Stephen Colbert‘s Late Show marquee has found a new home—some 800 miles from Broadway.
The sign that once greeted audiences outside New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater arrived Wednesday at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications, where it will join the original set from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“FROM BROADWAY TO CHICAGO!” the museum announced in a social media post sharing photos of the marquee panel’s arrival.
The sign had hung outside the Sullivan throughout Colbert’s 11-year run at CBS. In September, nearly four months after Colbert signed off for the final time, crews removed the Late Show with Stephen Colbert panels from the theater’s Broadway marquee, replacing them with generic signage reading “Ed Sullivan Theater.”
Now, two months later, one of the Colbert panels has resurfaced in Chicago.
Its destination had been decided months earlier. In May, shortly after the show’s finale, Colbert and CBS arranged to donate a collection of artifacts from the show to the museum.
The museum has made late-night television a centerpiece of its exhibits since reopening last year, with displays devoted to the history of the genre and its most famous hosts.
Its Evolution of Late-Night Television exhibition traces more than 75 years of late-night history, from Steve Allen and Jack Paar through Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and today’s hosts.
Colbert was already represented at the museum before his show ended, with the desk he used during a week of Chicago broadcasts in 2024. That desk was among three late-night setups visitors could sit behind for photo ops, alongside a replica of Carson’s classic Tonight Show desk and Jimmy Fallon’s traveling Tonight Show desk.
“The arrival of Stephen Colbert’s iconic Late Show marquee from New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater is another extraordinary addition to the Museum’s collection,” said David Plier, president and CEO of the Museum of Broadcast Communications. “Together with the original Late Show set, it preserves an important chapter in American television history for generations to experience.”
The marquee isn’t the only piece of Late Show signage to have found a new home far from New York.
A separate, massive lighted Late Show sign that Colbert auctioned off for charity in April ended up at a restaurant in West Hollywood. Jeff Douek, the owner of WeHo Bistro, paid $102,100 for the sign, which measures 12 feet wide, and initially installed it on the restaurant’s rooftop.
Colbert had put the sign up for auction during a “Late Show Home Shopping” segment with Jon Stewart. “Buy this,” he joked, “and, like me, you can have The Late Show hanging over your head for the rest of your life.”
As for the newly arrived marquee panel, the museum tells LateNighter it will most likely go on display in late December or early January.
