Built in 1912 as the Fulton Theatre, this 499-seat Broadway house hosted productions ranging from the original stage version of The Jazz Singer to decades of plays starring many of America’s leading actors. Renamed for actress Helen Hayes in 1955, it became the focus of a major preservation battle when construction of the Marriott Marquis Hotel required its demolition. Despite protests led by Joseph Papp and other theater advocates, the theater was demolished in 1982.

I photographed the Helen Hayes Theater shortly before it was demolished in 1982. At the time, the fight to save the theater was unfolding in public, with Joseph Papp and others protesting the destruction of several Broadway houses for the Marriott Marquis. It was an early example for me of photographing a place at the moment when decisions about what a city would preserve—and what it would sacrifice—were becoming irreversible.