As part of a renovation project that began in April, the performing-arts center, home to the annual "Fall for Dance" festival, is taking the lead of theaters across the country in expanding the width of its seats and increasing its leg room, or row spacing.

"We want to err a little bit on the roomier side, because over the last 50 years Americans have gotten a little plumper," City Center's senior vice-president and managing director, Mark Litvin, said, "and we find these larger seats are much more comfortable for people."

The organization is not alone in developing more generous accommodations for its patrons. A study to be released Monday by Theatre Projects Consultants, a theater-development firm, found that the average standard width of seats in performing-arts theaters has expanded from 21 to 22 inches over the last two decades, "primarily due" to the concurrent rise in obesity. Over the course of the entire last century, the average width increased from 19 to 21 inches."It's about weight," one of the authors, John Coyne, said. "Americans have gotten taller and heavier, and as expectations for accessibility, comfort, and amenities have changed, seat spacing and auditorium size has increased," according to the report, which is based on data from the company's work on more than 1,200 performing-arts facilities around the world. (The firm's current New York projects include performance venues at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Theatre for a New Audience's development in Brooklyn and the theater planned for the Whitney Museum of American Art's new building at the base of the High Line.)

City Center's adjustments are being made in response to years of complaints about the center's cramped seating, some of which was installed as early as 1924, when the building first opened as a meeting hall for members of the Ancient Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. For the full article, click here