NEW YORK CITY — Built in 1930 as one of Loew’s “Wonder Theatres,” Manhattan’s United Palace was launched as the region’s premier vaudeville and movie houses, with a lavish, yet somewhat eclectic style once described by The New York Times as “Byzantine-Romanesque-Indo-Hindu-Sino-Moorish-Persian-Eclectic-Rococo-Deco” and a “kitchen sink masterpiece.” With more than 3,000 seats, The Palace still continues to delight audiences, and is the fourth largest venue of its kind in New York City.
The theater’s first 40 years as a home for engaging storytelling and transformative experiences came to a storied end after playing a run of Stanley Kubrick’s 1969 cinema masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yet while many of the city’s grand movie theaters were slated for demolition, the organization (now known as the United Palace of Spiritual Arts) purchased the building to continue its mission of providing uplifting, transformative cultural experiences.
For years, the facility operated with just a small, voice-only P.A. system, requiring concert promoters and theater producers to bring in outside systems for most concerts and theatrical performances.
However, by installing a pro in-house system, the venue could rent to those same clients, and earn return on that investment, make it easier on both the event producers (who wouldn’t have to rent outside gear) and on the building itself, by avoiding the wear and tear that bringing in rental systems can cause.
In 2017, Rafael Jaimes, the founder of Boston-based Audio Spectrum (audiospectrum.com) — one of the companies that regularly brought rental systems into the United Palace to support productions there — suggested the venue upgrade with a rider-friendly L-Acoustics (l-acoustics.com) K2 line array rig. After years of working shows there, Audio Spectrum — an L-Acoustics partner provider — was familiar with the room and knew the K2 system would be ideal for the theater.
Recently, the United Palace staff decided to add some supplemental speakers to bring a bit more punch to the under-balcony seating. “The process was conceived to be both visually unobtrusive as well as do as little to the existing architecture as possible, hence we chose L-Acoustics’ X8 speakers for the install,” says Palace lead AV tech Ira Malek, one of the three venue staffers on the design team, along with production / technical director Jed Defillipis and technical supervisor Clayton Landis.
Designed for short–throw applications, the X8’s feature a coaxial design with a 1.5” diaphragm HF compression driver mounted on an 8” LF transducer in a compact, slant-back cabinet that can mount against a ceiling at a 35-degree downward angle, making them ideal for under-balcony installations.
The plan was to install two boxes per quadrant (seating section). “The initial design was to have two speakers close to each other for maximum SPL,” Malek continues. “However, due of the building shape, that was nixed in favor of more spread to the speakers, and because of this decision, we were able to follow the contour of the building, and were able to incorporate the speakers so that they are there, but you have to look to find them.”
Although the space was designed with Vaudeville in mind, “the Palace is a great sounding room, mostly because of the L-Acoustic P.A. and this augment has made it even better,” Malek notes. “The few seats that previously lacked some definition because they were under the balcony and did not hear some of the flown K2 line array crispness, are now hearing everything. The team believes that we have one of the best sounding theaters in Manhattan for music.”
For more info about the United Palace, visit: www.unitedpalace.org
