Excerpt - 1975 Shea's Buffalo Theater Nomination for the National Register of Historic Places

The "Motion Picture News" article continues to describe the theater auditorium, which has a seating capacity of approximately 4,000 [Ed. note: Now about 3200 because about 800 seats were removed from the orchestra section seating] .

The first impression is that of a harmonious mass of gold, pink and blue. The eye notes the elaborately decorated proscenium arch which has a height of 50 feet. The stage has an opening 66 feet wide. It is 32 feet deep. The balcony seats 1,600.

There are eleven rows of loge seats in the front of the balcony. There are three mammoth arches at each side of the balcony, each of which has a large mirror at the top and a fire exit at the bottom. A large crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling in front of each arch mirror.

At the center of the top of the auditorium is an immense dome, indirectly lighted. This dome is 56 feet north and south by 70 feet east and west. The total distance from the top of the dome to the orchestra floor is 89 feet, a distance equal to the height of the average seven-story office building.

In front of this door is a smaller, rectangular-shaped dome, in which are concealed ten floodlights for the stage

The whole interior decoration of the theatre is French Renaissance in character [Ed. note: perhaps more accurately described as Spanish Baroque Revival], approaching most nearly to the Louis XIV styles, but with a modern and American adaption. The ceiling is covered with an infinite variety of interlacing woodwork designs on curving panels, painted in the dominant golds, pinks and blues, with many variations of these shades.

Ten great hanging lamps in variegated glass provide light at the sides, together with a number of lights of similar glass set in plaques on the walls. At the front the proscenium arch is set off by indirect lights all around.

The orchestra is arranged on a special platform which can be lowered to the basement, and raised to the stage level at the time of the overture. The organ console, similarly arranged, is on a separate elevating unit.

• Painting owner: The Metropolitan Museum of New York
• Title: Design for Buffalo Theater, Buffalo, New York
• Artist: Louis C. Tiffany (American, New York 1848–1933 New York)
  
• Maker: Tiffany Studios (1902–32)
  
• Artist: B. Stanton
  
• Date: ca. 1925–26
• Medium: Watercolor, gouache, black ink, and graphite on off-white wove paper
• Dimensions: 26 11/16 x 39 9/16 in. (67.8 x 100.5 cm)