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This is Ziegfeld theater’s next act

It’s fade to black for Midtown’s iconic movie palace the Ziegfeld movie theater — but the iconic venue at 141 W. 54th St. will be reborn as a spectacular high-end event space, The Post has learned.

The new Ziegfeld Ballroom will be a mecca for society galas and corporate events, to open in fall 2017 after a two-year renovation of the space.

The ballroom is to be run by most of the partners who operate Gotham Hall, the event venue inside a landmarked former bank at Broadway and West 36th Street.

Stefano Giovannini
Plans call for a 10,000-square-foot column-free ballroom, as well as mezzanine meeting rooms and advanced electronic facilities.

The ballroom’s art deco design will also pay homage to the Ziefeld’s predecessor on Seventh Avenue, which was opened by showman Florenz Ziegfeld, which was torn down for the office building adjoining the newer theater.

The Ziegfeld’s landlord, the Fisher Brothers real-estate company, on Wednesday notified the cinema’s leaseholder, Cablevision, that they had a new tenant. The movie theater is expected to close within a few weeks. It is currently showing “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.’’

The Ziegfeld, opened in 1969, is Manhattan’s last remaining large single-screen showplace used exclusively for movies with 1,300 seats (there is only one remaining single-screen movie venue in the borough, the 571-seat Paris). Although the Ziegfeld is revered by cinema buffs, it has in recent years lost over $1 million annually.

World renowned for the quality of its sound and projection — and for an ornate design that evoked the long-gone ’20s movie palaces that once lined Broadway and Seventh Avenue — the Ziegfeld was for decades one of the country’s best-known movie venues.

That’s largely because the Ziegfeld hosted countless glitzy movie premieres.

Amid changes in moviegoing habits and studios cutting back on lavish premieres since the 2008 stock-market crash, losses mounted and the Ziegfeld’s fate was sealed.