single, and Double-12" Vinyl single, were titled "The Palladium House Anthem I" and "The Palladium House Anthem II". At that time, C+C Music Factory member Robert Clivillés was the resident DJ at The Palladium.

Junior Vasquez's Arena party, held Saturday nights and Sunday mornings at Palladium between September 1996 and September 1997, was one of the most popular parties in the New York club scene at the time. Although the promoters billed Arena as "The Gay Man's Pleasure Dome," the party drew an eclectic mix of gay and straight from Manhattan and far beyond. Vasquez commemorated Arena in the titles of the remixes he produced that year. Among his noteworthy "Arena anthems" commercially released are Cher's "Paradise Is Here", Whitney Houston's "Step By Step", K.D. Lang's "Theme From The Valley Of The Dolls", and Dolly Parton's "Peace Train" (a cover of the Cat Stevens song).