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Olde Good Things

Architectural and Altered Antiques

OGT Broadway NYC Gets a Facelift

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Located in the heart of New York City’s upper west side, Olde Good Things Broadway storefront was once hidden with scaffolding, making this truly unique store hard to find. Now that the scaffolding has come down, we have given this amazing store an exterior facelift. On the inside, the ceiling is filled with antique and modern lighting from some of the most famous buildings in New York City. The furnishings are a mix of old and custom made. Olde Good Things is known for architectural salvage and using reclaimed material to create new custom furniture & furnishings such as farm tables, modern dining room tables, antique tin mirrors, and panels.

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We took some footage of the new neon sign going up to share with you. It was a great day for the Olde Good Things to finally get its name in lights on Broadway.

Facelift Complete

As you can see, in addition to the neon sign, we also added a storewide canopy in our signature green color that adds an eye-catching appearance that’s hard to miss. So now the elephant, lion, and dinosaur can stay dry on rainy days.

Click here to view the inside of Olde Good Things Broadway

Click here to shop the inventory at Olde Good Things Broadway online.

The Lights of Broadway: Salvaging Fixtures from the Palace Theatre

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In the mid-90s, Times Square was undergoing massive redevelopment. Some of our first salvage finds were from well-known Times Square venues, including the Rialto, Lamb, and Ford Theaters.

Now, almost 25 years later, Times Square is undergoing more changes, and Olde Good Things is on the job for another theatre salvage. But this time, rather than raze a building to the ground, developers plan to raise the theatre up!

Playing the Palace

Located in the heart of Times Square at W. 47th Street and Broadway, the Palace Theatre first opened in 1913. Designed by Milwaukee architects Kirchoff and Rose, it is one of the largest theaters on Broadway, with three levels of seating and tiered, parquet-style boxes accommodating over 1,700 patrons. The New York Landmarks Conservancy designated its famous baroque interior as an Interior Landmark in 1987.

The Palace was a vaudeville center from its 1913 opening through the early 1930s; actor Jack Haley called it “the epitome of the more than 15,000 vaudeville theaters in America.” Performers dreamed of “playing the Palace,” and its stage was graced by such legends as Ethel Barrymore, the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Mae West, and Fred Astaire.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Palace struggled to find its niche as a venue, serving mostly as a movie house as ticket sales for live performances dwindled. Notably, in 1941 the Palace was the site of the world premiere of Citizen Kane.

In the 1960s, the Palace was renovated and transformed into a full-fledged Broadway theater. Its first show was Sweet Charity, starring Gwen Verdon and choreographed by Bob Fosse (both well-known to viewers of the new FX series Fosse/Verdon). More recently, the Palace housed productions of Beauty and the Beast, Aida, and An American in Paris.

Moving on Up

In 2018, after a final run of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical, the Palace closed down as part of a massive building renovation called TSX Broadway. This unusual project includes plans to raise the Palace interior three stories (nearly 30 feet!), in order to add 10,000 square feet of retail space underneath and to accommodate a new, giant wraparound billboard. The renovation also features a new lobby, dressing rooms, and other amenities for Palace Theatre patrons. Construction is expected to be completed by 2021.

Broadway Lights

The $50 million Palace Theatre rehabilitation includes updates to its famous interior – so not only is the Palace moving up in the world, it’s also getting a facelift! While the theatre’s historic ornamental plasterwork will stay in place, other design elements are being replaced.

Enter Olde Good Things to salvage some of the historic treasures from this old landmark. We were able to reclaim much of the vintage and antique lighting, including exquisite crystal chandeliers and Art Deco style flush and semi-flush mount fixtures. Some of these fixtures appear to date from the 1965 renovation.

Longing to bask in the lights of Broadway? Take a look at just a few examples online and come see many more in our New York locations. We promise the ghosts of the Palace Theatre won’t follow you home.

OGT’s Newest Location at 2424 Broadway NYC

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Olde Good Things is proud to announce our newest store location, 2424 Broadway, in Manhattan’s Upper West Side neighborhood. This neighborhood is the perfect location for us, with many unique and inspiring architectural buildings in the area and with a reputation for being one of New York City’s cultural and intellectual hubs with Columbia University, Barnard College and Lincoln Center housed within its borders.  Over the years, we’ve had many customers from this area who appreciate antique and architectural antiques and love our line of altered antique furnishings.

We’re just in the process now of stocking the store, which a great variety of antique and industrial lighting, unique home furnishings and of course, our famous hand made tables from reclaimed wood and metal.  Since our lease expired at 82nd and Columbus several years back we’ve had a loyal following of UWS customers who have found us at our other locations in the city and we hope will be glad to hear that we’re back in the neighborhood.  We’re announcing a “soft opening” now, as we stock the ceiling, floor and shelves with our unique line of “stuff”.  We hope to see you soon and will keep you posted on our official grand opening.

Just a little more about the neighborhood

The Upper West Side resides between Central Park on the East side, the Hudson River on the west and West 59th Street and West 110th Street on the south and north sides, respectively. An affluent and primarily residential neighborhood, the Upper West Side is also home to such sights as Columbus Circle, Grant’s Tomb, and the Dakota apartment building where John Lennon lived and was tragically killed outside of.

Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, the area that would become the Upper West Side contained some of colonial New York’s most ambitious houses and properties, which would eventually be filled in with smaller suburbs. Many properties such as the Apthorp farm and other small villages were stretched along Bloomingdale Road, which today we know of as Broadway (also the street our new store is located on). These farms and villages would eventually be divided into building lots and absorbed into the city by 1868. During the creation and construction of Central Park from the 1850’s to the 1870’s, the Upper West Side became a rough and ragtag collection of squatters, boarding houses and rowdy taverns, eventually seeing a major turnaround in the 1890’s with the construction of the Ninth Avenue elevated train line and the relocation of Columbia University into the area.

The Upper West Side plays home to many unique apartment buildings and structures, especially along the Central Park West area. Buildings such as the English Victorian styled Dakota, the Art Deco Century Apartments and The Majestic, and the Moderne style Normandie all sit on the famous Central Park West. Many other buildings, in a multitude of pre-war styles ranging from Art Nouveau to Beaux-Arts and Belle Époque, sit within the Upper West Side. With the abundance of fascinating architecture in this area, it’s no wonder that many movies and television shows, such as Home Alone 2, Mad Men, 30 Rock and American Psycho have all used the Upper West Side as a backdrop to their stories.

Sneak Peek Gallery

The Olde Good Things Broadway store will feature many of our architectural and antique artifacts, items from our Altered Antiques line, and the unique and one-of-a-kind items that we are known for. If you’re ever in the Upper West Side, stop by and say hello to us in our newest New York City location. We’re sure you’ll be able to find something uniquely New York there.

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