Chicago archictect Walter W. Ahlschlager designed the Beacon and also the palatial Roxy, "cathedral of the motion picture," on West 50th Street (demolished in 1960).

The Beacon Theatre is the "older sister" to Radio City Music Hall. These two legendary venues were conceived by Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel, a great theatrical impresario and visionary. Rothafel had identical dreams for both theaters. He believed that each should be an International music hall, presenting live entertainment acts and cultural and popular events.

With its flawless acoustics, the Beacon has been the New York City stop of choice for top acts since the Roaring Twenties. Remarkably, the original sound-system still provides near-perfect acoustics today. Many of the greatest names in music have played the Beacon including the Rolling Stones, Jerry Garcia, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, James Taylor, Radiohead, and Queen.

The Beacon Theatre has hosted such operatic events as "Madame Butterfly" (1988) and "Ballet on Broadway" (1978). The Beacon was the first "concert hall" outfitted for IMAX for the film "The Rolling Stones at the Max," December 1991.

The Allman Brothers hold an annual rite of spring concert series at the Beacon Theatre known as "The Beacon Run." Since 1989, they have performed 173 shows at the Beacon

His Holiness the Dalai Lama chose the Beacon Theatre as the site of his teaching classes in August of 1999. On Oct. 29, 2006, Bill Clinton ended his 60th birthday celebration at the Beacon with a private Rolling Stones concert. And in 2011, the Beacon hosted the annual Tony awards ceremony.

More than 3,000 people jammed into the Beacon when it opened on Christmas Eve in 1929, and Harry Warner himself welcomed the crowd to the newest Warner Bros. theater. The cast of the opening night film, Tiger Lily, included Lupe Velez and Rin Tin Tin (the subject of a newly published biography).

The Beacon continued to operate as a first-run move theater until the 1970s. It's where this writer watched double features (anyone remember B movies?) and dozed through El Cid.

In 1979, the Beacon was designated a national landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. A 1986 proposal to convert the 2,600-seat, three-tiered theatre into a disco was blocked when a judge ruled the change would irreparably damage the building's architecture.

—Mary Ratcliffe