The Paradise on the Grand Concourse Is Selling Tickets Before Its Stars Come Back

The Loew's Paradise opened on September 7, 1929, the same day as its sister house, the Kings in Brooklyn. In an ABC7 report from October, special events coordinator Hannah Celeste described the timing plainly. "The theatre opened five weeks before the Great Depression hit. So, it wasn't great timing."

Ninety-seven years later, the Paradise is again doing things in an unusual order. The building at 2403 Grand Concourse is now the Paradise Performing Arts Center, a nonprofit trying to raise $50 million for a full restoration, and it plans to keep the theater in use while that work goes on. The earliest ticketed show on its calendar is December 18. The restoration has a goal of 2029. For anyone living near Fordham and the Concourse, the Paradise you can sit in this winter is the 1929 room as it stands today, with performances back on its stage years before the finished version exists.

A Wonder Theatre With a Broken Timeline

Architect John Eberson designed the Paradise, and it was built in 1928 and 1929 as one of five Loew's Wonder Theatres in the New York area. It has about 4,000 seats, which makes it the second-largest theater in New York City after Radio City Music Hall.

Most of its history since then has been interruptions. The center's own timeline records the auditorium being split into two cinemas in 1973 and the end of movies in January 1994. The city's 2006 Landmarks Preservation Commission report describes a 1996 fire that damaged the stage, an $8 million restoration plan that a developer never finished, a 2003 purchase by First Paradise Theatres Corp., and a reopening as a live venue in October 2005. The exterior was designated a city landmark in 1997, and the lobbies and auditorium followed in 2006. The Bronx Times reported that after the 1994 closing the building served as an event venue and as a church.

Each earlier comeback ended before the building was fully restored, and the new operators have planned around that history.

Shows First, Restoration Alongside

The team is led by executive director Scott Perrin, with Peter Martin and Charles Piazza as managing directors. In a News 12 Bronx report from October 13, they said some programming is expected to start while restoration is still underway, and that the long-term goal is to finish the transformation by the theater's 100th anniversary in 2029. "Our plan is to restore it to 1929 condition," Martin told News 12.

ABC7 found the interior in good condition with its ornate décor preserved. News 12 described the grand staircase, the vintage light fixtures and exit signs dating to 1929. "It's 4,000 seats and the stage is huge," Celeste told the station.

The center scheduled a community welcome for November 10, with food and drinks from local Bronx businesses and self-guided tours of the building, according to amNY. The December 18 show comes a little over five weeks later.

The Winter Calendar, Show by Show

Here is how the bookings line up as of publication. The Paradise box office page lists the December 18 and February 13 shows. The ticketing platform Fever lists all three Candlelight dates, in December, January and February.

The December show is meant for families as well as date nights. It is open to ages 8 and up, and anyone under 16 must come with an adult. Doors open 60 minutes before each show, and nobody is let in once it starts.

The Valentine's bill, presented by Pillar Entertainment Group LLC, puts The Manhattans and Blue Magic together with three revue acts: Greg Hill's Blow Your Mind Experience performing The Delfonics' greatest hits, the Rose Royce Revue, and The Stylistics Revue featuring Van Fields. That kind of program fits the history Piazza described to ABC7, recalling 1930s posters advertising "Harlem comes to the Bronx" with Cab Calloway.

How a Seat Gets Sold in a 4,000-Seat Room

The house diagram splits the theater into Orchestra and Balcony, each with Left, Center and Right sections. Fever sells the Candlelight shows by zone instead of by section. For Christmas Classics, Zone C costs $42 plus a $3.36 fee, Zone B $50 plus $4, Zone A $66 plus $5.28, and the Front Row $79 plus $6.32. The January Juan Gabriel tribute uses the same four prices and fees.

Seating within a zone is first come, first served. Fever's listing says tickets are sold online or in its app, not at the door. That makes the one-hour early door time useful. A $42 Zone C ticket buys a place in line for the best seat left in that zone, so arriving early decides where in the zone you sit.

For the February 13 concert, the event site has a live seat map and shows prices at checkout. If you would rather buy in person, the box office page asks you to contact the Paradise before making the trip, and it asks the same of anyone who needs accessible seating. The address for both is [email protected].

The Paradise Still on the Drawing Board

All of this is happening in the existing room. The bigger additions, the ones that would keep the building busy on nights without a show, are described on the center's future plans page as plans in development. They include:

• A rooftop garden and performance space, with a rooftop film series mentioned in News 12's report
• The Grand Boulevard Restaurant, overlooking the Grand Concourse
• A speakeasy bar beside the Grand Hallway
• A storytelling booth and a lobby lounge performance space
• Evenings that pair a stage show with a classic or new film
• Immersive shows in the Grand Lobby and theater
• A holiday show featuring the Vintage Birds of Paradise

The biggest item is the ceiling. The Paradise is an atmospheric theater, built so its ceiling would light up with stars while clouds were projected moving across it. "That's part of our plan to restore all that to the theater," Martin told ABC7. The city's 2006 landmark report also describes the original twinkling-star effect. Restoring the sky over the auditorium is part of the $50 million effort, and the restaurant, rooftop and speakeasy are part of the same long-range plan. People who go to the December or February shows will be under a ceiling that still has that work ahead of it.

Getting There, and a December 18 Doubleheader

The center's visit page recommends the D train to Fordham Road at the Grand Concourse, where the B also stops during weekday rush hours, or the 4 train to Fordham Road at Jerome Avenue. The MTA's D line map also lists 182–183 Sts at 182nd Street and the Grand Concourse, which is the closer D stop to the 2403 address.

The December 18 show lands in the middle of the Bronx holiday season. The New York Botanical Garden's 35th Holiday Train Show runs November 14 through January 10, and this year's new piece is a botanical replica of One Vanderbilt. December 18 is also one of the Garden's extended evenings, when the Conservatory stays open until 8 p.m. with last entry at 7:15. On that Friday, a household could see the trains early in the evening and still make the 8:30 Candlelight show on the Concourse. Up the road, the Bronx Zoo's Holiday Lights run on select dates from November 21 through January 3. New this year is nighttime access to the Children's Zoo Farmyard, World of Darkness and World of Reptiles.

"Every borough of New York City has major performing arts centers except The Bronx," Perrin told the Bronx Times. At 2403 Grand Concourse, the strings start at 6:00 p.m. on December 18, more than two years before the 2029 target for finishing the restoration.

A busy landmark nearby changes how the surrounding blocks feel, from the evening foot traffic to the conversations buyers have about a street. If you own near the Concourse and want to know what your home is worth as the Paradise comes back, Panache Real Estate can prepare a thoughtful, no-pressure assessment. Request Your Free Home Valuation.