Harlem Stage Gatehouse
138 Convent Avenue | also 1501 Amsterdam Avenue | Manhattanville | built 1940
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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.
- 1890
The Croton Aqueduct's 135th Street gatehouse is completed
Frederick S. Cook designed this Romanesque Revival stone gatehouse, built from 1884 to 1890 as part of the Croton Aqueduct system. Its valves controlled water flowing from the underground aqueduct toward the Central Park Reservoir. The city designated it a landmark on March 23, 1981. It was decommissioned in 1984, its valve chambers were filled, and it stood empty for nearly two decades.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1981
The city designates the gatehouse a landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates architect Frederick S. Cook's Romanesque Revival aqueduct gatehouse a New York City landmark; it joins the National Register of Historic Places two years later. Below grade, the building had held valve chambers that once regulated water flowing through the Croton Aqueduct system into Manhattan.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1984
The gatehouse is decommissioned and sits empty for two decades
The city decommissions the aqueduct gatehouse and fills in its below-grade valve chambers, leaving the building vacant. It stands empty until 2004, when Ohlhausen DuBois Architects begin converting the shell into theater space for Harlem Stage, reusing a structure idled when the water system it served was retired.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
Harlem Stage turns the old water gatehouse into a 192-seat theater
Harlem Stage reopened the gatehouse as a performance space in 2006 after a $21 million conversion, with $18 million from the city and $3 million from private donors. Architect Rolf Ohlhausen fitted a 192-seat theater on three levels inside, restored the stained glass and cut new entrance doors through walls six feet thick.
Source: theclio.com
Further reading
- Croton Aqueduct Gate HouseWikipedia
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