By Samantha Gross
Wire Service Correspondent

NEW YORK (AP) – Suppor-ters have long been trying to restore the New York landmark Apollo Theater to the golden days of the 1930s and ‘40s, when unknown teenagers Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan launched their singing careers at the theater’s “Amateur Night.”
Now, after years of struggling to finance an expansion and restoration of the venue, theater officials are launching a public fundraising effort for what they are calling the “final phase.”
The $47 million (euro31.7 million) project calls for doubling the size of the theater lobby, building a grand staircase at its center and replacing its wall-mounted columns and marble wainscoting. More work would be done inside the theater, repainting the colorful, intricate patterns on the walls and restoring box seating.
Under the Apollo Theater Foundation’s plan, the names of musical legends would be memorialized on bronze plaques in a walk of fame in front of the venue.
The foundation already has replaced the theater’s seats and stage and restored its famous marquee, said Jonelle Procope, the foundation president.
Project architect Christopher Cowan said his firm was basing its restoration on the Apollo of the mid-1930s, when the theater, previously open to whites only, was opened to blacks.
“ In a way, you’ll be stepping back in time to experience the Apollo in its heyday,” Cowan said. “That’s the period of cultural significance for the Apollo. It became a center for jazz. It had amazing performers.”
With only about 1,500 seats, the theater has struggled financially for decades, unable to keep up with larger-capacity halls that use ticket revenues to pay big-name acts. In 1975, it went bankrupt and closed its doors. And in the 1990s, allegations of sweetheart deals and dubious bookkeeping led to an overhaul of theater leadership.
The plan outlined Wednesday, which would close the theater for nine months in 2010, is the latest in a series of proposals for the historic performance space.
Now, planners say they expect to pay an additional $19 million (euro12.8 million) for renovation costs and other expenses, completing the project by the end of 2010.
That is a reasonable price to preserve the theater’s legacy, said Dick Parsons, chairman of Time Warner Inc. and the theater’s board of directors.
“ The Apollo has been the venue in which so much of American culture has been created and demonstrated to the world,” he said. “We still want it to be a place where stars are born and legends are made and culture is disseminated.”

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