Gramercy Theatre

127 East 23rd Street | also 129 East 23rd Street | Gramercy | built 1937

Open on the map8 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1937

    Charles A. Sandblom designs the Streamline Moderne Gramercy Park Theatre

    Architect Charles A. Sandblom designs the theater at 127 East 23rd Street in the Streamline Moderne style. It opens as the Gramercy Park Theatre, named to distinguish it from an older Gramercy Theatre on First Avenue, and drops "Park" from its name after that earlier venue closes in the early 1950s.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1992

    City Cinemas closes the Gramercy after a spell as a Hollywood classics revival house

    Cinema V's operation became City Cinemas in the late 1980s, and the Gramercy did record business until the nine-screen Chelsea Cinemas from Cineplex Odeon opened and big crowds vanished. City Cinemas tried the theater briefly as a revival house for Hollywood classics, then closed it in 1992.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1995

    The theater becomes the city's only Bollywood movie house

    Real estate investor Amit Govil revives the former theater as the only movie house in the five boroughs to show exclusively films made in India. Around the same time, the Fugees film their music video for "Killing Me Softly" on location at the theater.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1998

    The theater reopens as the city's largest off-Broadway playhouse

    A renovation converts the former movie house into a 499-seat theater, the largest off-Broadway venue in the city. Starting in 1999, the Roundabout Theatre Company stages plays by contemporary writers here, including Charles Randolph-Wright's Blue with Phylicia Rashad and Martin McDonagh's A Skull in Connemara. Its last production, Edward Albee's All Over, closes in 2002.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1999

    The Roundabout Theatre Company, evicted from the Criterion Center, makes the Gramercy its base for 1999

    After losing the Criterion Center that March, the Roundabout planned to use the Gramercy as its main home for the rest of 1999. It slated Richard Greenberg's Hurrah at Last, directed by David Warren and starring Peter Frechette, for summer and the American premiere of Brian Friel's Give Me Your Answer, Do! for fall. Haimes told Playbill he did not think the company would stay past its two-year lease, because the Gramercy is a commercial space.

    Source: playbill.com

  6. 2002

    The Museum of Modern Art borrows the theater as a temporary cinema

    While its Midtown building was being remodeled, the Museum of Modern Art used the Gramercy as a temporary film house starting in 2002. From 2002 to 2004 the theater worked at once as a cinema and as an Off-Broadway playhouse. MoMA stopped showing films there in April 2004, the same year the last play, From My Hometown, closed after running from April 12 to July 12.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 2007

    March 7

    Live Nation reopens the venue as a concert hall

    Live Nation, which buys the theater in 2006 intending to run it as an intimate concert venue, hosts its first show here with a performance by Stellastarr. The venue is briefly renamed the Blender Theater at Gramercy under a magazine sponsorship before reverting to the Gramercy Theatre two years later.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2021

    March

    A marquee on the Gramercy reads "All Hail The Queen" for Aretha Franklin

    In March 2021, National Geographic and Live Nation put up marquee signs at 20 venues across the country to promote the series Genius: Aretha, due to premiere March 21. New York's Gramercy Theatre and Irving Plaza were among them, and some signs showed Cynthia Erivo in character as Franklin. They were to stay up for 10 days, and the marketing chief said the effort also honored venues that had a tough year.

    Source: nydailynews.com

Further reading

Nearby

All 40 buildings with stories in Gramercy