AFTR/IMG · ROOM · ROSELAND-BALLROOM · CONF VERIFIED
Roseland Ballroom
Overview
NYC dance hall opened New Year's Eve 1919 on Broadway and relocated in 1956 to a former ice-skating rink on West 52nd Street. It began as a whites-only taxi-dance hall, became a big-band and social-dance venue, and in its last decades ran as a concert hall that also hosted vogue balls and circuit parties. Lady Gaga closed it on April 7, 2014.
Roseland opened on New Year's Eve 1919 on Broadway, founded by Louis Brecker and Sam Yuengling as a ballroom for the taxi-dance format that dominated popular entertainment: patrons bought tickets to dance with hostesses by the song. In its early decades it enforced a whites-only admissions policy. By the 1940s Roseland was a major big-band venue and social dance hall. The ballroom relocated in 1956 to 239 West 52nd Street, converting a former ice-skating rink into its second and final home. Sold to Albert Ginsberg in 1981, the space reinvented itself across decades: disco nights in the late 1970s, freestyle shows in the 1980s, and eventually a general concert hall capable of holding several thousand. The 1990s brought a new chapter when Roseland became one of the primary homes for the New York ball scene, the GMHC Latex Ball drew upwards of five thousand attendees, and Susanne Bartsch's Love Ball staged voguers and performers from the Houses in a spectacle that mixed ballroom culture with art-world celebrity. Junior Vasquez held occasional bookings there in the mid-1990s, and the Saint-at-Large Black Party used the space for circuit events. Roseland's final event was a five-night run by Lady Gaga culminating on April 7, 2014, before demolition for the ARO residential tower.
Oral histories & archival media
Archive plates
Plates fill in as scans clear rights
Sonic profile
Cultural role
DJs, promoters & people
Louis Brecker
Owner · Co-founded Roseland at its 1919 Broadway location
Sam Yuengling
Owner · Co-founder, 1919
Albert Ginsberg
Owner · Purchased Roseland in 1981; oversaw its concert-hall era
Susanne Bartsch
Swiss-born New York nightlife impresario and party producer, 'the night life equivalent of a couture label' · Organized the Love Ball at Roseland, featuring vogue performers and AIDS fundraising
Junior Vasquez
Resident DJ associated with Sound Factory · Held occasional bookings at Roseland in the mid-1990s
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