With 'Late Show' over, what is the Ed Sullivan Theater's fate?

With his top hat and Vandyke beard, Oscar Hammerstein I was among the most familiar figures of Gilded Age New York. Showman, producer, composer, cigar maker, inventor, publisher, builder and developer — specifically of once-shabby Longacre Square (now Times Square) — he also constructed seven theaters, most of them lavish affairs, to stage his beloved operas and musicals. He made a fortune, lost one, then after his death in 1919, slowly submitted to the fate of so many other notable New Yorkers: He was largely forgotten.

Except not quite. The Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center on 34th Street was once his Manhattan Opera House, while another theater remains in his honor, if not still in his name. The Hammerstein, built by his son Arthur, in 1927, was renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater in 1967. But now — after a 33-year run as home of "The Late Show" — the Sullivan, at 1697 Broadway, stands dark and empty for the first time. Will it too soon be largely forgotten?

What is next for this Jazz Age gem — this monument to not one, but two show biz pioneers, where more acts have performed more than anywhere in the world, with the possible exception of that other gem a couple of blocks to the south, Radio City Music Hall?

"I've had a lot of calls the last couple of weeks" from people asking the same question, says Ed Grebow, the former CBS executive who orchestrated one of the singular successes in recent TV history — the 1993 restoration of this faded vaudeville-era palace into David Letterman's new home.

A "very prominent theater owner" wondered about turning it into a legitimate theater (with tickets) but "with 400-odd seats it's too small [and] originally had roughly a thousand seats." He says "I had another call from a reasonably well-known guy who would literally use it for public affairs and news."

But because this is a landmark building, the next owner is "limited over what changes can be made to both the exterior and interior." Grebow adds that "it's really suited for a television studio with an audience except that the problem in today's world is that there's not much demand for that. There's a studio in Queens in bankruptcy [GUM Studios] and another in trouble [the also-historic Kaufman Astoria, which is in default on a loan, according to its lender] so there's a glut of studio space while linear TV is in trouble."

"I just don't know" what's next for the theater, he says. "It's sad, very sad."

To be sure, the old Hammerstein/Sullivan has seen lots of changes over the past century. (Paramount Skydance which bought it along with some other CBS studios last August for $174 million, says it's still exploring options.) Until he lost everything during the Great Depression, Arthur — uncle to Oscar of Rodgers & Hammerstein fame — staged musicals and screened silent movies here. After buying it in 1936, CBS turned the theater into "Playhouse No. 3" (the first of many different names) where the long-running variety show, "Camel Caravan," along with other radio hits, aired.

According to a history by veteran entertainment writer Thomas Doherty, CBS staged a "military-minded variety show" during the war years. He writes that among many unusual acts, "Lana Turner fried a sizzling steak [on stage], thereby satisfying two GI appetites at once."

In 1950, the first TV studio arrived. "The Jackie Gleason Show" was an early production, followed by "Toast of the Town" — soon renamed "The Ed Sullivan Show" — in 1953. After "Sullivan" was canceled in 1971, game shows moved in — "The $10,000 Pyramid," "What's My Line?," and the Garry Moore-hosted version of "To Tell The Truth." "Kate & Allie" was here from 1984 to 1989.

By the time Grebow got to work, the Sullivan — long-shuttered and rat-infested — had fallen on hard times.

"I'm kind of pessimistic" about the next chapter, too, says Doherty, who is also professor of American Studies at Brandeis. The single-tenant model set so long ago by Sullivan, later David Letterman and Stephen Colbert, "may be dead because the expense is so prohibitive — even maintaining the air conditioning."

Andrew Solt — the leading expert on Sullivan whose company, SOFA Entertainment, owns all 1,068 extant episodes of the show — has a different take:

"There's so much history there. Ten thousand performances took place on Sullivan's stage [including the most famous one in TV history, on Feb. 9, 1964]. There was a wall in the back that's still there where agents of performers who came to rehearsals were forced to stand. They called it the Wailing Wall ...

"The Ed Sullivan Theater will live on," he says. "It has to live on. I think there will be some pleasant surprises down the road."