United Palace Theatre

The Loews 175th Street Theatre was built as one of the Loew's Wonder Theatres, their extravagant and spacious flagships in the New York City area, which included Loew's Jersey Theatre in Jersey City (opened 1929, now a classic cinema and performing arts center); the Loew's Kings Theatre in Brooklyn (1929, under restoration as a performing arts center the Loew's Paradise Theatre, The Bronx (1929, now a church); and Loew's Valencia Theatre in Queens (1929, now a church
All five theatres featured functionally identical 7-foot tall, twin-chambered "Wonder Morton" electro-pneumatic pipe organs manufactured by the Robert Morton Organ Company of Van Nuys, California, which had four manuals and 23 ranks. The organ in the United Palace was restored c.1970 after almost 25 years of disuse, and was utilized by the church in its services, but is no longer functioning due to water damage.
The 175th Street Theatre seated 3,661 people, and began life with a showing of a film starring Norma Shearer, and a musical comedy stage show starring vaudevillians Shaw and Lee (Al Shaw and Sam Lee). It closed 39 years later in March 1939 with a showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey, although as of 2001, the projection booth still had three six-foot tall Simplex projectors with Peerless arclight housings.
The architectural style of the terra-cotta-faced theatre has been described as "Byzantine-Romanesque-Indo-Hindu-Sino-Moorish-Persian-Eclectic-Rococo-Deco" by David W. Dunlap of the New York Times, who wrote later that Lamb borrowed from:
the Alhambra in Spain, the Kailasa rock-cut shrine in India, and the Wat Phra Keo temple in Thailand, adding Buddhas, bodhisattvas, elephants, and honeycomb stonework in an Islamic pattern known as muqarnas.
The AIA Guide to New York City calls it "Cambodian neo-Classical" and invites a comparison to Lamb's Loew's Pitkin Theatre in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Lamb wrote that "Exotic ornaments, colors and scenes are particularly effective in creating an atmosphere in which the mind is free to frolic and becomes receptive to entertainment."The interior features a "palatial" staircase. A cupola on the building's northeast corner, at Wadsworth Avenue and West 176th Street, is topped by a "Miracle Star of Faith," visible from the George Washington Bridge.
While the United Christian Evangelistic Association continues to own the theater, the recently inaugurated rock concerts presented there have been produced by Andy Feltz, formerly of the Beacon Theatre.Musical performers since 2007 include Vampire Weekend, Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, Sonic Youth, Bloc Party, Bob Dylan, Adele, The Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, Sigur Rós, Jackson Browne, Alex Campos, Björk, Allman Brothers Band, Iggy and the Stooges, Modest Mouse, The Black Crowes, Arcade Fire and Kraftwerk.
In 2007, Sir Simon Rattle appeared at the theatre conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring danced by public school students and choreographed by Royston Maldoom.The following year, a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Mass was given as part of the celebration of the 90th anniversary of that composer's birth. In addition, recitals, classes and lectures have also been presented at the theatre, and the TV show Smash has used the theatre to film its fictional Broadway production Bombshell.
In 2013 limited film screenings returned to the Palace.