Rome and Duddy Providence, Providence

Veterans Memorial Auditorium—The Vets to its friends—is a poster child for patience paying off. Conceived by the Rhode Island Freemasons in the 1920s, the theater was well on its way to completion when the Great Depression ground construction to a halt in 1929. It wasn't until the closing years of World War II that the community banded together to finish the 1,900-seat complex. The theater finally opened in 1950, and in the 60+ years since has seen such greats as Pavarotti, Nureyev, and Tony Bennett play its massive proscenium stage.