The Neighborhood Playhouse -- 466 Grand Street

Sisters Irene and Alice Lewisohn were unmarried, wealthy and refined in 1905.  The young Jewish women became involved with Lillian D. Wald’s Henry Street Settlement as volunteers in club activities.  Wald, along with another nurse, Mary M. Brewster, had established the organization on the Lower East Side to provide social services and nursing to the impoverished residents.  Their work, heavily funded by the generosity of banker Jacob Schiff who also donated a building, had branched out to include club activities like crafts, music, drama and painting.

The Lewisohn women were highly interested in the stage.  Alice had been trained in acting and Irene had studied “expressive gesture.”  They brought this focus to Henry Street and initially formed a dramatic dance group which performed in festivals.  The New York Times noted in 1915, “During the last eight years, the festival groups of the Henry Street Settlement have presented seasonal festivals and pantomimes in the gymnasium.”  They hoped to bring pride and self worth to the impoverished youngsters through creative expression.

In 1912, the women organized the Dramatic Club, presenting cutting edge plays such as The Shepard by Olive Tilford Dargan, and The Silver Box by John Galsworthy at Clinton Hall.  The New York Times noted, “These productions reached a point where the development of the players, the interest of the audiences, and the response of the neighborhood seemed to demand the direction of [a] playhouse.”

On October 4, 1913, the Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide reported that the Board of Examiners had approved plans for “Neighborhood Hall,” a 300-seat auditorium designed by Harry Creighton Ingalls and E. F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr.  The Lewisohn sisters funded the $60,000 project, located at 466 through 470 Grand Street.   Although construction did not begin until April 1914, it was nearly completed on January 25, 1915 when The New York Times described the structure.

The architecture of the playhouse was determined largely by the character of the original buildings in its neighborhood.  The exterior is distinctly Georgian and the interior, while based on Georgian principles, is not intended to represent any particular style or period.  The façade is of light red brick with marble trimmings.  The third story, which sets back from the street, is of stucco.  The entrance doors are green and the shutters of the windows green.

While it was nice to think that Ingalls & Hoffman were inspired in their neo-Georgian style by the “original buildings in the neighborhood,” it was more likely architectural fashion that directed them.  Neo-Georgian structures had been appearing throughout the city for several years and, as a matter of fact, the architects had designed the similar Little Theatre on West 44th Street in 1912.  And The New York Times admitted later, “It is not unlike Winthrop Ames’s Little Theatre both as to the Colonial architecture of its facade and the size and shape of its auditorium.”

The Lewisohn sisters intended their theater to follow the “Little Theater” movement, which focused on experimental plays and intimate spaces—making the audience nearly a part of the drama.  They were also highly involved in the design, introducing innovations that outshone even the Broadway theaters.  Among these was the rear of the stage, constructed as a quarter-dome.  It enabled realistic sky effects with no angles.

The New York Times was impressed with the multi-purpose third floor, which it deemed “distinctive.”  

Across the front runs a large rehearsal room, which will be used for occasional dances as well as for regular class work.  This room can be divided by sliding doors into two huge dressing rooms, one of which in turn can be further subdivided by movable screens into as many dressing rooms as are required.  Besides these, there are two individual dressing rooms.

The Neighborhood Playhouse would present “plays new to New York audiences.”  Weekends were devoted to children’s programs, including the seasonal festivals, pantomime ballets and “fairy plays.”  The New York Times advised, “On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays the offerings will consist of moving pictures, playlets, camera talks, folk songs and dances, illustrated fairy tales, marionettes and music, running continuously from 1:30 P.M. to 11 P.M. o’clock.”  The price of admission was set at 5 and 10 cents during the week, and 25 and 50 cents on weekends.

The theater opened on February 12, 1915 with Jephtha’s Daughter, written especially for the occasion.  Temperance: A Monthly Journal of the Church Temperance Society, said the play was “woven out of the traditions of the neighborhood.”   The journal pointed out that the neighborhood residents and children were greatly involved. 

For, while the tiny new theatre is complete in every detail of mechanical equipment, costumes, properties, music, orchestration, and acting are all attributable to the Henry Street festival groups and dramatic clubs which from now on will be known as the Neighborhood Players.

Tiny comrades pulled threads to make the fringe, costume designers and makers,  fashioners of jewelry, painters and composers, musicians and seamstresses, producers and directors all contributed in varying degrees.

The Sun mentioned after opening night, “One of the interesting features of the production lay in the fact that the costumes and properties, designed by Esther Peck, were made by classes of the Neighborhood Playhouse

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Neighborhood girls act in Jephtha's Daughter on opening night in costumes by Esther Peck -- The Survey, June 3 1916 (copyright expired)

Critics were most impressed with the domed stage that evening.  The New York Times reported the next morning, “The use of the back wall of the stage, its white surface bathed in blue light, made a wrinkle-less sky far superior to scores of skies professional stages of Broadway have shown.”

Two weeks later George P. Baker, a drama professor at Harvard University, arrived in New York specifically to inspect the stage.  The New York Times reported on February 28, 1915, “Mr. Baker was greatly interested in the modern stage with which the theatre is equipped, and particularly with its modification of the sky dome…As it stands, it is a more effective sky than any other that shimmers in a Broadway playhouse.”

Neighborhood women with wicker baby carriages gather to chat outside the playhouse in 1917 --from the collection of the Library of Congress

The meager admission price and the cost of productions were highly out of balance.  On June 3, 1916 The Survey noted, “The Neighborhood Playhouse is, of course, not self-supporting…As a matter of information the Neighborhood Playhouse incurs a deficit of something like $10,000 a year.”   But the magazine was optimistic, saying the shortfall “will be less with successive years.”  The screening of motion pictures helped greatly in closing the deficit.

The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger explained the financial dynamics in two sentences.  “Financial worries, the festering sore of every dramatic or art center in the country, never developed in the case of the Playhouse.  The Lewisohn girls endowed it.”

The building offered more to the neighborhood than the theater.  Recreation reminded readers in 1916:

But the auditorium—even with such a roster of presentations—presents only a part of the Playhouse activities.  On the roof is a playground, sunny and pure above the varied smells of Grand Street, where many happy days are spent by the children of the crowded neighborhood.  A spacious room, which may be divided into two by the use of rolling partitions, is regularly used for the dancing classes and dramatic groups, working not only for production, but for the joy of the thing.  Classes in designing, poster-drawing, stage sets and properties under skilled direction provide costumes, settings and properties for performances as a result of delightful hours spent in learning the craft.

Additional funds came from leasing the auditorium.  In February 1916, it was the scene of meetings of The Woman’s Peace Party, during which the members wrote a telegram to the congressmen of the district that read, “We urge you to vote against war preparations at this session of Congress.  Such preparations are unnecessary, extravagant and dangerous to democracy.  They will forever destroy America’s hope of starting a plan of world union which will end war.”

Later that year members of the Industrial New York Woman Suffrage Party held a nighttime garden party on the roof.  The New York Times reported, “there were songs about labor and woman suffrage, led by Mrs. Laura Elliot.  The entertainment closed with dancing and refreshments.”

from the collection of the New York Public Library

While these women’s groups attempted to change history, the Lewisohn sisters continued to search for new works.  On November 14 that year the season opened with a new play by George Bernard Shaw, Great Catherine.  Two other so-far unstaged plays, The Inca of Perusalem and Lord Dunsany’s The Queen’s Enemies were scheduled for later that season.

The success of the venue was such that in 1917 the Lewisohn sisters purchased the abutting 8 Pitt Street.  The Record and Guide reported on March 10 that Ingalls & Hoffman had been brought back to design the “alteration and addition” to the Playhouse.  The resulting expansion housed additional dressing rooms, classrooms, studios and rehearsal space.

By now the list of famous guest stars that had appeared with the local players was impressive.  Among them were Ellen Terry, Gertrude Kingston, Ethel Barrymore, Emanuel and Hedwig Reicher, David Bispham and Eric Blind.  Despite the fame of the headliners, the audiences in the packed house continued to be charged the same admission.

Cutting-edge playwrights also made their mark on the Neighborhood Playhouse.  Several of Lord Dunsany’s plays premiered here.  In 1917 playwright Constance D’Arcy Mackay noted in her The Little Theatre in the United States that the Neighborhood Players had staged the first production of his A Night at the Inn, “termed by many critics the greatest one-act play written by any author in the last ten years.”

Earlier that year, in January, trouble came when police raided a Sunday performance and arrested Bessie Kaplan, the treasurer, for violating the Sabbath law.  The law prohibited Sunday entertainments “which are serious interruptions of the repose and religious liberty of the community.”  (The law did not take into account the fact that the Jewish Sabbath was on Saturday, not Sunday; and that the majority of the neighborhood residents were Jewish.)  On January 30 Lillian Wald and one of the Lewisohn sisters appeared before Magistrate Breen in the Essex Market Court.

Lillian testified that the shows were solely charitable and philanthropic and told the judge that the theater was not for profit, “but shows a deficit of some $12000 to $16,000 a year.”  The New York Times reported, “Miss Lewisohn testified to the character of the play and the playhouse.  Miss Lewisohn stated that she and her sister had in the past paid the deficit.”

It was not until March 2 that the magistrate made his decision.   Breen announced that the Playhouse could continue to give performances on Sunday, saying “that neither the repose nor the religious liberty of the community in question was in any way interrupted.”

The year 1919 started out badly and ended well for the Neighborhood Playhouse.  One of the students in Irene Lewisohn’s dance class was 13-year-old Rose Batkin.   That spring, jewelry and purses began disappearing from the coat room.  In an effort to trap the thief, Irene and another instructor, Mabel Moore, planted a purse in Mabel’s coat.   Through amateur covert surveillance, they watched Rose handle the coat, after which the purse disappeared.

Irene Lewisohn questioned Rose, and then visited her mother, “in the true interests of the child,” as Irene worded it.  Irene soon found that apples do not fall far from trees.

Jennie Batkin sued Irene for $10,000 in damages for slanderous statements, saying, “Miss Lewisohn called her daughter a thief and accused her of stealing the purse.”  The case went to court on May 31.  Jennie Batkin’s scheme to make quick money backfired.  That afternoon The Evening World reported “Miss Irene Lewisohn, society woman and banker’s daughter…was to-day awarded a judgement [sic] of $108.45 against Mrs. Jennie Batkin.”  The court found that Irene had not made public accusations and there was no slander.  Mrs. Batkin was, therefore, forced to pay Irene’s legal bills.

Later that year Lord Dunsany sailed from England to see his work performed in the little theater.  On October 17, 1919 The New York Times reported “Lord Dunsany last night visited the Neighborhood Playhouse in Grand Street the scene of the first presentation of a Dunsany play in America, and was the centre of an interested and excited audience which saw ‘The Queen’s Enemies' and 'A Night at an Inn,’ played again in the playwright’s honor.”

Alice Lewisohn (right) played the title role in Lord Dunsany's The Queen's Enemies --from the collection of the New York Public Library

The newspaper reminded readers that the first Dunsany play ever produced in America, The Glittering Gate had been performed here nearly five years earlier.  “Dunsany, who has seen his plays acted only upon rare occasions, was apparently vastly delighted by the experience, and paid tribute to the Neighborhood Players in speech in which he said that ‘A Night at an Inn,’ as acted by them was a far more powerful play than he had imagined it.”

On October 11, 1920 the auditorium was the scene of a far less joyful event.  A memorial service for the Henry Settlement’s greatest benefactor, Jacob H. Schiff, was held here.  More than 400 people crowded into the little theater.  Among the speakers, of course, was Lillian Wald.  She told “of the effort and expense to which he had gone in establishing the settlement and of the great amount of energy he expended in trying to broaden its scope so that the boys and girls of New York might be aided in learning and in having a proper place to study.”

In 1925 the Playhouse made a social and political statement about a hot topic—censorship—with its production of Grand Street Follies.  The New York Times critic Stark Young on June 21 described, “A clean-up committee drawn from society, ex-choruses, plumbers and professional vice-hunters, looks into the dark evil that may lurk in Movies, Roadhouses, Restoration Drama, War Plays, Opera and all golden pleasure.  The personnel of censoring committees comes in of satire, the whole scheme is laid open, blown into the air, danced from bright toes, laughed at, spanked and presented with its diploma of asininity.”

At the very height of its popularity, the Neighborhood Playhouse stopped presenting plays.  The New York Times deemed, “It was, in a way, killed by its own success.”   On September 21, 1938 the newspaper added, “Its successor, the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, still goes on, influencing our drama less directly but probably just as powerfully.”

Throughout the next decades the Neighborhood Playhouse building would continue to house the performing arts.  In 1948 it became home to the dance company and school founded by Alwin Nikolais.  It remained here until 1970.  Later it became the New Federal Theatre.  The Playhouse has come full circle and is today the Abrons Arts Center, the performing and visual arts program of the Henry Street Settlement.

photographs by the author

The Henry Miller's Theatre -- 124 West 43rd Street

photograph by the author

By the first decade of the 20^th century, actor Henry Miller was not only a leading man, but a successful theatrical manager.  In 1916, Miller joined the trend of stage stars like Maxine Elliot, John Wallack and Edward Harrigan who were erecting and operating their own theaters.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Backed by the wealthy socialite and philanthropist Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, Miller laid plans for a Times Square theater when the brownstone home of Sarah M. Moore at 124 West 43^rd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue became available.  It was an unexpected move for Anderson—she was more well-known for her activism and financial support of public health, women’s education, and African-American education.

Felix Isman first purchased the Moore house, adding to his 43^rd Street holdings that now stretched from 124 through 130 West 43rd Street.  His intention was to erect “a large theatrical enterprise, which later, however, failed to develop,” explained the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide in 1916.

Instead, in December 1916, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson purchased the plots, then leased the property to Henry Miller “for twenty one years with renewal privileges.”  The Record & Guide reported, “a new theatre will be erected in West 43d street by Henry Miller for the presentation of his own plays.”   It added, “The amount involved in the sale, lease and the erection of the new building will approximate $1,000,000.”

Miller assembled what was a team, of sorts, of architects.  On January 6, 1918, The Sun reported, “The architects are Paul R. Allen, in association with Henry Creighton Ingalls and F. Burrall Hoffman, who, jointly or individually, were responsible for the Century, Winthrop Ames’s Little Theatre and the Globe Theatre.”  Almost equally important in the designing process was Miller, himself.  “Many of Mr. Miller’s ideas as to what a theatre ought to be, gained in his years of experience in his profession, are embodied in the theatre,” said The Sun.

The rapid-fire construction of theaters in the Times Square area had, by now, jaded reporters.  As the building neared completion on January 6, 1918, the New-York Tribune wrote, “New York is no longer surprised at the opening of a new theater, and none will interest the theatergoer more than Henry Miller’s Theatre in West Forty-third Street.”  The newspaper held out hope that this one would stand out.  “The actor manager’s prominence in his profession holds out the promise that his theatre, which has been constructed under his direction and embodies many of his ideas, will be something rather out of the ordinary.”

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Sun agreed.  That same day, it opined, “Many theatres have been opened in New York in the last few years and several are at present under construction.  The novelty has almost worn off, still there is something about Henry Miller’s Theatre that makes it different from many others.”

The architects turned to the recently popular neo-Georgian style of architecture.  The stately red brick façade trimmed in white stone recalled Colonial architecture with its elegant many-paned arched openings, shallow pilasters with ornate capitals, and massive classical stone urns set deeply within story-tall niches.

The interior followed suit: “Adam in design,” with a color scheme of “old ivory and antique gold.”  The auditorium was capable of seating 1,000 and the double balcony suggested a modern motion picture palace rather than a legitimate theater.   With a good-hearted jab at audience members who customarily strained to see what others were wearing or with whom they arrived, it was announced that all 200 patrons sitting in the balconies “will be able to see the stage even if they do not get a good view of the rest of the audience.”

A massive crystal chandelier illuminated the lavish auditorium, which featured two balconies -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Henry Miller’s Theatre opened on the night of April 1, 1918 with Louis Evan Shipman’s The Fountain of Youth.  Critics applauded the new venue.  The Sun reported, “There are ample taste and comfort, convenience and illusion of the various departments of the Henry Miller Theatre, so there is no deficiency to be noted there.”

Critic Heywood Broun agreed (although he would have chosen a different curtain).  “It is an excellent thing for New York that Henry Miller should have his own theatre, for he is a good actor and a conscientious one.  His theatre, the Henry Miller, is a delight, if you don’t mind the curtain too much.  The smoking room is certainly the finest in town.”

Broun panned the show, however.  “Louis Evan Shipman has endeavored to create an atmosphere of mellow gayety.  Instead, he gains the effect of a middle-aged Methodist minister making his first address to the young men of the Boys’ Club down in the church gymnasium.”

The New York Times agreed regarding the new auditorium, while being a bit kinder about the play itself.  “At the opening of Henry Miller’s Theatre last night good taste was lapped in luxury as seldom before.  Every detail of the new house is studied with intelligent regard to comfort of the body and repose of the eye.”  The critic said of The Fountain of Youth “the little comedy of the evening is slight indeed.”

The luxurious interiors included a "sitting room" (above) -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Almost immediately following the theater’s opening, a blind man began peddling his pencils on the sidewalk outside.  Henry Miller had compassion for Joseph Hahn and The New York Times, years later, mentioned, “Frequently overzealous patrolmen have attempted to chase the blind man from his post, but on every occasion Mr. Miller had gone to his aid and got back Han’s theatre stand for him.”

Elizabeth Milbank Anderson died in 1921 leaving an estate of about $7 million, most of which was left to charity.  The land under the Henry Miller’s Theatre was sold by the estate in March 1922 for about $570,000.  The change in property ownership was not noticed by theater-goers.  It simply meant that Henry Miller’s rent checks were payable to a different landlord.

Miller starred in most of the plays produced here, and managed to book some of the most recognized names in the American theater.  The matinee performance of Romeo and Juliet on April 19, 1923 marked Jane Cowl’s 100^th performance as Juliet.  The actress was presented with a reproduction of the 1623 edition of Shakespeare’s play in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire.  She donated all the proceeds of the following Monday’s performance to establish a memorial to Sarah Bernhardt.

Helen Hayes appeared the following year in Quarantine.  Norman-Bel Geddes designed the impressive sets.  The New York Times reported on December 16, 1924, “Helen Hayes at Henry Miller’s Theatre last night appeared to hold most of her audience in her hand and to tie them into rosy and ingenious love knots whenever she liked.”

On Monday evening, April 5, 1926 Henry Miller prepared to open in a new play here, A Stranger in the House.  He was still suffering from a cold he had contracted in Baltimore, but according to The New York Times later, “He did not regard it as serious enough to prevent him from appearing the opening night and went to the theatre about 6 o’clock.”

Shortly after arriving, the actor became ill and his doctor, Edward Cussler, was called.  Miller was taken to this apartment at 101 West 57^th Street and opening night went on without him.  The following morning he was taken to New York Hospital, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia in the right lung.  At around 11:15 on the night of April 9, he died.

Miller’s funeral was originally scheduled to take place in the Church of the Transfiguration, known as “The Little Church Around the Corner,” or “The Actor’s Church,” on Monday April 12.   The services were moved to Tuesday, a change that one mourner missed.

Joseph Hahn, the blind pencil vendor, sat for an hour in the church until someone realized the situation and informed him of the postponement of the funeral.  (After nearly two decades, Hahn still operated his little stand in front of the theater.)

Ironically, when the hundreds of prominent men and women from the theatrical profession filed into the church the following morning, a policeman barred Joseph Hahn.   The poor blind man's threadbare clothing stood out among the well-dressed crowd.  But, as Henry Miller had done so many times, a friend came to Hahn’s rescue and escorted him into the church.  Among the celebrity mourners were George M. Cohan, Channing Pollock, Amelia Bingham, Ina Claire, Otis Skinner, David Belasco, John Drew and A. L. Erlanger.

While many Broadway theaters suffered heavily during the Great Depression, Henry Miller’s Theatre kept on with respected plays and headlining actors.  Among those who played here were Leslie Howard, Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks, and Ruth Chatterton.  Nevertheless, on June 20, 1931 management announced that “the best seats” had been reduced from $3.85 to $3.

Barbara Bel Geddes, Donald Cook and Barry Nelson appeared in The Moon is Blue, which ran from 1951 through 1953.  photo by Vandamm from the collection of The Museum of the City of New York

In the early 1960s, the theater was still presenting big names.  On May 13, 1964 Josephine Baker opened her 24-run show.  The day after that performance ended, Helen Hayes, now 64 years old, returned to the Henry Miller in The White House, co-starring James Daly.  Later that year Arnold Scaasi opened in P.S. I Love You; and in November it was announced that Auntie Mame would open on February 10, 1965.

Two days after the opening of Auntie Mame, 80-year old Gilbert Miller confirmed reports that the Henry Miller’s Theatre was for sale.  On April 20, 1966, The New York Times reported that it had been sold to H. William Fitelson, a lawyer, for $625,000.

Legitimate theater soon gave way to art movies.  But the deteriorating condition of West 43^rd Street took its toll.  By the 1970s, the former Henry Miller’s Theatre (it was renamed a few times, including the Park-Miller and the Avon-at-the-Hudson Theater), had become a seedy pornographic movie venue.

Howard Stein closed down the movie theater in 1977, gutted the auditorium in a $2 million conversion, and reopened it in June 1978 as Xenon, a disco that rivaled Studio 54.  When that club closed, it was resurrected as Shout in the late 1980s, and Club Expo in the ‘90s.

Conditions were encapsulated in a single sentence in The New York Times in 1996: “Neighbors complain that rowdy teen-agers frequent Club Expo, a nightclub at 124 West 43d Street, where a 23-year-old patron was stabbed to death with a broken bottle in April.”

It appeared that the beleaguered theater was breathing new life when a stage revival of Cabaret opened in 1998 following the closure of Club Expo.  A remodeling of the interior reflected the war-time Germany sets.  The theater was renamed the Kit Kat Klub, echoing the Cabaret theme.  The last play produced in Henry Miller’s 1918 auditorium was Urinetown, which opened in 2001.

The theater was closed and demolished 2004 for construction of the 55-story Bank of America Tower facing Bryant Park.  The façade was preserved as the face of a new 1,055 seat theater within the new building.  It was named the Stephen Sondheim Theater in 2010 on the composer-lyricist’s 80^th birthday.

photograph by the author

While facadism—the practice of preserving only the façade of a historic building while demolishing the rest—is routinely decried by preservation purists.  Yet, at least, the elegant neo-Georgian front survives despite the lamentable cost.

The 1912 Helen Hayes Theater -- 240 West 44th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In the first decade of the 20^th century Manhattan’s theater district had firmly rooted itself in the Times Square neighborhood, having gradually relocated from 23^rd Street.   On the side streets along Broadway rose grand Beaux Arts or Classic-revival theaters with lavish interiors capable of seating large audiences.  Winthrop Ames had other ideas.

Born into a wealthy Massachusetts family in 1871, Ames attended Harvard University where he majored in drama (much to the consternation of his socially-prominent family).    Upon graduation, he was convinced to find a more conventional profession.  He did not join the family business, Ames Shovel & Tool Company, however.  Instead he worked with Bates & Guild, the publishers of The Architectural Review.  Ames had studied architecture in college, as well.

The draw of the stage was too much to resist and six years later, in 1904, he partnered with Loren F. Deland to produce a wide array of entertainments—from light opera to modern drama--as managers of the Castle Square Theater in Boston.  Then, after extensively touring Europe in 1907 to learn about modern technicalities of theater design, Ames moved to New York and managed the large New Theater.  It was an experimental American version of European dramatic arts that soon failed.

Ames felt the problem with the New Theater was not what it offered—non-commercial repertory theater based on the government-subsidized theaters like the Comedie Francaise—but the ponderous problems of running a large house.  What was needed, he felt, was a little theater.

In 1912, he built the Little Theater, paying for it with his own money.  He leased land from the John Jacob Astor Estate on the south side of 44^th Street between Eighth Avenue and Broadway where middle-class brownstone residences still lined the block.  

Architects Ingalls & Hoffman were responsible for the design, which also stepped away from the conventional design of Broadway theaters.  Ames instructed them on what he had seen in Europe:  small auditoriums in which the audience was nearly a part of the play.  And he it all to have a home-like atmosphere.

Theatre Magazine published a drawing of the new theater in 1912--NYPL Collection

The firm produced a neo-Georgian structure of red brick and stone, with shuttered windows and splayed keystones.  Inside, the Adams-like detailing continued, giving the theater patron the feeling of being a guest at the home of a friend, rather than entering a lavish gilded hall.  The lounges had crackling fires in homey fireplaces to enhance the mood.  There was no balcony and the auditorium could seat a mere 299 patrons in an intimate setting with no seat being overly-far from the stage.

One critic wrote, “This is the house of Mr. Winthrop Ames; the patrons are his guests for the nonce, in an old colonial house behind a garden wall…The auditorium is most unusual.   It is as though a high and spacious room in a private house had been converted into a theater, by putting in an inclined floor and cutting a proscenium opening in the further wall.”

When the theater was completed, brownstone residences still lined 44th Street -- photo NYPL Collection

Not every critic agreed, however; some feeling that the new theater tried to be “aristocratic.”  And when Ames set the ticket prices at the surprisingly-high $2.50 for all seats, eyebrows were raised.  The common theater-goer, people complained, could not afford such expense.

But Ames pushed on.  He opened the theater with John Galsworthy’s The Pigeon to the acclaim of drama critic Ward Morehouse who deemed it “thoughtfully written” and said it “brought forth human and delightful characterizations.”

Adams-style decorations adorn the portico and a neo-Georgian entrance smacked of an elegant residence -- photo by Alice Lum

In March that year, he staged Charles Ran Kennedy’s one-act play The Terrible Meek, a historical drama centered around the crucifixion.  The New York Times critic was stunned.  “The effect was remarkable.  The usual applause was omitted, women put on their hats and wraps without a word, and the men in the audience, if they talked at all, did so in whispers and muffled tones.  Not until they had passed from the theatre into the street did most of them attempt to comment on what they had seen.”

Ames' goal, he said, was to stage “the clever, the unusual drama that had a chance of becoming a library classic.”  And, financing the productions with his own money, he continued with new plays like George Bernard Shaw’s The Philanderer in 1913, and Cyril Harcourt’s comedy A Pair of Stockings in 1914.

But by March 11, 1915, Ames was struggling.  The New York Times noted that the producer was in financial difficulty and could lose his theater.  The plays were successful, the audiences and critics gushing with compliments, but the house was too small to support itself.  Ames’ lofty ideal was a victim of its own design.

Ames swallowed those ideals in favor of financial sense and commissioned architect Herbert J. Krapp to enlarge the space.  The three-year renovation began in 1917 and when it was completed in 1920 there was now a larger stage and a balcony that increased the seating capacity to 450.  To augment income Ames began leasing the theater as well to other producers, such as Oliver Morosco and John Golden.

The replacement shutters, which the AIA Guide to New York City called "awful pseudo-shutters that, of course, don't shut," take the place of the green originals -- photo by Alice Lum

Throughout the years, the Little Theater was home to productions by up-and-coming playwrights that included some major hits.  Rachel Crothers directed her own play, A Little Journey, that ran for 252 performances.  Eugene O’Neill’s first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon, was staged here, winning the Pulitzer Prize.  In October 1920, Frank Craven’s The First Year opened and would go on for an astonishing 760 performances.

Despite the successful plays, by 1922 Ames had lost half a million dollars on the Little Theatre.  When he died in 1937, his fortune was gone.  His estate amounted to about $77,000 and his wife left their mansion in humiliation to live in a small bungalow on the grounds.

Nevertheless, the Little Theatre continued on, producing new works by exciting playwrights with both known and upcoming actors.  In 1930, Edward G. Robinson was noticed for his role in Mr. Samuel, and in 1936 Sir Cedric Hardwicke made his American debut here in Promise.  The great Cornelia Otis Skinner put on a one-woman show, Edna His Wife, in here in 1937. 

In 1931, The New York Times now owned the theater building, which abutted its headquarters, and announced plans to demolish it to create a delivery truck entrance to the Times Building.  The negative reaction from the public caused the newspaper to rethink its plans, and it became the unlikely owner and producer of a Broadway theater, now called New York Times Hall.

The Times briefly leased the theater to CBS Studios -- photo NYPL Collection

Then, in 1941 The New York Times closed the doors, using the space only for an occasional lecture or concert.  For a decade the product of Winthrop Ames’ dreams sat dark.   ABC-TV leased the space in 1951 to use as a television studio until 1963.

That year a private corporation purchased the building and re-established it as a legitimate theater.  It opened with a gospel spectacle Tambourines to Glory by Langston Hughes and Jobe Huntley.  The following year Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and James Costigan appeared in Baby Want a Kiss, an Actors Studio production.  Later in 1964, when the Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Subject Was Roses was staged here, the theater was renamed the Winthrop Ames.

That name did not last long.  Later that year, the theater was leased to Westinghouse Broadcasting to be used, again, as a television studio.  For a decade productions like the David Frost and Merv Griffin shows were aired from here.  Viewers of the Merv Griffin Show heard Arthur Treacher nightly announce, “From the Little Theatre in Times Square, it’s the Merv Griffin Show.”

Finally, in 1974 the Little Theater opened as a legitimate theater once again.  In 1977, a play moved in that would have warmed the heart of Winthrop Ames.  Gemini, by Albert Innaurato, was the “clever and unusual drama” Ames had searched for.  The show ran 1,788 performances, the longest running play in the theater’s history and the fourth-longest running on Broadway.

In 1979, the building was purchased by the Little Theatre Group headed by Donald Tick and Martin Markinson.  Two years later they restored the building and commissioned ADCADESIGN to refurbish the interiors.

Like Gemini, Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein and Prelude to a Kiss by Craig Lucas epitomized the original purpose of the Little Theatre–bringing thought-provoking, new works to the New York audience.

In order for the immense Marriott Marquis Hotel to be constructed in Times Square, numerous buildings had to be demolished.  Among these was the Helen Hayes Theatre on West 46^th Street.  It was an awkward moment in 1982 when the beloved actress’s namesake theater was razed while she was still alive.

The original carved plaque announcing the theater's name survives above the entrance -- photo by Alice Lum

To remedy the situation, the Little Theater was renamed the Helen Hayes in July 1983 as a tribute to the veteran actress who had become an icon in the theatrical community.   The delightfully-unique theater is still the smallest theater in the Broadway district and, like Winthrop Ames, its management is decidedly independent.