Since 1973, the ground floor of this building has been home to the Classic Stage Company, founded in 1967 and one of New York’s longest operating Off Broadway theaters, which according to its mission statement is “committed to reimagining classic stories for contemporary audiences.”

There is evidence that the space has operated as a theater since at least the 1920s, including the Mercury Theater and the Abbey Theatre in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The building also appears to have been, at least at some point, connected to the theater at 100 Third Avenue, which it connects with at the rear. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The International Workers Order (IWO) was located at 80 Fifth Avenue for its entire lifetime, from 1930 until 1954.

International Workers Order emblem, 1930-1939 As part of its overarching mission, the IWO also organized theatrical, musical, artistic, and other entertainment programs.

This progressive mutual-benefit fraternal organization was a pioneering force in the U.S. labor movement. For a quarter of a century, the IWO fought relentlessly for racial equality, interracial solidarity, industrial unions, and social security programs that would protect working-class people.

Louise Thompson Patterson, 1960 One of IWO’s many notable programs was its Harlem Suitcase Theater. Led by IWO vice president and Harlem resident Louise Thompson Patterson, the Suitcase Theater sought to bring socially-conscious theater to African American audiences throughout the Depression.

Langston Hughes, 1936 Its debut production, “Don’t You Want to be Free?” was written by Langston Hughes, whose poems had already been showcased in other IWO publications.

Portrait of Robert Earl Jones in Langston Hughes' "Don't You Want to be Free?," 1938 Actors Butterfly McQueen and Robert Earl Jones performed in this play, which served as their acting debut. The theater featured productions on topics including racism, lynching, and industrial workers poverty, and travelled to Atlanta, Nashville, and other American cities. It also presented an opera by composer James P. Johnson. Today, the Suitcase Theater and the IWO’s Freedom Theater are understood as trailblazers of experimental community theater. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Arguably the first art movie house in America, the Fifth Avenue Playhouse opened at 66 Fifth Avenue on December 16, 1925 showing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In 1935 the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported that the “little playhouse brings to New York movies of interest to lovers of France and to those familiar with the French language…Beginning Friday night, the Fifth Avenue Playhouse is showing “Criez-le sur les Toits,” or “Shout It from the House Tops,” featuring two of France’s well known stars, Simone Heliard and Saint-Granier.”

“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” film poster (German), 1920 The theater was renamed the Fifth Avenue Cinema in 1954 when it was operated by Ragoff & Becker. A New York premiere art house for many decades, it was where Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali!” was introduced to New York and Pasolini’s “Accattone” had its first commercial run. It closed its doors in 1973 after the building was acquired by The New School.

"Pather Panchali" film poster, 1955 A New York premiere art house for many decades, it was where Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali!” was introduced to New York and Pasolini’s “Accattone” had its first commercial run.

"Accattone" film poster, 1961 It closed its doors in 1973 after the building was acquired by The New School. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

22 East 12th Street was built in 1898 as a firehouse, and since 1963 has been the home of Cinema Village, the oldest continuously operating art house cinema in New York City.

Through most of its first three decades of life, Cinema Village was one of Manhattan's several repertory cinemas. Showcasing a canon of vintage classics, cult and contemporary critical favorites on double bills that would usually change three times a week, this once essential programming format has now largely died out in commercial cinemas in the city and around the country. Before the video revolution, short of a private film collection, going to a repertory cinema was virtually the only way to see many films after their initial theatrical run. Rep houses like Cinema Village, were the autodidacts' film school and favorite haunts of cineastes for decades.

"Eraserhead" film poster, 1977 Undermined by home video, buy-outs by major circuits and real estate development, commercial repertory cinema virtually disappeared in the city by the late 1980's. Cinema Village only escaped closing and survived with a switch to limited engagements of highly alternative first run programming, some special midnight shows such as David Lynch’s first film “Eraserhead,” which ran for a year.

"The Interview" film poster, 2014 Cinema Village was the only movie theater in New York that did not bow down to the threats of a 9/11 type of attack on cinemas, premiering SONY’s film “The Interview” on Christmas day of 2014. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

By 1937, Barney Gallant opened a restaurant in the raised basement level of 86 University Place called “The Royalist.” By the early 1940s, the establishment expanded to the first floor with a cabaret. Gallant, a lifelong bachelor, was an opponent of Prohibition and had gained celebrity as the first person in New York to be prosecuted under the Volstead Act in 1919 for serving alcohol. When police prepared to arrest several of his waiters for serving alcohol, Gallant took full responsibility, refused to comply with the law, and was sent to the Tombs for thirty days. Following this, Gallant opened a series of successful speakeasies and cafes throughout the neighborhood that earned him the name “The Mayor of Greenwich Village.” Originally from Hungary, Gallant was a member of the Liberal Club in the 1910s. The Liberal Club was a social, political, and artistic organization founded as a lecture society in 1912 which ran until 1918. It quickly evolved into a gathering place for free thinkers, especially those with feminist, socialist, anarchist, and bohemian leanings. Throughout its lifetime, the club was known for its experimental theater and political demonstrations. Gallant also worked for a time as the business manager of the Greenwich Village Theater, and was Eugene O’Neill’s first roommate upon his arrival to New York. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Over the years, the four buildings that comprised the Albert Hotel hosted many of the most prominent names in American arts, literature, music, and radical politics. Franklin Sargent, a founder of the Lyceum Theatre School (which later became the New York School of Acting and then the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), stayed here in the 1890s. In 1961, the Albert French Restaurant sponsored the play “Seven at Dawn” at the Actors Playhouse at 100 Seventh Avenue South. The next year, the Hotel Albert opened the “Albert Theatre” at the hotel itself. The theater showcased at least one play, called “Arete.” Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

In the 1930s the Workers Laboratory Theater was located at 42 East 12th Street. Distinguishing itself from the elite Broadway theaters, the Workers Laboratory Theatre hoped to engage the working class and often ventured out to union meetings, factories, and public spaces to do so. The theater also used minimal props and sets, and often ended its performances with calls for action. From 1931 until 1933, it published the Workers Theatre magazine with a subscription cost of $1.50 per year. This building eventually became the subject of investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In the 1970s this building was the home of the Film & Dance Theater. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Beginning in at least 1963 this 1894 building operated as an Off-Broadway playhouse known as the Renata Theater.

"Evergreen Review" issue In 1967 Barney Rosset’s publishing house the Grove Press and his magazine the Evergreen Review took over the space. According to From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader, in January of that year Grove also announced the acquisition of the prestigious Cinema 16 Film Library, consisting of two hundred shorts and experimental works, including films by Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Peter Weiss, all darlings of the cinematic avant-garde. They opened a small office in the building but began operating a theater for both films and live productions here as well, which became an increasing priority for Rosset.

Barney Rosset However, only a single film became an actual source of income for the business: Vilgot Sjöman's I Am Curious (Yellow). Rosset biographer Loren Glass wrote: Rosset had read about the film by the Ingmar Bergman protégé in the Manchester Guardian during his annual trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1967. Intrigued by its purported combination of sexual frankness and political critique, Rosset asked the president of the Swedish publisher Bonnier to put him in touch with the film's producer. He went to see it, liked it, and promptly purchased the rights to distribute it in the United States. I Am Curious (Yellow) was seized by US Customs in January 1968 and Grove had to arrange for critics to view it at the United States Appraisers Stores in New York City under an agreement that they would not "publicize the contents." These same critics were expert witnesses at the subsequent trial in May. A jury found the film to be obscene, but the Court of Appeals overturned the decision, and for the rest of the year it was shown to packed houses by reservation only at the Evergreen Theater on East 11th Street...It was widely reviewed and discussed, and Rosset aggressively pursued screenings across the country, going so far as to purchase an entire theater in Minneapolis when he couldn't find an exhibitor willing to show it. By September of 1969, the film had made over $5 million across the country, with Grove remunerating local lawyers who defended against obscenity accusations with a percentage of the box office receipts. Grove's stock soared. According to Herman Graf, "In '68 and '69 we had a stronger bottom line than Bantam; we were making money hand over fist."

"I am Curious (Yellow)" film poster, 1967 I Am Curious (Yellow) brought a who’s who of New York’s social elite to the theater, including Jackie Kennedy. According to Glass, the film ultimately brought in $14 million for Grove and Evergreen, but ironically led them into a financial downward spiral. Flush from the success of I Am Curious (Yellow), Rosset began acquiring films left and right, none of which would make the company any money. In fact, they would ultimately lead to the company’s precipitous decline. I Am Curious (Yellow) was not the Evergreen Theatre’s only brush with notoriety. In June of 1968 the theater was showing Andy Warhol’s I, A Man, the pop-artist’s experimental and equally blue take on the erotic Swedish film I, A Woman. Appearing in the film was writer Valerie Solanas, who would try to kill Warhol at his factory just a few blocks away at Union Square West on June 3rd, during the film’s run at the theater. The attempted murder revolved, at least in part, around Solanas’ anger over Warhol’s failure to produce her play Up Your Ass. Warhol had discussed with Solanas doing so on the stages of the Evergreen Theatre; Warhol had a relationship with Rosset and Evergreen/Grove Press, which was publishing his book, A, A Novel. However apparently when Warhol found out that Solanas signed a contract to publish her works with Maurice Girodias’ Olympia Press, a rival publishing house to Grove which also specialized in avant garde and banned titles, he backed away from the deal with Solanas, thus by many accounts precipitating the assassination attempt. The building soon reverted back to showing live theatrical performances, including Beat poet Michael McClure’a controversial play The Beard. It was renamed the SoHo Playhouse, and operated as a gay pornographic theater for many years before being purchased for use as the Baha’i Center in 1976, which it remains today. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Theater historian, educator, actress, and author Dr. Nellie McCaslin was, according to her 2005 New York Times obituary, “the country’s leading authority on children’s theater.” In the 1971 Education Directory: Education Associations, she is included as the President of the National Children’s Theatre Association and listed at 40 East 10th Street. Dr. McCaslin was a professor of educational theater at New York University, and wrote two prominent college textbooks in the field of children’s theater: Theater for Children in the United States: A History and Creative Drama in the Classroom and Beyond. Over the course of her life she also wrote scholarly articles, theater anthologies, and books and plays for children. She also performed as an actress. Dr. McCaslin served as President of the Children’s Theatre Association of America and was awarded the American Alliance for Theater in education lifetime achievement award in 1996. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Tom O’Horgan, a leading figure in experimental theater, lived on the 11th floor of this building from the 1980s to 2007. O’Horgan directed the first stage production of the musical Hair at the Public Theater, and most of his early career work was in Off-Off-Broadway experimental theatre productions.

Tom O’Horgan, 2004 One of his earliest projects was Love and Vexations at the Caffe Cino in September, 1963. He later met Ellen Stewart of La Mama, and the first play he directed there was The Maids by Jean Genet in 1964. He went on to direct some 50 productions at La MaMa. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The previous structure on this site was built in 1927 as the Academy of Music. Originally a deluxe movie palace, the Academy operated as a movie theater through the early 1970s. By the mid-1960s it also served as a 3,000 seat music venue. Demand for this space as a music venue rose following the 1971 closure of the Fillmore East. It was rechristened the Palladium on September 18, 1976, with a live radio broadcast performance by The Band. Notable acts that played the venue include Blue Öyster Cult, Iggy Pop, Kiss, Genesis, the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen Frank Zappa, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Ozzy Osbourne, Motörhead, The Clash, U2, Duran Duran, The Undertones, and Chuck Berry.

“London Calling” by The Clash album cover, 1979 The Clash’s iconic “London Calling” album cover was shot here during a performance in September 1979.

From 1985 to 1997 the Palladium operated as a nightclub. In 1997 the building was demolished to make way for a 12-story NYU dorm housing over 1,100 students. NYU appropriated the name Palladium for the dorm as what we can only assume to be an effort to honor the site’s history.

A twelve-story NYU residence hall is now located at this site. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The Puerto Rican club, cafe, theater, and gallery Rincón Taíno was located at 113 East 12th Street in the 1980s. According to a 1983 New York Times article, its largest-scale production at that time was its “Festival of the Americas,” two nights of 10-act bills performed at Symphony Space on Broadway at 95th Street. Other productions by Rincón Taíno included the U.S. premiere of the comedy “Doña Ramona” by an Uruguayan playwright, and the zarzuela (a Spanish musical-drama genre) El Barberillo de Lavapiés put together by Concertante Musical Society. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

84 East 10th Street once housed the Off-Bowery Theater, which showcased performances by the New York Poets Theatre during the early 1960s. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Variety Theatre, 1960. Photo © Estate of Fred W. McDarrah The Variety Photoplays Theater on Third Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets was one of New York’s few surviving nickelodeon houses from the earliest stages of moving pictures. It was demolished in 2005 in spite of a campaign by Village Preservation to seek landmark status for the building. Though its earliest history is somewhat unclear, it seems that the original building that housed the Variety Theater at 110 Third Avenue was constructed as early as 1897. Only 25 feet wide and just under 100 feet deep, it was most likely a store or residence that was altered to convert the space into a two story theater in 1914. As the moving picture craze swept the city in the early twentieth century, nickelodeon theaters sprung up all around the city to cash in on and bring the new medium to the masses.

While the Union Square area had served as home to the center of legitimate theater in New York in the late nineteenth century, as the twentieth century progressed that center moved north, and the neighboring East Village area became a center of ethnic theater and popular theater, movie houses, nickelodeons, and dance halls. The uses of other nearby sites such as Webster Hall, the Yiddish Art Theater, and the Academy of Music/Palladium on 14th Street all reflect this. The Variety seated 450 and as the Times notes, “first presented groups of two-reelers, collections of individual features, each 15 or 20 minutes long. This was at a period when the feature-length film was still uncommon and films in general were generally considered low-culture — ”photo plays or not.” In 1930, a balcony, new lobby, and art deco renovations to the original 1923 marquee sign were made by architects Boak and Paris.

Because of its limited size, the Variety never attracted the best first-run films, and by the late 1960s, the Variety — like many other struggling theaters in New York — turned to blue movies to help keep it afloat. By the 1970s and 1980s, the theater screened a somewhat unpredictable mélange of B and/or C-grade films as well as soft and hardcore pornography. The theater space also became a meeting place for gay men. A writer for the Bright Lights Film Journal described the scene when he visited the Variety in 1984: “Upon entering the auditorium, I saw the movie was playing upside-down. This lasted a good fifteen minutes. Nobody complained or perhaps even noticed… It was like stepping into a time capsule. I noticed four large globe-like lighting fixtures that had somehow survived the decades. The walls were an unremarkable (patched) plaster, but the ceiling was special, composed of patterned pressed tin. There was a single modest balcony. My main memory was of patrons moving about the theater in a constant bustle and streaming into and out of the toilets oddly situated down front below the screen and surely a distraction for anyone trying to watch the film. The room was filled with the continual rustlings and creakings of people on the move. It was more like a mass happening than a movie screening, and in fact I have no recollection of the film at all.”

"Taxi Driver" film poster, 1976 As the cinematic quality of the films shown at the Variety declined during the 1970s and 80s, so did the reputation of the surrounding East Village neighborhood. The Variety Theater was even featured in the film Taxi Driver. The Variety ended its run as a movie theater in 1989 when it was closed by the city’s health department, but later reopened in 1991 as a live off-Broadway theater.

It ran for more than a decade as the Variety Arts Theater until 2004 when it was closed and demolished in 2005 to make room for a 21-story condominium tower. Village Preservation campaigned to get the historic theater landmarked, but the City refused to act, in spite of the building being one of the few remaining structures in New York which served as a nickelodeon. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

By 1899, this building was converted into lofts and a concert hall on the ground floor. Starting in this era, a saloon and concert hall called Blank’s Winter Garden showcased vaudeville performers and attracted Tin Pan Alley songwriters as a venue to present their works.

Lyric Theatre, 1936 During the 1900s, different theater companies occupied the space: first the Comet, and then the Lyric Theater in 1936. In the 1960s-70s, it was called the Jewel Theater, known for playing all-male films. In the 1980s it was the Bijou, which played XXX fares until city officials closed it in 1989. For many years it went back and forth between showing classic repertory films and all-male pornographic fare, until the theater was closed entirely in the early 2010s when the building underwent a renovation with a huge addition added. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Playwright, screenwriter, author, and librettist Terrence McNally (Nov. 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) lived at 41-43 University Pl (also known as 29 East 9th Street.) 29 East 9th Street. Called “the bard of American theater” by the New York Times and “one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced” by Rex Reed, McNally won five Tonys, including a lifetime achievement award, an Emmy, and two Obies, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. McNally debuted at least one Broadway play each decade in the six decades between his Broadway debut and death in 2020. Following his death in 2020, the Committee of Theatre Owners dimmed the lights of Broadway theaters for one minute on November 3rd, 2020, on what would have been his 83rd birthday.

Playwright, screenwriter, author, and librettist Terrence McNally (Nov. 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) lived at 41-43 University Pl (also known as 29 East 9th Street.)

McNally wrote more than three dozen plays, as well as the books for several musicals. Among his more prominent plays are The Ritz (1975), Frankie and Johnnie and the Clair de Lune (1982), The Lisbon Traviata (1989), Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), Master Class (1995) (McNally won Tony Awards for the last two), Corpus Christi (1998), Mothers and Sons (2014). He also wrote the books for the Broadway musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman (1992), Ragtime (1996) (McNally won Tony Awards for the last two), and The Full Monty (2000), among others. McNally’s plays were often noted for introducing theater audiences to characters and situations that mainstream theater had typically shunted into comic asides. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Designed by the prominent architecture firm of Sugarman and Berger in 1929, this 12-story apartment building was home to many notable New Yorkers. In the 1950s, the eighth floor was home to actor Johnathan Harris at the beginning of his stage career.

Jonathan Harris (1914-2002) was born in the Bronx and graduated from Fordham University. He started embellishing his resume to gain experience with a playhouse on Long Island. This led to him landing a leading role in the Broadway play The Heart of a City. In 1946, he starred in A Flag is Born on Broadway with Marlon Brando and Quentin Reynolds.

Following his successful Broadway career, Harris had a strong television and film presence. One of his most notable roles was Dr. Zachary Smith in the 1960s TV show Lost In Space. He was originally cast as a guest, and he negotiated himself as a recurring special guest star, making himself a memorable cast member. Harris continued acting in children's shows, such as Space Academy, and made special appearances in shows including Bewitched. He was a voice actor in many movies, including Spider-Man, A Bug's Life, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and Toy Story 2. He was also a coach to such notable actors as Chuck Norris. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .